Is spatial planning a collaborative learning process? A case study from a rural–urban gradient in Sweden

International and national policies stress the importance of spatial planning for the long-term sustainability of regions. This paper identifies the extent to which the spatial planning in a Swedish region can be characterised as a collaborative learning process. By combining qualitative interviews and systems thinking methods we analysed the main attributes of public-led spatial (i.e. comprehensive) planning in nine municipalities representing a steep urban–rural gradient in the Bergslagen region of Central Sweden. We show that the attributes of strategic spatial planning needed for collaborative learning were absent or undeveloped. All studied municipalities experienced challenges in coordinating complex issues regarding long-term planning to steer territorial development and help to solve conflicts among competing interests. Stakeholder participation was identified as a basic condition for social learning in planning. Together with stakeholders we identified the causal structure behind stakeholder participation in municipal planning processes, including main drivers and feedback loops. We conclude that there is a need for arenas allowing and promoting stakeholder activity, participation and inclusion that combines both bottom-up and top-down approaches, and where evidence-based collaborative learning can occur.     

Evaluating participation in WFD river basin management in England and Wales: Processes,communities, outputs and outcomes

Participatory environmental governance is increasing worldwide. One area where such governance forms are apparent is in the management of water resources. For example, in the European Union the Water Framework Directive mandates several forms of involvement via its legal obligations. Under the Directive, implementing agencies should provide information on river basin management planning to the public, consult citizens and stakeholders during planning and actively involve interested parties in the plan process. Yet questions arise over the success of participatory processes on the ground in EU member states. In this study, participation was therefore evaluated in WFD river basin planning in England and Wales using process, community, output and outcome-related indicators. Research was conducted through extensive quantitative and qualitative data collection over a long temporal scale within case analyses of the Anglian, Humber and South West river basin districts. Results suggest that while the first phase of river basin management largely met legal requirements, the actual success of participatory water governance was mixed. On this basis, recommendations are made for enhancing participation in future river basin planning through national and EU policy.     

Co-click’eau,a participatory method for land-use scenarios in water catchments

Agricultural use of pesticides and nitrogen has negatively impacted drinking water quality. In France, 1000 water catchments now face a legal obligation to develop and implement action plans to reduce such pollution. Unfortunately, the action plans suffer from delays, are developed mechanically to strictly comply with a preset list of measures resulting in minimal changes in practices. Their impact is generally insufficient to preserve or restore water quality. In this context, the Co-click’eau method was proposed to elicit the development of locally-relevant catchment action plans by drawing on stakeholder participation and modeling for the design and assessment of scenarios on land-use changes at the whole-catchment scale. The method was tested in 2011–2012 in three different catchments. Our results show that it has a significant role to play in facilitating the development of catchment-specific action plans for which local stakeholders can feel a sense of ownership and commitment. Co-click’eau is also valuable in enhancing collective action by eliciting a process where local stakeholders share their knowledge and explore possible futures. Participation of a wide diversity of local stakeholders, along with a flexible modeling approach makes it possible to take into account local constraints and helps to break down local lock-ins.     

加强我国证券投资基金外部治理的必要性分析

基金治理,就是通过所有基金当事人之间权利、义务和责任的合理配置,寻求基金存续中达到相互制衡的状态。对我国契约型基金而言,缺乏利益相关者参与基金外部治理,仅仅强调优化基金内部治理并无法真正保护基金持有人的利益。因此,完善基金治理结构需要强化和改善基金外部治理,有必要充分发挥托管行、基金评级等中介机构、基金监管部门这些基金业核心利益相关者的外部监督和约束作用,从而实现保护基金投资者利益之目的。     

Ecosystem services in spatial planning and strategic environmental assessment—A European and Portuguese profile

Despite the growing interest on ecosystem services (ES) in research, significant knowledge gaps on ES integration in decision making subsist. Particularly, ES-focused profiles of governance frameworks for different policy areas, like spatial planning, are scarce. The goal of this research is to draw a profile on ES integration in the European policy and guidance framework for spatial planning and strategic environmental assessment (SEA). To investigate how this framework might be translated in a particular country of the EU and across different levels of governance, the Portuguese spatial planning and SEA framework is also analysed. To achieve these goals, a content analysis of policy and guidance documents was conducted. We have found a general low level of explicit ES integration, but some notions associated with ES are present in the documents, although more indirectly. Results highlight the potential role of SEA for ES integration. However, in the Portuguese context, the contribution of SEA in practice is currently limited and for the coming years ES will not be specifically targeted or integrated in regional spatial planning practice. Recent changes in the wider European governance framework contribute to potentially higher degrees of ES integration in the future. Nevertheless, bottom-up demand for improved ES integration in plans and policies will be an important driver. Our approach contributes to identify which policies, plans and guiding documents need improved ES integration.     

Governance of non-wood forest products in Russia and Ukraine: Institutional rules,stakeholder arrangements,and decision-making processes

Aspects of governance of non-wood forest products (NWFPs) include institutional rules, stakeholder arrangements, and decision-making processes that govern production systems from access to resources, their use, and to markets. Compared with other forest products, few studies have investigated the governance of NWFPs in European post-socialistic countries transitioning from a planned to a market economy. This study compares institutional frameworks and stakeholder arrangements related to NWFPs in Russia and Ukraine using a case study approach. Both countries have a legacy of top-down forest government, state-owned forests, and rural communities with a long dependence on plant- and animal-based NWFPs. We analysed legal documents for NWFPs in each country and conducted expert interviews with stakeholders from the public, private, and civil sectors involved in the decision-making process of NWFPs. Institutional frameworks for NWFPs in both countries are complex, unclear, and overlap. Multiple legal documents contain restrictions regarding the extraction and sustainability of NWFPs. However, no special laws or policies are solely for NWFPs; all measures are included in legislation that regulates nature conservation and forest management. The government of both countries tends to overlook non-industrial forest use undertaken by marginal local communities, even if economic, social, and cultural values of NWFPs are relatively high for local and regional development. A misfit is observed between legal frameworks and forest companies’ business policies with customary rights. This phenomenon caused a shift to introduce new stakeholder arrangements related to NWFPs as a special type of resource in areas where NWFPs are heavily used both for subsistence and for generating household income by local communities. Landscape approach initiatives such as model forests and biosphere reserves may empower local communities to find means to protect their rights, needs, interests, and values related to NWFPs.     

The politics of multi-scalar action in river basin management: Implementing the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD)

Scholars of environmental governance are increasingly intrigued by issues of scale. Efforts to institutionalise river basin management represent a pertinent exemplar, as they aspire to strengthen hydrological vis-à-vis political–administrative scales of governance. The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) is one of the most ambitious policy initiatives worldwide to reconfigure water management planning around the hydrological scale of river basins. Whilst it is widely assumed that the WFD is rescaling water governance in Europe, few empirical studies have been conducted to ascertain how far this is the case, what scalar strategies and practices are emerging and to what effect. The paper addresses these open issues with a study analysing the multi-scalar actions of water authorities, water management organisations, local authorities and interest groups involved in implementing the WFD. It investigates how stakeholders are acting scalar from the local to the European scale and back to further their interests in the course of WFD implementation, focussing on the Wupper sub-basin in Germany. Drawing for conceptual insight on the human geography debate on the politics of scale and processes of rescaling, we demonstrate how all relevant stakeholders are increasingly working across scales to advance their interests but in very different ways, with different degrees of deliberation and to different effect. A typology of multi-scalar action is developed to interpret this diversity. The paper draws conclusions on how multi-scalar action is altering not only power relations between the actors but also the scalar configurations themselves.     

New institutional approach to collaborative forest planning on public land: Methods for analysis and lessons for policy

Collaborative planning has become an increasingly popular approach in environmental decision-making, particularly in situations where there are multiple actors with conflicting interests. In this paper, collaborative environmental planning is perceived as being embedded in an institutional environment that has an impact on the processes and outcomes of planning. Building on the theory of new institutionalism, the paper combines legal analysis of forest regulation with interviews and policy document data from two case studies on collaborative Natural Resource Planning in state-owned forests in Finland. These approaches will be used to analyse how formal regulations and informal norms are interpreted and implemented in the planning processes. The paper highlights the important role institutions can play in promoting or hindering successful collaborative planning, and makes recommendations for developing a forest governance system that is equipped to deal with the identified challenges.     

Cross-level information and influence in mandated participatory planning: Alternative pathways to sustainable water management in Germany's implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive

State and non-state actors increasingly work across scales to address complex environmental problems. Prior studies of stakeholder participation have not fully examined how collaborative processes play out in multi-level policymaking. At the same time, multi-level governance studies do not adequately investigate the impacts of stakeholder participation. This study examines the cross-level interactions of influence and information in the participatory implementation of the European Union's Water Framework Directive. This directive is an example of mandated participatory planning, a relatively new approach that engages grassroots collaboration through a top-down structure with nested policy cycles. A case analysis of three collaborative planning units in the Land of Lower Saxony, within the federal governance structure of Germany, finds limited influence and information transmission across levels via formal planning and implementation processes. However, the collaborative efforts did yield alternative pathways for achieving substantive progress toward the directive's aims via learning, coordination, and buy-in among participants.     

Assessment of regulation of legal relations of territorial planning: A case study in Lithuania

Land management is inevitably linked to the regulation of activities of its proprietor or operator stipulated by legislation and documents of territorial planning. In Lithuania, as in many European countries, territorial planning is a key measure for the formation of landscape and the alteration of its elements. With the help of territorial planning documents, governing authorities has the opportunity to orderly regulate the layout of long-term stable elements of landscape and the sustainable territorial development. However, in comparison with other European Union (hereinafter – EU) countries, territorial planning system valid in Lithuania until January 1, 2014 is still “young” and having specific features with former countries of the Soviet bloc legal regulation. The system did not provided a consistent and sustainable territorial development mechanism: there was the lack of measures allowing to manage the development processes of residential areas and implementation of territorial planning documents (especially the municipal master plans) solutions for the creation of a harmonious functional spatial system. The aim of the present paper is to assess the regulation of legal relations of territorial planning in Lithuania and the EU member states. The assessment summarizes processes of the formation of a landscape during the territorial planning, introduces new opportunities to more accurately predict the results of the current process of landscape planning, and highlights legal and sustainable elements of territorial planning system optimization. As can be seen from the assessment carried out, one of the most important territorial planning objectives was and still remains the balance of mutual relations (hierarchy of plans) of territorial planning documents in shaping the cultural landscape to ensure the rational distribution of the land fund, combining a variety of activities as well as often different land users’ and public interests. Therefore, the implementation of the territorial planning reform of Lithuania capacitates for the transition to an integrated territorial planning, ensuring sustainable development.     

Stakeholder engagement in water policy: Lessons from peri-urban irrigation

In highly urbanised Australia many cities and towns demand may have exceeded existing water supply. In peri-urban areas this can lead to conflict over access to supplies with priority often given to urban users. In an effort to resolve potential conflicts, water management planning often seeks to engage ‘community stakeholders’ in an attempt to produce a ‘harmonised’ strategic plan. In this paper we focus on the process of developing one such plan for sustainable water management in a peri-urban area with complex and conflicting stakeholder interests. We subject data from a series of planning meetings and ‘stakeholder’ workshops to a critical review and analysis against the project's stated aims for this stage of the process of: engaging key stakeholders, developing a common vision, and deciding research priorities. We conclude that the approach was unable to achieve these strategic outcomes. In discussion we explore how this analysis reflects barriers in the engagement process, which highlight more general concerns about this widely accepted model for stakeholder engagement in resource issues.     

国外典型河口管理中的公众参与模式及对我国的启示

研究英国Sevem河口、美国Tampa湾河口和巴西Patos泻湖河口发展过程中的主要问题、河口管理中的公．众参与模式及其效果,分析了河口管理中公众参与在政策制定和实施中的重要作用。结合我国河口管理的实际情况提出4点建议：①积极学习国外先进的河口管理经验;②建立良好的河口管理体系;③因地制宜地组织公众参与河口管理;④确立良好的公众监督机制。     

协同治理框架下黄河流域河南段水环境治理

为推进黄河流域河南段水环境善治进程,通过对水环境主要特征以及质量现状的分析,结合协同治理理论,构建了由党、政府、企业、社会组织、公众等多元主体参与,基于利益协调机制、信息公开机制、制度信任机制和政策协同机制这4个影响机制而形成的黄河流域河南段水环境协同治理分析框架。基于该协同治理分析框架,针对目前黄河流域河南段水环境治理过程中存在的问题,提出优化职权范围、推动多元主体参与以及完善影响机制等政策建议。     

Information,motivation and resources: the missing elements in agricultural pesticide policy implementation in Ethiopia

To promote pesticide governance that protects the environment and human health, Ethiopia has developed a legal framework for pesticide registration and control. However, in Ethiopia, pesticides are still registered, traded and used inappropriately. This research analyses how Ethiopia's pesticide policy is implemented and identifies the barriers for an effective implementation of this policy. With a theoretical framework based on the information, motivations and resources of relevant actors, data are collected from state pesticide experts, traders and end users (farmers) through in-depth interviews. The overall result reveals that major gaps exist between pesticides policy on paper and its implementation in practice. The key policy actors scored low on each of the three characteristics: they have poor information available, have low motivation to implement policies and lack sufficient resources. Involvement of and collaboration with private actors is likely to improve the implementation of pesticide governance, and contribute to sustainability in agricultural and food systems in Ethiopia.     

流域蓄洪区运用风险预警信息传递联动研究——基于蒙洼蓄洪区利益相关者分析视角

以淮河干流蒙洼蓄洪区为例,分析行蓄洪区内各利益主体的利益诉求框架。运用实地考察法和关键信息人访谈法确定灾情预警信息依据,结合各利益主体的信息需求,提出相应的预警信息传递联动路径。以行蓄洪区预警决策层、管理层以及实施层为切入点,提出多层次、多主体共同参与的信息传递预警模式,以最大限度保障利益相关者的利益,进而实现蓄洪区灾情预警信息传递的价值最大化。     

流域水污染的协作治理研究

根据流域污染现状和协作治理理论的内涵,进而分析二者的适应性、流域水污染的治理现状及存在的困境,针对治理的碎片化困境,从培育协作理念、公开治理信息、建立以流域为单元的综合管理体制、构建流域水污染治理多元化机制和完善制度供给、强化执行与监督等方面提出进一步加强流域水污染协作治理的路径选择,以期为我国流域污染问题的进一步改观提供参考。     

Global Food Chains, African Smallholders and World Bank Governance

This paper critically examines the World Bank's analysis of the development of agribusiness in Africa in the World Development Report 2008 in relationship to its governance policies, which seek to introduce institutional reforms to promote private and public sector linkages with the participation of civil society. The paper argues that this confuses food chain governance (control over quality and the logistics of production) with democratic governance and essentially promotes oligopolization of the food industry and the interests of the powerful in the name of smallholder farmers.     

整体性治理视角下的河长制评析

为了深入了解河长制,推进河长制顺利实施,进而提升河长制对河湖治理的效用水平,运用整体性治理理论对河长制的适用性与实用性进行论证,梳理了河长制的概况和推进进程,分析了河长制实际执行中存在的层级整合落实问责真空化、功能整合压力导向难以持久、部门整合参与主体单一化等问题,提出了构建整体责任、设计法律保障制度及提倡多元参与主体的建议。     

The evolution of forest producer associations and their current role in REDD+: case studies from Quintana Roo,Mexico

Forest associations (secondary-level institutions that support and represent groups of forest producer communities) play an important and understudied role in promoting community forestry in a multi-level forest governance context in many countries. This role continually evolves to meet new demands from their constituents, with associations diversifying into activities that bring new governance issues, interests, organizational logics and capacity needs. As community forestry in many countries is being integrated into REDD+ national strategies, questions arise regarding new roles for these associations. Through a case study of two forest associations in Quintana Roo, Mexico, this study traces the history and evolution of these associations as they react and adapt to a changing forest sector, uses forest stakeholders’ opinions to assess the associations’ current status and perceived importance of their involvement in the forest sector, and examines how current opinions and historical legacy have shaped their role in REDD+ in Mexico. Results show that association members and outsiders (mostly government stakeholders) hold divergent views of the utility of these organizations. Outsiders’ negative perceptions, as well as the niche that the associations are currently in, is largely determining their limited participation in REDD+ consultation and implementation to date. This is a missed opportunity to engage important allies who still hold high legitimacy in the eyes of the communities that will be the ultimate implementers of REDD+.     

宅基地有偿使用制度实施效果差异及原因诊断研究——基于利益相关者视角

本文基于利益相关者视角,重点对宅基地有偿使用制度实施效果的差异进行考察,在全县域定量分析的基础上,采用典型案例与问卷调查相结合的方法,从乡镇政策目标取向、乡村治理模式、村民选择行为等方面对实施效果的差异性进行分析.结果表明,全县的实施效果存在差异;乡镇政策目标取向的不同使其实施效果也存在差异性;乡贤治理模式的村庄退出效...