Environmental justice: instrumental for conserving natural resources

4 p.Environmental justice constitutes an instrumental element for conservation. - Environmental justice is based on the principles of equity, recognition of different values and inclusive decision processes. - Social equity is the catalyst of ecological effectiveness. - Conservation measures that ignore the Social context imply higher cost and stand the risk of failure in the long term

Tools and terms for understanding illegal wildlife trade

Illegal wildlife trade (IWT) is a global conservation issue that threatens thousands of species, including fish, fungi, medicinal plants, and charismatic mammals. Despite widespread recognition of the problem, debates on the science and policy of IWT generally concentrate on a few high- profile species (eg rhinoceros, tigers, elephants) and often overlook or conflate complex IWT products, actors, networks, and contexts. A poor understanding of IWT is aggravated by the lack of systematic vocabulary and conceptual tools with which to analyze complex phenomena in a more structured way. We synthesize the available evidence on IWT across taxa and contexts into a typology- based framework that considers (1) the diversity of wildlife products; (2) the roles of various actors involved with IWT, including harvesters, intermediaries, and consumers; and (3) common IWT network configurations. We propose ways in which these tools can inform structured analyses of IWT, to help ensure more nuanced, appropriate, targeted, and effective responses to illegal wildlife harvest, trade, and use

Social Equity Matters in Payments for Ecosystem Services

Although conservation efforts have sometimes succeeded in meeting environmental goals at the expense of equity considerations, the changing context of conservation and a growing body of evidence increasingly suggest that equity considerations should be integrated into conservation planning and implementation. However, this approach is often perceived to be at odds with the prevailing focus on economic efficiency that characterizes many payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes. Drawing from examples across the literature, we show how the equity impacts of PES can create positive and negative feedbacks that influence ecological outcomes. We caution against equity-blind PES, which overlooks these relationships as a result of a primary and narrow focus on economic efficiency. We call for further analysis and better engagement between the social and ecological science communities to understand the relationships and trade-offs among efficiency, equity, and ecological outcomes

UNCOVERING THE TRADE OF WILD-COLLECTED ORNAMANTAL PLANTS IN THAILAND, INCLUDING IMPORTS FROM MYAN MAR AND LAO PDR

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Prospectus, December 4, 1996

https://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_1996/1032/thumbnail.jp

Conservation enforcement:Insights from people incarcerated for wildlife crimes in Nepal

There are long-standing debates about the effectiveness and social impacts of enforcement-based conservation, particularly as investments into enforcement increase in response to growing alarm about Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT). However, there is little data on the people subject to this enforcement, including prison sentences, species targeted, what motivates and deters them, and the social impacts of enforcement. This study identified 384 individuals across Nepal who were in prison for IWT offences in late 2016, and involved interviews (n=116) focused on respondents’ trade practices, economic circumstances and motivations. IWT prisoners represented 10-20% of the total prison populations in two regions and often received stiff sanctions, with a range of downstream impacts on respondents’ families. Most respondents were arrested for their involvement in the rhinoceros trade (61%). Most were poor (56%) and from indigenous communities (75%), highlighting potentially inequitable impacts of enforcement. Despite common assumptions about the links between IWT, poverty and organised crime, most respondents were motivated by the desire to earn extra income and by the ease of IWT compared to other employment. IWT was neither a primary livelihood strategy, nor had the attributes for formal organised crime. Respondents, particularly poor respondents, seemed to underestimate the risks of detection and incompletely understood the scale of sanctions. Improved public awareness about the scale and social impacts of sanctions could help increase deterrence effects while reducing unintended social harms of enforcement

Institutionalizing environmental valuation into policy:lessons from 7 Indonesian agencies

Monetary valuation of the environment is increasingly embedded in policy. Despite broad claims that valuation is policy-relevant, there is widespread frustration that it has not widely improved environmental outcomes, that it obscures many other types of values, and presents unintended consequences. We argue that this is, in part, because of a tendency to overlook the mechanics of how valuation tools and data are embedded into the institutions (regulations, norms, rules, schemes) that mediate decision-making. Discussions of how valuation engages with policy are often anecdotal and rarely systematic. This manuscript responds with a structured analysis of valuation within 7 Indonesian government institutions. By analyzing the legislative provisions that deal with valuation within each agency, we explore the challenges of institutionalizing valuation into policy. We consider the difficulties of: defining what is (and isn't) valuable, specifying methods, and identifying policy objectives. We found broad gaps and inconsistencies in the aims, definitions, methods, and treatment of non-market goods and services. We identify a need for broadened thinking about the role of valuation data within everyday environmental governance, including how it is codified and operationalized. To this end, we provide a framework of the “cascade” relationship between environmental management, ecosystem goods and services, human wellbeing, and their relationship to environmental governance, which uncovers the mechanics of how valuation can inform decision-making via different institutional arrangements. We call for a critical, yet also more pragmatic and field-based interrogation, of how and why valuation is conducted by decision-makers, in order to improve our understanding of its social and environmental implications

Prospectus, December 11, 1996

https://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_1996/1033/thumbnail.jp

Formalizing artisanal and small-scale gold mining : A grand challenge of the Minamata Convention

Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is the world's largest source of anthropogenic mercury emissions and releases. These have devastating consequences for miners' health and the environment. Most of the >20 million ASGM miners worldwide are not officially recognized, registered, regulated, or protected by state laws. Formalization-the process of organizing, registering, and reforming ASGM-is mandated by the Minamata Convention on Mercury. Previous attempts to reduce mercury emissions from ASGM have largely failed. Our perspective argues that signatories to the Convention will only succeed in reducing ASGM mercury emissions and releases with comprehensive bottom-up formalization approaches centered around working with miners, and significant external funding from consumers, large mining corporations, and governments. The approximate global 5-year cost of this approach could be US$355 million (upper and lower estimate bounds: US$213-742 million) if scaled per country, or US$808 million (US$248 million-US$2.17 billion) if scaled per miner.Peer reviewe