Something in the Air: Civic science and contentious environmental politics in post-apartheid South Africa

The emergence of an environmental movement in post-apartheid South Africa has involved the reframing of the environment as a ‘brown’ issue, articulating the discourse of social and environmental justice and a rights-based notion of democracy. Environmental movements have pursued a dual strategy of deliberation and activist opposition. Environmental movements have deployed science to pursue the strategic task of democratic opposition and have established networks of environmental knowledge and expertise. Ecological modernization is the dominant approach to environmental governance and adopts a science-based policy approach. In this context the regulation and management of the environment is premised on the need for science, which provides the authoritative basis for a regulatory response. In local environmental movements, there exists a fundamental tension between a cumulative history of lay knowledge about pollution and the lack of official acknowledgement of qualitative narratives. This is accompanied by a lack and suspicion of reliable official data. Environmental movements have thus employed ‘civic science’ strategically to place the issue of air pollution on the political agenda. This paper uses the case of environmental politics in Durban to reflect on the ways in which civic science and lay knowledge, together constituting community hybrid knowledge, are produced and disseminated in order to pressure the state and capital. The three ways in which knowledge is deployed are: to frame environmental problems, in strategies of oppositional advocacy, and in deliberative policy forums. Empirical analysis shows that civic science is produced through knowledge networks, and both lay knowledge and civic science are opportunistically used by environmental movements to engage both inside and outside formal policy making arenas. This deployment of hybrid knowledge by environmental movements represents a broader challenge to the power of science and technology based on increasing evidence of the hazards and risks facing ordinary people in their daily lives.     

Sustainability schizophrenia or “actually existing sustainabilities?” toward a broader understanding of the politics and promise of local sustainability in the US

As an approach to development, many see capitalism as reaching across an enormous range of scholarly domains and political interests. For some time geographers and others have begun to conceptualize capitalism as less of a system of intrinsic economic logic and more a collection of social and discursive relationships. By bringing capitalism into the “discursive world” these commentators and others have provided the theoretical ground for an exploration of alternative economic forms, especially those that are more socially and ecologically just. This paper makes an argument for putting sustainable development through the same theoretical scrutiny. Drawing on examples from the US we recruit the concept of “actually existing sustainabilities” from Altvater’s concept “actually existing socialisms” as an entry point to this conversation. Our purpose is to show that the potential for sustainability in the US exists in current local policies and practices if we rethink how we frame it.     

Agricultural multifunctionality, environmental sustainability and the WTO: Resistance or accommodation to the neoliberal project for agriculture?

The liberalisation of agricultural markets is one of the most contested issues in international politics. Debates surrounding it counter-pose the moral imperative to dismantle protectionist agricultural subsidies in order to combat rural poverty in the South with fears for the livelihoods of marginal farmers and the environmental integrity of the countryside in the developed North. A largely European concern with defending the ‘multifunctionality’ of agriculture is dismissed by critics as a protectionist excuse for continued farm support. In this paper we seek to assess how far support for multifunctionality can be construed as a form of resistance to the neoliberal project for agriculture. The paper begins with an analysis of the European negotiating stance in the Doha round and the subsequent evolution of debates surrounding multifunctionality in an international setting. Having identified the European Union as one of the key sites of articulation concerning the implications of trade liberalisation for a multifunctional agriculture, the paper goes on to argue that multifunctionality within the framework of European rural policy emerges as a much more elusive and susceptible concept, informed by radically different interpretations of the vulnerability of family farmers to greater market exposure and the extent to which agricultural restructuring should be regarded as an issue of wider public concern. This maps onto a technically complex debate about how best to procure environmental public goods in a period of rapid agricultural change. The paper concludes that with these differences still very much in play, questions concerning the compatibility of multifunctionality with market liberalisation remain deeply unresolved at an important moment in the internationalisation of rural policy governance.     

Hindu nationalism, neo-traditionalism and environmental discourses in India

One of the defining changes India has experienced over the last decade has been the social and political consolidation of the Hindu Right. Critics point to its chauvinist ideologies, the discrimination and violence against religious minorities, and the neglect of the poor. This paper examines the parallels between the discourses of the Hindu Right and those of neo-traditionalist environmentalists. Similarities include gendered and social conservatism; superficial hermeneutic analyses of ancient texts; partial and ‘romantic’ histories; and the essentialisation of science and of East and West. The paper concludes by suggesting that environmental scholars and activists cannot afford to be innocent of the implications of their ideas and assumptions given the social and political contexts of Hindu nationalism in contemporary India.     

Shifting frames for local people and forests in a global heritage: the Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary in the context of Thailand’s globalization and modernization

Focusing on the case of the World Heritage Site and Wildlife Sanctuary Thung Yai Naresuan, the paper sketches the interdependences of international and national forest and conservation policies in Thailand since the middle of the 19th century. In the context of Thailand’s globalization and modernization, these policies resulted in a coercing conservationism which focuses increasingly on the so-called ‘hill tribe’ ethnic minority groups. The shifting cultural and political framings of the area that became a national wildlife sanctuary and a ‘global heritage’ reflect external economic, political, and ideological interests. The people of the Karen ethnic minority group who live in the sanctuary are conceived of as a disruptive factor and never have had a chance to participate in these framings. After the designation of the area as a World Heritage Site, the remaining villages face increasing pressure from the Royal Forest Department which is trying to remove them with the help of the Military. Drawing on the different vested interests and the relativity of cultural conceptualizations, the paper questions the external framing, pointing to three major problems that are raised with regard to Thung Yai, but are symptomatic of modern conservationism at large: inconsistencies between normative claims and political practice; distortions of scale between conceptions designed at different levels of social space from the local to the global, and; the problem to reconcile conflicting cultural patterns and conceptualizations. The paper argues for a reframing of the conflict to conceive the Karen in Thung Yai as an integral part of the ‘global heritage’.     

Introducing the concept of tactile space: Creating lasting social and environmental commitments

This paper introduces into the literature the concept of tactile space. In tactile space, forms of representational and non-representational knowledge are exchanged, resulting in the decentering of the subject/objective dichotomy as well as the senses. In doing this, tactile space helps to instill within individuals a greater sense of relationality with others and the environment, which leads to long lasting attitudinal and behavioral changes (versus the superficial changes provided by, say, financial dis/incentives). To help clarify the concept, two different cases are examined. The first example looks briefly at the Sunnyside Environmental School, located in Portland, Oregon (US). The purpose of this first case is to provide some real world flesh to the concept of tactile space. A more detailed conceptual discussion of tactile space takes place in the following section. Here, attention focuses on an in depth study of two cases of community supported agriculture in Iowa (US). The paper concludes by reflecting upon the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead as we further develop our understanding of tactile space and the relations, sensations, and non-representational knowledges it helps to bring forth.     

北京延庆葡萄产地高氟地质环境特征研究

北京延庆葡萄产地北侧山区出露大面积花岗岩。岩浆活动频繁,构造发育,特殊地质条件造成土壤存在明显的高氟异常,全氟、水溶氟含量高,部分地下水氟化物含量超过相关标准,是导致当地居民因饮用地下水而患有氟中毒地方病的主要原因。尽管农作物含氟符合相关标准,但高氟地质环境对农作物的含氟量仍具有富集趋势。     

Rethinking the nature of urban environmental politics: Security, subjectivity, and the non-human

The growing field of urban political ecology (UPE) has greatly advanced understandings of the socio-ecological transformations through which urban economies and environments are produced. However, this field has thus far failed to fully consider subjective (and subject-forming) dimensions of urban environmental struggle. I argue that this can be overcome through bringing urban political ecology into conversation with both post-structural political ecology and critical geopolitics. Bridging these literatures focuses attention on practices of socio-ecological exclusion and attachment through which environmental subjectivities are formed. This argument is drawn out through a case study of the politics of local economic development and conservation within the watershed of the Big Darby Creek near Columbus, Ohio. This struggle was driven by a preservationist movement that coalesced around a shared understanding of socio-ecological hybridity as a source of metaphysical insecurity. Hybridity appears here as a site of political and ethical struggle over social and ecological exclusions produced in the pursuit of security. This case study demonstrates a paradox of environmental politics: the non-human is at once a site of constituent possibilities for identity and subjectivity as well as forces which seek to foreclose this radical openness. Recognizing the paradoxical nature of environmental struggle allows for a more complex and nuanced account of the multifarious forces that shape the formation of environmental subjectivities.     

Substitution and scalar politics: negotiating environmental compensation in Cardiff Bay

One of the most contested dimensions of sustainable development is the issue of substitutability--the extent to which environmental qualities can be substituted, either for human-made assets, or for some equivalent environmental function. The main argument of this paper is that dominant economic discourses of sustainability neglect long-standing geographical concerns with scale, embeddedness and abstraction that are inevitably embroiled in the practical negotiation of substitutability. In particular, it seeks to demonstrate how relations of ecological and political scale frame the ‘decision space’ within which debates about substitution take place. These arguments are developed by analysing conflicts over the development of an amenity barrage across the Taff-Ely estuary in Cardiff, South Wales, and the provision of new wetlands to compensate for the resulting loss of wildlife habitat. This case shows that the scale at which environmental ‘assets’ are constructed--whether local, national or global--can reveal or obscure distributive effects incurred in maintaining environmental capital through compensatory measures. It also demonstrates how the re-scaling of governance arrangements (in this case to the European Commission) can empower the delivery of environmental management measures but simultaneously re-structures the objects of sustainability, rendering habitats and wildlife populations as disembedded symbols.     

A historical review on the roles of science and politics in addressing global environmental issues

Based on a historical review of the so-called Ozone crisis in the late 1970s and global climate changes since the 1980s, this paper examines the role of sciences and policies in the international community in dealing with the global environmental issues. Lessons show that a multi-discipline, multi-organizational and multi-national UN agency which remains relevant, assisting rather than guiding the process of climate negotiations is important.     

Environmental diplomacy in South Asia: Considering the environmental security,conflict and development nexus

Environmental security concerns have broadened the national security agenda and discourse of international relations. Yet environmental insecurity issues have endured impacts on livelihood, human security, social equity, human rights, internal security, political stability, economic growth and development of the state. Environmental challenges, such as climate change, water scarcity and energy security are shaping development and consumption patterns, which are possible causes of inter-state conflict in South Asia. This paper is an attempt to evaluate the nexus of climate change, energy and water security with conflict and development. Furthermore, we argue for the need for environmental diplomacy in Pakistan within the South Asian context. The argument is that integration of development with environmental factors and peacemaking has potential to achieve sustainable development in South Asia.     

Nanotechnology,global development in the frame of environmental risk forecasting. A necessity of interdisciplinary researches

Interdisciplinarity is of first importance to evaluate the risks associated with nanotechnology. The reasons are that nanomaterials are very new materials that combine nano-sizes and new reactivities. The complexity comes from the very low concentrations of nanomaterials in the environmental medium, the transformations of the nanomaterials due to the reactivity of the surface, the transfer in the environmental media, particularly in the presence of liquid water (soils, sediments, surface water), which implies an association with natural colloids (organic or minerals) and blockage in some compartments. These properties govern the hazard that strongly depends on exposure and speciation.     

Issues of environmental impacts of karst in standards on construction in Russia

There are three important ecological aspects to be considered regarding economic development in covered karst terrain: (1) natural karst processes, and karst-suffosion processes in particular, are very responsive to technogenic effects, (2) possibility of intensive and deep pollution of the geological environment and (3) risk of ecological disasters caused by karst collapses on the sites of ecologically dangerous industrial and transport objects. In view of these aspects, a number of Russian standards and normative documents on construction are analysed. Some methodological approaches to practical application of the guidelines stated in the documents are offered.     

Landslides in Sado Island of Japan: Part I. Case studies, monitoring techniques and environmental considerations

A sufficient knowledge on the kinematics and development of landslides helps to adopt proper measures that can be used to protect slopes and the environment in general. This can be achieved by adequate monitoring programs. This paper presents the findings of intensive monitoring activities carried out on Shiidomari and Katanoo landslides found in Sado Island of Japan. More than one year of observation of the two landslides allowed defining some peculiar futures of their kinematics and style of development. The problem of slope instability in the two areas is generally accredited to various factors. But, both landslides were triggered by heavy rainfalls and snowmelt. Because of the outline of the area and the presence of relict topographic features, the Shiidomari landslide is considered to be a large-scale reactivation of old slope failures. The Katanoo landslide is, however, a first-time case. Geophysical investigations and drilling activities in Shiidomari indicated the presence of two slip planes. The deepest (80–100 m) of these is controlled by existing lineaments. Monitoring data suggests that the body of the landslide has subsided as much as 1.16 m just below the main scarp, but a centimeter in the central region. The toe sector also experienced a significant amount of subsidence, but this was counter-balanced by an uplift on the opposite side of the landslide. Hence, the landslide seems not any more active along the deepest slip surface, although it may extend upward and define a series of shallow shear planes around the crown. In the case of Katanoo, the landform characteristics, differential weathering, the road cut and groundwater fluctuations appeared to contribute much to determine the exact location of the landslide. Extensional cracks that preceded the landslide can be related to heavy rainfalls and the cold and warm cycles thereafter. Subsurface investigations and monitoring works indicated that the landslide has two slide blocks with different slip planes. During the observation period, the upper part of the landslide responded more effectively to rainfall and snowmelt than the middle and lower sections. The corresponding movements, however, appeared to settle about three months after failure. There were also little strain transmissions in boreholes and no significant change in the characteristics of the landslide. The kinematics of deformation of many of the slopes in Sado Island resembles that of Shiidomari landslide. But mass movements along highways and mountain roads are usually similar to Katanoo. Landslides of the type like Shiidomari may not show sudden and drastic failures, but are usually long lasting and can reactivate repeatedly along new, shallow shear planes. Monitoring works and long-term supervisions in these types of landslides are useful to identify impending failures and take the right measures before they brought about large-scale destruction to the environment.     

Abandoned bodies and spaces of sacrifice: Pesticide drift activism and the contestation of neoliberal environmental politics in California

Recent research suggests that many key strands of California’s agrofood activism appear to accommodate, rather than confront, the neoliberalization of environmental governance, and that such accommodations might problematically constrain the transformative potential of activists’ work. In this paper, I examine the case of pesticide drift activism in California, which, as an exception to this trend, provides a provocative and useful case study for interrogating the influence of neoliberalization on social/environmental activism. I argue that California’s pesticide drift activism can be understood as a reaction to the spaces of sacrifice created and exacerbated by the failure of unionization-based pesticide reform efforts, a promising but compromised regulatory apparatus, longstanding farmworker powerlessness, neoliberal regulatory rollback, and neoliberalized pesticide politics – a mosaic of factors that have worked together to produce a regulatory structure that has always been better at registering pesticides than at reducing pollution. I show that pesticide drift activists’ reliance on confrontational practice, collective action, and strategic alliances have been crucial to the movement’s success with bringing visibility to this issue and with gaining traction in the political arena. Thus, at the same time that neoliberalization can exacerbate physical spaces of sacrifice, this case study illustrates that it can also, unexpectedly perhaps, generate new, non-neoliberal political spaces for social change.     

Assessment of morphometric parameters of Greek Rhone-type deltas. Hydrogeologic and environmental aspects

 The morphometric characteristics and some features concerning the local conditions of three Rhone-type Greek deltas are considered, summarized and correlated. They both express the deltaic internal lithologic structure and the configuration of the coast lines and subaqueous profiles. Despite the existing differences, concerning the lithologic structure, the coastline shape and the subaqueous profile, the Rhone type deltas maintain their principal characters and their basic configuration of the deltaic prominence. The above-mentioned differences are mainly due to local conditions which, as epigenetic factors, affect the distribution of transported material and complete the classification and deposit action of marine mechanisms, mainly the wave action and sea currents. The totality of these factors determined the continental and subaqueous structure of the deltas, which is related to the environmental and hydrogeological aspects presented in this paper. Received: 19 May 1998 · Accepted: 15 September 1998     

Contesting expertise: The politics of environmental knowledge in northern Indian groundwater practices

The world is facing a severe water crisis. According to the UN, by 2025 50% of the world’s population will face water scarcity. In India, where 70% of irrigation and 80% of domestic needs are met with groundwater, demand for this resource is expected to exceed supply by 2020. This has led to recent calls for groundwater governance reforms within India, and specifically within the state of Rajasthan, where no regulation exists today. The success of these reforms hinges on the interaction of the state and its agents with local users and managers of groundwater resources. Underpinning these encounters, though, are tensions between local and state forms of groundwater knowledges. The question analyzed here is in what ways do conflicting environmental knowledges adversely affect the management of overexploited groundwater resources in water-scarce India? To address this question, I examine the coevolution of pre-colonial, colonial, and post-independence groundwater and irrigation knowledges and technologies in Rajasthan, India to expose the ways that they are produced, contested, legitimated, and hybridized. The paper argues the following three claims. First, the relationship between the state and local producers of groundwater knowledge practices is non-linear and porous. For instance, the way that state subjects experience the state is uneven because within and in-between historical moments the state may attempt to assimilate, reorganize, plagiarize, or disparage local knowledge. Second, these attempts produce or exacerbate existing historically rooted tensions between farmers and state groundwater engineers. But in response, farmers often seek out non-state avenues of expertise, such as tubewell drilling firms. This results in the further hybridization of knowledge practices and also in the present-day marginalization of the state. Third, the relationship between farmers and the state is further strained because of a current lack of state visibility in the study area and also because the state continues to “see like a state”. These shifting meanings and power relations around groundwater and irrigation knowledges produce tensions that will undoubtedly negatively impact future groundwater governance strategies.     

长江水氢、氧同位素组成的时空变化及其环境意义

在2003～2007年间,在长江干流的25个水文站及主要支流的13个水文站系统采样,进行了氢氧同位素研究。观测到的D变化范围为-30‰～-112‰,变化范围为-3.8‰～-15.4‰。从长江源头到河口,不同时期的样品均显示相同的氢氧同位素沿程变化特征。从源头到攀枝花,长江干流的D与逐步下降;而由攀枝花到入海口,D与值逐渐升高。 研究发现,控制长江水的氢氧同位素组成的主要因素是大气降水。长江干流D与值所展现的从攀枝花至河口逐渐升高的趋势就是对流域大气降水的D与变化趋势的响应。长江各支流在氢氧同位素组成上的差别及其对干流的影响也反映大气降水对长江水的制约。 蒸发作用对长江水的氢氧同位素组成也有重要影响。长江源头地处青藏高原,高原湖泊和沼泽星罗棋布。由于气候干燥、日照强烈,湖沼水经过长期的蒸发,盐度逐渐加大,D和18O值也逐渐升高。这些湖水的加入对长江水的氢氧同位素组成也造成一定影响。蒸发作用在枯水期也使洞庭湖与鄱阳湖的D和18O值升高,进而提高长江相关河段的D和18O值。 冰雪融化是影响长江水的氢氧同位素组成的另一重要因素。在长江源头和所有左岸支流的源头,冰川融雪都是重要的水源之一。由于冰川水在氢氧同位素组成上的特殊性,其对河水贡献的大小将影响河水的氢氧同位素组成。 三峡大坝对于长江的水动力体系影响巨大,三峡水库对长江水资源的调控作用有待长期观测研究。从本次的研究资料来看,三峡大坝在丰水期对相应河段的氢氧同位素变化趋势影响不大。但在枯水季节,三峡水库蓄水使下游的宜昌和沙市的水源发生明显变化,导致D和18O值的显著降低。 长江水资源状况及其演变趋势是受到各方面高度关注的重要研究课题。为深入探讨这一问题,需要了解长江水资源的变化与各种气象与水文要素之间的关系,查明大气降水、地下水、冰川水、湖水与河水之间的交互作用。而氢氧同位素示踪技术在这方面可以发挥关键性的作用。由于现有资料有限,目前还无法利用氢氧同位素组成来追溯其气候条件的详细演化过程。但若能在进行系统水文测量的同时,适当开展氢氧同位素测定,将对研究长江水资源状况及其演变趋势大有脾益。     

The Holocene environmental changes revealed from the sediments of the Yarkov sub-basin of Lake Chany,south-western Siberia

Lake Chany is the largest endorheic lake in Siberia whose catchment is entirely on the territory of Russia. Its geographical location on the climate-sensitive boundary of wet and dry landscapes provides an opportunity to gain more knowledge about environmental changes in the West Siberian interior during the Holocene and about the evolution of the lake itself. Sediment cores obtained from the Yarkov sub-basin of the lake in 2008 have been comprehensively studied by a number of approaches including sedimentology and AMS dating, pollen, diatom and chironomid analyses (with statistical interpretation of the results), mineralogy of authigenic minerals and geochemistry of plant lipids (biomarker analysis.). Synthesis of new results presented here and published data provides a good justification for our hypothesis that Lake Chany is very young, no older than 3.6 ka BP. Before that, between 9 and 3.6 ka BP, the Chany basin was a swampy landscape with a very low sedimentation rate; it could not be identified as a water body. In the early lake phase, between 3.6 and 1.5 ka BP, the lake was shallow, 1.2–3.5 m in depth, and it rose to its modern size, up to 6.5 m in depth, during the last millennium. Our data reveal important changes in the understanding of the history of this large endorheic lake, as before it was envisioned as a large lake with significant changes in water level since ca. 14 ka BP. In addition to hydrology, our proxies provide updates and details of the regional vegetation and climate change since ca. 4 ka BP in the West-Siberian forest-steppe and steppe. As evolution of the Chany basin is dependent on hydroclimatic changes in a large region of southern West Siberia, we compare lake-level change and climate-change proxies from the other recently and most comprehensively studied lakes of the region.     

The history of the development of procedures for the rapid assessment of environmental conditions to aid the urban regeneration process at London Docklands

A process of urban regeneration of the former industrial dock area of east London by the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) recognised the importance of geotechnical and geoenvironmental information. A systematic programme of data collection was implemented and stored in a series of bespoke computer database systems and cartographic registers. These allowed retrieval and manipulation of the data to provide rapid site assessments. The understanding of the natural setting of the area was enhanced as a consequence of the collation exercise. The data stored included geotechnical and environmental information on soil and groundwater. The hydrogeological regime was modelled by computer to determine the consequences of development on groundwater movement. In addition, a cartographic register of historic land use was developed. This gave instant detail on the potential for contamination of a site and became a fundamental tool in the UK planning process of the area. The information from the separate systems was finally combined into a geographic information system.