The community waste sector and waste services in the UK: current state and future prospects

YesTheory predicts that the voluntary or community sector will contribute a range of services that are not delivered by the state or private sectors. This paper examines the changing contributions of the community waste sector in the UK to reflect upon these claims. A rosy picture of the community waste sector is presented from research on the sector in 2002, with a growing number of organisations carrying out a range of services, drawing on multiple and diverse sources of funding. More recent evidence, and information drawn from outside the sector, however, suggests that regulation, competition, and changes to funding regimes are putting the sector under considerable pressure, such that it is likely to change, and that some parts of it will contract. In terms of the claims from theory, the paper finds evidence that the community sector can and has been innovative in the services it provides and the way that it provides them, though similar innovations may emerge from the private and public sectors. The sparse evidence on participation and recycling rates in kerbside and civic amenity sites are equivocal on whether the sector provides enhanced communication as theory would predict. Overall, the paper highlights the difficulty in achieving direct comparisons between the waste sectors without specific focused research for this purpose. It concludes that the challenge for European, national and local government is to influence the necessarily constructed waste markets in a way which will enhance rather than discourage service providers to innovate in the waste material collected, and to communicate effectively with the public whom they serve. Such policies promise to encourage the effective delivery of sustainable waste services from all three - public, private and community - sectors

Valuing nature-conservation interests on agricultural floodplains

The ecosystem approach and evaluation of ecosystem services is gaining increasing attention from scientists, practitioners and policy makers. An important part of this process is to establish the `value' of the nature-conservation assets within an area. This value can then be compared with data for other ecosystem services to identify management priorities under different future scenarios. However, there is little consensus on how to perform such an evaluation. In this study, we assess seven methods of valuing nature-conservation interest and compare their utility. Five agricultural land drainage schemes across lowland England were selected for study. The current land-use was determined and four different scenarios of future management were developed. The land-use and habitats predicted under each scenario were assessed using seven methods of determining value, namely: Ecological Impact Assessment method, reserve-selection criteria, target-based criteria, stakeholder-choice analysis, reserve-selection criteria guided by stakeholders, agri-environment scheme payments and contingent valuation. The first three methods derive values based on pre-defined priorities, the next two use stated preferences of stakeholders, and the last two methods derive monetary values based on revealed and expressed preference, respectively. The results obtained from the different methods were compared. The methods gave broadly similar results and were highly correlated, but each method emphasized a different aspect of conservation value, leading to different possible outcomes in some cases. The advantages and disadvantages of each method were evaluated. Synthesis and applications. As the ecosystem services approach becomes embedded in decision-making, ecologists are increasingly called upon to value the biodiversity of a site or to compare the value of different sites. This study has shown that seven different valuation methods, although all giving significantly correlated findings, resulted in seven different rankings of nature-conservation value for the 25 situations studied. This difference occurred in spite of the sites being of the same landscape type and occurring within the same country. The discussion concludes that each method has its strengths; monetary valuations are appropriate in some contexts, stakeholder preferences are paramount in others, but where objectivity is key, then assessment against independently defined criteria or targets should be the preferred method

Enhanced broadband access as a solution to the social and economic problems of the rural digital divide

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The ecosystem approach as a framework for understanding knowledge utilisation

The Ecosystem Approach is used to analyse four case studies from England to determine what kind of ecosystem knowledge was used by people, and how it shaped their arguments. The results are reported across decisions making venues concerned with: innovation; conflict management; maintenance of ecosystem function; and, recognising the environment as an asset. In each area we identify the sources and uses of conceptual, instrumental, political and social knowledge. We found that the use of these knowledges can benefit the process as well as the quality of outcomes, and so ‘add value’ to the decision making process. However, the case studies did not exhibit any simple linear-rational model of knowledge use. Ecosystems thinking took many forms and depended on different institutional settings. As an argument making device, the Ecosystem Approach must be seen in the context of a wider set of social and political processes, which involves a range of complex strategies and motives that explain the apparent ‘messiness’ of environmental decision making. The paper demonstrates that as conceptual framework, the ‘ecosystem approach’ provides a valuable theoretical template to help us discover how and what knowledge is used in deliberative styles of decision making

Local Flood Risk Management Strategies in England: Patterns of Application

In England, the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 provides specific roles for Lead Local Flood Authorities in flood and coastal erosion risk management. Under Section 9 of the Act, authorities are responsible for preparing, applying and monitoring a local flood risk management strategy that balances community input into flood management with national policy objectives. Authorities are legally obliged to consider specified requirements in strategy production, including consultation with the public. Using an evaluative framework based on legal requirements and local government guidelines, this article assesses the extent to which these requirements have been met in a sample of 43 strategies. Our findings suggest that strategies generally meet minimal legal requirements, although variance exists in approaches adopted, particularly in respect of consultation and links to other environmental management aspects. Recommendations for enhancing future practice are provided

How much flower-rich habitat is enough for wild pollinators? Answering a key policy question with incomplete knowledge.

In 2013, an opportunity arose in England to develop an agri-environment package for wild pollinators, as part of the new Countryside Stewardship scheme launched in 2015. It can be understood as a 'policy window', a rare and time-limited opportunity to change policy, supported by a narrative about pollinator decline and widely supported mitigating actions. An agri-environment package is a bundle of management options that together supply sufficient resources to support a target group of species. This paper documents information that was available at the time to develop such a package for wild pollinators. Four questions needed answering: (1) Which pollinator species should be targeted? (2) Which resources limit these species in farmland? (3) Which management options provide these resources? (4) What area of each option is needed to support populations of the target species? Focussing on wild bees, we provide tentative answers that were used to inform development of the package. There is strong evidence that floral resources can limit wild bee populations, and several sources of evidence identify a set of agri-environment options that provide flowers and other resources for pollinators. The final question could only be answered for floral resources, with a wide range of uncertainty. We show that the areas of some floral resource options in the basic Wild Pollinator and Farmland Wildlife Package (2% flower-rich habitat and 1 km flowering hedgerow), are sufficient to supply a set of six common pollinator species with enough pollen to feed their larvae at lowest estimates, using minimum values for estimated parameters where a range was available. We identify key sources of uncertainty, and stress the importance of keeping the Package flexible, so it can be revised as new evidence emerges about how to achieve the policy aim of supporting pollinators on farmland.LVD was funded by NERC (NE/K015419/1), CC by Defra and Natural England (flower density data); MB and CC by BBSRC Defra, NERC, the Scottish Government and the Wellcome Trust under the Insect Pollinators Initiative (BB/I000925/1 and Agriland - BB/H014934/1).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Wiley via http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/een.1222

Exploring Entrepreneurial Skills and Competencies in Farm Tourism

Diversification to farm tourism is increasingly seen as a viable development strategy to promote a more diverse and sustainable rural economy and to counter declining farm incomes. However, our understanding of the dynamics of the modern farm tourism business and the entrepreneurial and competitive skills farmers require in making the transition from agriculture to a diversified - and service based - enterprise remains limited. Hence, the aim of this paper is to explore the range of skills and competencies that farmers in the North West of England identify as important when adopting a diversification strategy to farm tourism. With the findings indicating that that whilst a range of managerial skills are valued by farmers, they lack many of the additional business and entrepreneurial competencies required for success. Moreover, this paper acknowledges the need to generate consensus on the requisite skill-set that farm tourism operators require, along with a need for a currently fragmented rural tourism literature to acknowledge the significance of rural entrepreneurship and the characteristics of successful farmers and farm tourism ventures

Designing an institutional network for improving farm animal welfare in the EU

Improvements in the welfare of farmed animals in the EU have been achieved by legislation, increased welfare capacity in the food chain, greater public awareness, welfare measurement tools and dissemination of best practice. However, pressure for improvement grows. The EC recognises that delivering improved welfare would best be achieved by increasing welfare capacity, including establishing a Network of Welfare Reference Centres to provide support for welfare research, knowledge transfer and policy design. Designing a structure for this Network presents a challenge, as it would have multiple functions, interact with diverse stakeholders and operate in a complex environment. Here, we describe the use of a novel strategic planning approach to design an optimal structure for this Network. Our evaluation found that no existing structure was ideal, but that by taking functional units from several existing models, an optimal model could be identified