Accountability and legitimacy in transboundary networked forest governance: a case study of the Roundtable on the Crown of the Continent

2015 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.Using a social constructivist ontology to examine key debates and areas of inquiry vis-à-vis the democratic nature of transboundary forest governance, this research examines the case of the Roundtable on the Crown of the Continent, an instance of networked governance. Part I builds up to an examination of the movement toward conceptualizing transboundary networked governance, exploring the claim that government has given way to governance, blurring the lines between public and private, and moving beyond its antecedent models--systems theory and complexity, corporatism, state-in-society, new public management and privatization, inter alia--to reflect a more complicated and inherently collaborative relationship between state, society, and market-based actors. The dissertation project, then, investigates several key questions. At a basic level, it asks, what does networked governance look like, and in the case of the Crown Roundtable, how might these arrangements be adaptive given the absence of an overarching forests treaty? Looking deeper into the implications of networked governance, the project then moves to an investigation of the ways that these processes become legitimate modes of governing and how they allow actors to hold each other accountable. Evidence in the Crown Roundtable suggests that the state is simply one actor among many. In this sea of various players, without the traditional forms of accountability, how do we ensure that governance retains its democratic qualities? The second part (chapters 4, 5, 6, 7) builds from the initial observations in the first part (chapters 1, 2, and 3) that state boundaries in the Crown of the Continent are transected by landscape identities and norms. It examines the implications for maintaining democracy in governance. Given the lack of institutions (such as the juridical, legal, and electoral channels) available at the domestic level, how can actors be held accountable? What do shifts toward a flattened and fragmented forest governance landscape represent in terms of both the ability of diverse actors to relate to one another and also for the participants to see NG as a worthwhile process to engage? In answering these questions, Part II examines whether NG architectures are able to incorporate channels for accountability while simultaneously drawing upon a broad base of participation and maintaining social legitimacy. Finally, the dissertation concludes with thoughts on institutional design. In so doing, it hopefully contributes to an understanding of how to build collaborative networked arrangements that are better able to address transboundary environmental problems

Drought‑Stricken U.S. States Have More Comprehensive Water‑Related Hazard Planning

Despite the devastating impacts of droughts, the United States lacks a national drought plan. This leaves states to address droughts in water, hazard, and stand-alone plans which are designed to reduce drought vulnerability and to prepare government, industry, and society to cope with the impacts. Yet, there is limited empirical research that evaluates the comprehensiveness of these plans, specifically in terms of whether they include preparedness and mitigation measures or triggers for action and response. To fill this gap, this study’s first aim was to establish an evaluation framework based on principles from the drought mitigation literature. The study then evaluated 171 state-level plans with the framework, and simultaneously collected interview data to contextualize the results. In a final step, the scores were employed in a statistical analysis of whether states with higher physical exposure to drought have more comprehensive planning. The study finds states that have experienced more frequent and severe drought plan more comprehensively, suggesting that the occurrence of drought may be an intrinsic driver for planning. The study concludes that planning and preparing for droughts is a necessary but complex undertaking requiring interdisciplinary, interagency efforts that the U.S.’ decentralized, federalist political system is suited to address. If generalization is warranted, the results suggest that the physical occurrence of drought can act as a policy catalyst

Polycentric governance in Nebraska, U.S., for ground and surface water

This chapter describes the locally driven, but centrally coordinated, water governance model in Nebraska, U.S. It offers a snapshot of water resources and the importance of agriculture, then moves to the relevant political institutions in the state, and federal controls related to water quantity. The focus of the chapter is on the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources’ (NeDNR) and Natural Resources Districts’ (NRDs) management of surface and groundwater, which has some distinct and some overlapping authority. The main area of overlap is in addressing the connection between ground and surface water, particularly in situations when either or both are over appropriated. Integrated management planning is a key tool for basins in crisis, where allocations are fully or over appropriated and there is increased demand or diminished supply. The chapter explains what integrated management planning entails and gives a closer look into instances where it has been implemented. The polycentric model allows for collaborative governance, pushing stakeholders (particularly the agricultural sector) to innovate based on changes in water availability. NRDs can (and do) exercise controls; they do so by using their authority to make institutional changes and sanction violators for over-abstraction. This authority is granted and legitimized by publicly elected boards, an ongoing leadership training network, and a history of locally driven rule-making. However, there are also shortcomings to the model: in particular, it is difficult to address cross-border issues or legal conflicts. Furthermore, there is scant research on its effectiveness in actually preventing groundwater decline. The Nebraska model and its local examples may offer lessons for other basins where water resources have historically been relatively plentiful but are now facing drought stresses and the growing demands of intensive irrigated agricultural production

Ecological Drought: Accounting for the Non-Human Impacts of Water Shortage in the Upper Missouri Headwaters Basin, Montana, USA

Water laws and drought plans are used to prioritize and allocate scarce water resources. Both have historically been human-centric, failing to account for non-human water needs. In this paper, we examine the development of instream flow legislation and the evolution of drought planning to highlight the growing concern for the non-human impacts of water scarcity. Utilizing a new framework for ecological drought, we analyzed five watershed-scale drought plans in southwestern Montana, USA to understand if, and how, the ecological impacts of drought are currently being assessed. We found that while these plans do account for some ecological impacts, it is primarily through the narrow lens of impacts to fish as measured by water temperature and streamflow. The latter is typically based on the same ecological principles used to determine instream flow requirements. We also found that other resource plans in the same watersheds (e.g., Watershed Restoration Plans, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Watershed Assessments or United States Forest Service (USFS) Forest Plans) identify a broader range of ecological drought risks. Given limited resources and the potential for mutual benefits and synergies, we suggest greater integration between various planning processes could result in a more holistic consideration of water needs and uses across the landscape

The patchwork governance of ecologically available water: A case study in the Upper Missouri Headwaters, Montana, United States

Institutional authority and responsibility for allocating water to ecosystems (“ecologically available water” [EAW]) is spread across local, state, and federal agencies, which operate under a range of statutes, mandates, and planning processes. We use a case study of the Upper Missouri Headwaters Basin in southwestern Montana, United States, to illustrate this fragmented institutional landscape. Our goals are to (a) describe the patchwork of agencies and institutional actors whose intersecting authorities and actions influence the EAW in the study basin; (b) describe the range of governance mechanisms these agencies use, including laws, policies, administrative programs, and planning processes; and (c) assess the extent to which the collective governance regime creates gaps in responsibility. We find the water governance regime includes a range of nested mechanisms that in various ways facilitate or hinder the governance of EAW. We conclude the current multilevel governance regime leaves certain aspects of EAW unaddressed and does not adequately account for the interconnections between water in different parts of the ecosystem, creating integrative gaps. We suggest that more intentional and robust coordination could provide a means to address these gaps

Classification of current anticancer immunotherapies

During the past decades, anticancer immunotherapy has evolved from a promising therapeutic option to a robust clinical reality. Many immunotherapeutic regimens are now approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency for use in cancer patients, and many others are being investigated as standalone therapeutic interventions or combined with conventional treatments in clinical studies. Immunotherapies may be subdivided into “passive” and “active” based on their ability to engage the host immune system against cancer. Since the anticancer activity of most passive immunotherapeutics (including tumor-targeting monoclonal antibodies) also relies on the host immune system, this classification does not properly reflect the complexity of the drug-host-tumor interaction. Alternatively, anticancer immunotherapeutics can be classified according to their antigen specificity. While some immunotherapies specifically target one (or a few) defined tumor-associated antigen(s), others operate in a relatively non-specific manner and boost natural or therapy-elicited anticancer immune responses of unknown and often broad specificity. Here, we propose a critical, integrated classification of anticancer immunotherapies and discuss the clinical relevance of these approaches

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival