Public preferences for policy intervention to protect public health from maritime activities: A 14 European country study

Marine ecosystems provide a wide range of goods and services that directly and indirectly benefit economies and support human health and wellbeing. However, these ecosystems are vulnerable to anthropogenic influences such as climate change, pollution and habitat destruction. The European Union (EU) recognises the role of the blue economy in providing jobs and contributing to economic growth, with the EU Integrated Maritime Policy being a cross-sectoral framework within which maritime activities are managed and coordinated. Sustainability is a central tenet, ensuring that sectors such as aquaculture and offshore wind energy, which are earmarked for growth, must develop in ways that do not negatively impact the health of the marine environment. However, there is currently little consideration of how these activities might impact public health. The current research used survey data from 14 European countries to explore public perceptions of these issues, broadly focusing on 10 maritime activities, with a specific focus on five activities related to the EU’s 2012 Blue Growth Strategy. The respondents appreciated the interconnections between these maritime activities, environmental protection and public health, as well as the potential trade-offs. Preferences for policy intervention to protect public health from different activities were predicted by both marine contact (marine sector employment, recreational activities) and socio-demographic (political attitudes, gender, age) variables, potentially aiding future engagement and communication initiatives. Substantive differences observed across countries in terms of policy preferences for different activities, however, warn against generalising for the European population as a whole.     

Flirting with Disaster: Impacts of natural disasters on public support for environmental spending

Policymakers must understand public opinion to craft effective policies, particularly in highly polarized areas such as environmental policy. However, the literature investigating the factors that drive public opinion on environmental spending largely ignores the role of exogenous events. This article investigates the role that natural disasters, as a form of exogenous shock, play in shaping public opinion. We construct a dataset using the General Social Survey (GSS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) natural disaster data from 1980 to 2018 and use generalized ordered logistic models to analyze the relationship between disasters and environmental opinions in the US. Our findings reveal that the number of disasters that occur significantly drives public support for environmental spending and that different types of disaster have heterogeneous impacts with wildfires and severe winter weather events being the most impactful. These results shed light on the impact of environmental events on public opinion on the environment, helping both researchers and policymakers make sense of dynamic public opinions.     

Private property and public interest in fisheries management: the Tasmanian rock lobster fishery

In 1998 a management system based on individual transferable quota (ITQ) was introduced in the Tasmanian rock lobster fishery. This marked the continuation of a management trend that has favoured economic efficiency at the cost of reduced employment and greater restrictions on access to the fishery. The authors discuss management trends in the fishery in the context of Tasmania's history, and social and political characteristics, which it is argued, have shaped development of Tasmania's resource management culture. Implications for social equality, economic well-being and environmental sustainability are discussed. In conclusion the difficulty of reforming policy that has been shaped by vested interests and which establishes rent-seeking activity is considered.     

Public perceptions of geoengineering research governance: An experimental deliberative approach

Recent attempts to conduct experiments in climate ‘geoengineering’ have demonstrated the deeply controversial nature of this field of scientific research. Social scientists have begun to explore public perceptions of geoengineering, and have documented a significant degree of concern over the effective governance of research and experimentation in this area. Yet, public perception on what constitutes a legitimate geoengineering experiment and how it should be governed remains under-researched. In this article we report on a series of experimental deliberative workshops with members of the public designed to elicit and explicate diverse understandings of geoengineering experiments and their governance. In contrast to previous methods of invited public deliberation, which privilege egalitarian-consensual models of discourse and decision-making, we test a novel approach that places majoritarian, individualistic, and consensual forms of public deliberation on an equal footing. Our study suggests that the perceived controllability of experimental interventions is central to public views on their acceptability, but that controllability is itself a complex, multifaceted quality, drawing together a set of heterogeneous concerns about the purpose and repercussions of scientific work. The citizens who participated in our workshops employed four criteria to adjudicate the acceptability of geoengineering experiments: (1) the degree of containment; (2) the uncertainty surrounding experimental outcomes; (3) the reversibility of impacts; and (4) the scientific purity of the enterprise. We theorize that the public legitimacy of geoengineering experiments depends on variable, context-specific combinations of these criteria, and that technical determinations of the proper ‘scale’ or ‘location’ for geoengineering research will be poor predictors of the sorts of public concerns that will be triggered by further experimentation in this area.     

An evaluation of crowdsourced information for assessing the visitation and perceived importance of protected areas

Parks and protected areas provide a wide range of benefits, but methods to evaluate their importance to society are often ad hoc and limited. In this study, the quality of crowdsourced information from Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) and Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) sources (Flickr, OpenStreetMap (OSM), and Wikipedia) was compared with visitor counts that are presumed to reflect social importance. Using the state of Victoria, Australia as a case study, secondary crowdsourced VGI data, primary crowdsourced (PPGIS data) and visitor statistics were examined for their correspondence and differences, and to identify spatial patterns in park popularity. Data completeness—the percent of protected areas with data—varied between sources, being highest for OSM (90%), followed by Flickr (41%), PPGIS (24%), visitation counts (5%), and Wikipedia articles (4%). Statistically significant correlations were found between all five measures of popularity for protected areas. Using stepwise multiple linear regression, the explained variability in visitor numbers was greater than 70%, with PPGIS, Flickr and OSM having the largest standardized coefficients. The social importance of protected areas varied as a function of accessibility and the types of values (direct or indirect use) expressed for the areas. Crowdsourced data may provide an alternative to visitor counts for assessing protected area social importance and spatial variability of visitation. However, crowdsourced data appears to be an unreliable proxy for the full range of values and importance of protected areas, especially for non-use values such as biological conservation.     

Assessing linkages between ecosystem services,land-use and well-being in an agroforestry landscape using public participation GIS

While a number of studies have applied public participation GIS (PPGIS) approaches to the spatial assessment of ecosystem services, few have considered the associations between the spatial distribution of ecosystem services and the context-specific nature of self-reported well-being. In this study, we engage the general public to identify and map a range of ecosystem services that originate in place-based, local knowledge and explore the context-dependent nature of subjective well-being. We conducted a PPGIS survey with 219 local residents in a Spanish agroforestry (dehesa) landscapes and analysed the spatial patterns of mapped ecosystem services, their relation to land cover, protected area and common land patterns. In addition, we explored the landscape values contributing to people’s well-being; and the relationships between ecosystem services in different land covers, landscape values and socio-demographic characteristics. A mosaic of landscape types (i.e., the landscape) provided more ecosystem services (especially cultural and provisioning) to people compared with the individual land system of agroforestry. However, land tenure and public access significantly guided the spatial practices and values of the people beyond the preferred landscape types. The contribution of the landscape to well-being is largely related to values based on interactions among people and the landscape, as tranquillity/relaxation and people-people interactions such as being with family and friends. We discuss the specific contribution of agroforestry landscapes to the provision of ecosystem services and human well-being. We conclude that the integration of the applied methods of social-cultural assessment on the one hand links to ecosystem services frameworks but on the other hand represents a more holistic conceptualisation of people’s benefits from landscapes.     

An overview of climate change impacts on the society in China

Society could sustain the impact of climate change by adapting to the change and mitigating risks from adverse effects of increasing changes, so that it can continue maintaining its prospect and improving wellbeing. Nevertheless, climate change is more or less affecting society's functions at different scales, including both individuals and communities. In this review, we discuss the relationship between society and climate change in China from the aspects of the needs at different socioeconomic developing stages. The relationship as well as the current spatial pattern and future risks of the climate change impacts on societies are summarized. The complexity of social and climatic systems leads to the spatial heterogeneity of climate impacts and risks in China. To more effectively leverage increasing knowledge about the past, we advocate greater cross-disciplinary collaboration between climate adaption, poverty alleviation and Nature-based Solutions (Nbs). That could provide decision makers with more comprehensive train of thoughts for climate policy making.     

Weak ties, immigrant women and neoliberal states: Moving beyond the public/private binary

This paper engages with the vacillations in provincial and federal gender specific service funding in Canada between 2001 and 2007. I connect this state scale analysis to local settlement experiences of Sikh immigrant women living in a small British Columbia community. Using the concept of network analysis, particularly the idea of weak ties, I offer a corrective to the overly positive appraisals of strong ties and institutional completeness. I argue that experiences of settlement, especially in cases where women face various forms of domestic violence, are shaped by the articulation of neoliberalism and patriarchy. This analysis contributes to the ongoing reformulation advanced by feminist geographers with regard to the public/private binary. In its place this case study reveals the multiple public and private intersections and continuums that exist, and how the recognition of these geographies can assist in building effective public resources to tackle the challenges faced by some immigrant women.