Challenging power from the bottom up? Community protocols,benefit-sharing,and the challenge of dominant discourses

This article discusses the ways in which community protocols might challenge the dominant discourses that guide environmental law and policy at the local, national and international levels and makes suggestions about the conditions that need to be fulfilled if such a challenge is to be effective. Community protocols have attracted the attention of many scholars as they are recognised in the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Nagoya Protocol. They are argued to hold the potential to achieve fair and equitable benefit-sharing by allowing local community voices to express their customary law, worldviews, and ideas of benefit and development among other things. While much of the existing literature discusses community protocols as legal tools, they are also tools that may challenge the dominant discourses argued to guide environmental law and policy. The article takes up this question on the basis of findings from five original case studies. It is argued that community protocols may challenge dominant discourses by: facilitating and articulating the recognition of local communities and indigenous peoples; providing a source for understanding their worldviews; and by empowering them in the long term. In order to achieve these outcomes, community protocol must be understood as processes and pay attention to legal and political contexts, how communities organise, the role of supporting actors, and the articulation of benefits.     

Breaking Basel: The elements of the Basel Convention and its application to toxic ships

Developing nations seeking to apply the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements in Hazardous Wastes to prevent toxic ships from entering their waters for shipbreaking are faced with legal uncertainty. This paper responds to that uncertainty by adopting a definition of the offence of illegal traffic in end-of-life ships, and further proposing evidentiary burdens and potential sources of proof for that offence. While a shipowner's intention to scrap a ship for its value in steel was previously difficult to prove, recent market analysis of the shipbreaking industry provides potential proof sufficient to halt the importation of a toxic ship.     

The Convention on Biological Diversity's Ecologically or Biologically Significant Areas: Origins,development, and current status

In 2008, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted seven criteria to identify Ecologically or Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) “…in need of protection, in open ocean waters and deep sea habitats”. This paper reviews the history of the development of the “EBSA process”, which was originally driven by the commitment to establish marine protected areas in areas beyond national jurisdiction, but which has since broadened to encompass the possibility of informing marine spatial planning and other activities, both within and beyond national jurisdiction. Additionally, the paper summarizes ongoing efforts through CBD regional workshops to describe EBSAs and the development of the EBSA Repository, where information on these areas is to be stored. The overlap between the EBSA criteria and biodiversity criteria suites used by various authorities in areas beyond national jurisdiction is illustrated. The EBSA process has reached a critical juncture, whereby a large percentage of the global ocean has been considered by the regional workshops, but the procedure by which these areas can be incorporated into formal management structures has not yet been fully developed. Emerging difficulties regarding the mandate to describe, identify, endorse, or adopt EBSAs, are discussed.     

National ownership in the implementation of global climate policy in Uganda

Abstract

This article explores the history, from a developing country perspective, of how external interventions to implement global policies on the Climate Convention and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) have been integrated into national development policy frameworks in the period 1990–2005. The main question asked is to what extent external interventions have formed part of a country-driven approach in Uganda. The conflicting national and global priorities concerning the need for adaptation to the impacts of climate change versus the need for global mitigation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) are explored first. Against this background, Uganda's policy response to climate change is reviewed. National climate policies are found not to exist, and the implementation of global policies is not integrated into national policy frameworks, partly due to conflicting national and global priorities. Given limited national awareness and the fact that climate policy is marginal compared to other national interests in Uganda, the experiences with donor support for the implementation of global climate policy nationally are analysed. This article demonstrates that neither national policies nor national management of donor support have secured a country-driven approach to external interventions in Uganda.     

Forty-three years of Ramsar and urban wetlands

The Ramsar Convention is unquestionably the backbone of modern wetland management theory and practice. In the last four decades, it has mainstreamed wetlands in the environmental discourse and fostered the development of a comprehensive institutional framework for wetland governance. However, many of the wetlands that occur in human-dominated landscapes remain acutely threatened. The problem is most alarming in urban areas, especially in the fast expanding cities of the developing world, where unprecedented wetland destruction is leading to recurring environmental disasters. This triggers the question: are these failures in wetland governance purely induced by factors exogenous to Ramsar-based institutions or are they manifestations of conceptual drawbacks within Ramsar conceptual framework. Here, we investigate the success and failures of the application of the Ramsar framework's policy directives and management guidelines for urban wetlands using two rapidly expanding cities in South Asia as case studies – Colombo (Sri Lanka) and Kolkata (India). We conclude that despite its remarkable achievements over the past four decades, the Ramsar framework has several conceptual drawbacks that weaken its effectiveness in complex urban contexts. An inadequate recognition of the complex dynamics of urban social-ecological systems, an inadequate recognition of the political complexity of the policy processes, and a lack of an environmental justice perspective are the main shortcomings contributing to failures in urban wetlands governance. While we acknowledge that some solutions are contingent upon national and transnational level socio-political processes and reforms, we offer a set of technical and strategic modifications to the Ramsar framework that can significantly improve its effectiveness in urban wetlands governance.     

《联合国防治荒漠化公约》的荒漠化土地范畴

在论述了荒漠与荒漠化的内涵概念及演变后,根据《联合国防治荒漠化公约》的荒漠化定义,分析了荒漠与荒漠化土地的概念范畴,认为荒漠是气候变化影响下形成的较稳定的景观,也是土地荒漠化正过程的可能最终结果,其植被构成较稳定的顶极或亚顶极群落,组成稳定的生态系统;并提出了荒漠化发展程度"先逆后正"的评价方法。     

Persistent threats need persistent counteraction: Responding to PCB pollution in marine mammals

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a type of persistent organic pollutant (POP) that continues to pose a significant environmental threat to humans and wildlife. Recent scientific evidence shows that very high PCB concentrations are still major causes of contemporary declines in European cetacean populations, and potentially other marine apex predators globally. Currently, controls on PCBs are insufficient, on their own, to fully protect human health or to conserve wildlife. Although the Stockholm Convention provides a global framework to address PCBs, there appears to be a systemic shortfall of many parties of the Convention to provide sufficient prioritisation and resources for effective implementation. A 2015 United Nations Environment Programme assessment estimates that the vast majority of PCB-contaminated equipment and materials, around 14 million tonnes, still requires elimination. At present rates of PCB elimination or mitigation, many countries, including some European countries, will not achieve the 2025 and 2028 targets of the Stockholm Convention. It is imperative that the Conference of the Parties for the Stockholm Convention conclude article 17 negotiations on a compliance mechanism for the Convention as soon as possible. To help mobilise global efforts towards eliminating the threat from PCBs, an enforceable, effective and robust compliance mechanism should be established, along with capacity building support for developing countries. In Europe, renewed action is needed to reduce PCB contamination, in order to prevent some killer whale (Orcinus orca) and other dolphin populations from continuing to slowly decline, potentially towards extinction.     

From seed to sequence: Dematerialization and the battle to (re)define genetic resources

In the past decade and a half, key international agreements have established systems of access and benefit sharing that aim to obtain consent and provide compensation for commercial use of plants, animals, and microorganisms—particularly those sourced in the Global South. Yet the rise of genomics, gene editing and synthetic biology may threaten the legitimacy of these agreements. Thus far, agreements have governed these resources in their physical form—as organisms in situ or germplasm in gene banks. However, both public and private research are increasingly utilizing genomic sequences and associated information. As a result of this shift, debates are unfolding at international fora such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture on whether existing agreements apply to physical resources only, or also to their sequence data or other associated information. Some call uninhibited access to digital sequence information (DSI) a new form of biopiracy, whereby digital resources are used without permission from those in the Global South. Others argue that access to DSI should remain unencumbered by bureaucracy, as it is key to biodiversity conservation and food security. This paper examines these debates over DSI and the rationales and justifications employed by the two sides, which loosely follow a divide between Global South and North. We find that different conceptualizations of genetic resources—particularly with regard to when, where and how value is added—define respective positions. Outcomes of these debates have important implications for management of global biodiversity, food security and issues of equity and justice for actors in biodiverse regions of the world.     

The special climate change fund: origins and prioritisation assessment

The Special Climate Change (SCC) fund was established by the Marrakesh Accords under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This fund will finance climate change activities in the areas of: adaptation, technology transfer, certain specific sectors, and activities to assist oil-exporting countries diversify their economies. These activities are to be complementary to those funded by the Global Environment Facility and by bilateral and multilateral funding. This paper describes the origins of the SCC fund and proposes a framework for the prioritisation of its activities. The fund has a complicated history that is intrinsically linked to numerous Convention issues, which explains the range of activities included in it. The framework proposed is based on certain principles: sound scientific knowledge, the ultimate objective of the Convention, “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities” and the status of the climate negotiations. This appraisal suggests that the fund should prioritise adaptation, followed by mitigation and finally economic diversification.     

Neoliberalism on the molecular scale. Economic and genetic reductionism in biotechnology battles

New agro-biotechnologies promise bounty from fine-tuned molecular manipulation of food crops. They already provide profits and export opportunities to a few transnational seed/ agrochemical/ biotechnology firms. Against growing resistance in international arenas, industry and US government spokespeople have aggressively promoted genetic engineering, arguing that it permits precise control of life processes. However, this claim is based on a deceptive form of molecular-genetic reductionism which uses outdated notions of “genes” and “genetic codes” and disregards the interactions among molecules, organisms, their environments, and their social settings. This discourse, in turn, supports economic-reductionist arguments that genetic information should be patentable and that market-based management of biotechnology will benefit everyone. This double reductionism furthers the extension of the commodity realm to the molecular level. It treats biotechnology inputs (genetic resources) and outputs (transgenic products) as ordinary, tradable factors of production under globally standardized intellectual property regimes and bolsters proposals to regulate biotechnology under the World Trade Organization. Critics of this approach find some support in the Biodiversity Convention and its Biosafety Protocol, which would allow consideration of scientific uncertainty, socioeconomic factors, and pluralism in intellectual property regimes. They stress that natural-resource values and knowledge about nature are inseparable from place-specific ecologies, cultural practices of farming and science, and power relations.