The fractured state in the governance of private game farming: the case of KwaZulu-Natal Province,South Africa

Conversion from livestock and/or crop farming to game farming has been a notable trend on privately owned land in South Africa over the last decades. The rapid growth of wildlife ranching is associated with an annual increase in the areas enclosed by game fences and high demand for wildlife which is being traded privately and at wildlife auctions. Key environmental, agricultural and land reform legislation has been passed since 1994 that impacts this sector, but this legislation does not provide a clear regulatory framework for the game farming industry. This article seeks to understand why game farming is thriving in a regulatory environment plagued with uncertainty. The focus is on one province, KwaZulu-Natal. It is clear that the state is not a homogeneous and monolithic entity applying itself to the regulation of the sector. There is no clear direction on the position of private game farming at the interface of environmental and agricultural regulations. The argument put forward is that the fractured state, in fact, provides space within which the game farmers are able to effectively manoeuvre and to maximise their advantages as private landowners. While game farmers may complain about strict wildlife regulation in the province, the benefits they gain from the combination of a divided state and the presence in this province of a strong, autonomous conservation body are considerable.     

Is there a global environmental justice movement?

One of the causes of the increasing number of ecological distribution conflicts around the world is the changing metabolism of the economy in terms of growing flows of energy and materials. There are conflicts on resource extraction, transport and waste disposal. Therefore, there are many local complaints, as shown in the Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJatlas) and other inventories. And not only complaints; there are also many successful examples of stopping projects and developing alternatives, testifying to the existence of a rural and urban global movement for environmental justice. Moreover, since the 1980s and 1990s, this movement has developed a set of concepts and campaign slogans to describe and intervene in such conflicts. They include environmental racism, popular epidemiology, the environmentalism of the poor and the indigenous, biopiracy, tree plantations are not forests, the ecological debt, climate justice, food sovereignty, land grabbing and water justice, among other concepts. These terms were born from socio-environmental activism, but sometimes they have also been taken up by academic political ecologists and ecological economists who, for their part, have contributed other concepts to the global environmental justice movement, such as ‘ecologically unequal exchange’ or the ‘ecological footprint’.     

Vote Blue,Go Green? Cameron's Conservatives and the Environment

How genuine is the Conservative party's rediscovery of the environment? Would a Conservative government led by David Cameron implement a wide‐ranging and progressive environmental policy? This article explores why Cameron has embraced the environment so enthusiastically when Conservative governments have had a poor record of environmental protection and the Conservative party has traditionally shown little interest in the issue. It assesses the impact of Cameron's strategy both on his own party and on the wider world of environmental politics and it evaluates the continuing commitment of the Conservatives to the issue by assessing what kind of policies a future Conservative government might implement. Although Cameron remains committed to the issue and he has already had a positive impact on Labour government policy, he has not yet convinced his party or its supporters, so a future Conservative government would probably represent continuity rather than significant change in environmental policy.     

污染区居民如何扭转环境不正义——美国北卡罗来纳州华伦郡多氯联苯掩埋场个案分析

环境不正义的决策过程与结果,使社会弱势聚居之小区更容易受到环境污染的伤害,而环境污染为小区所带来的各种影响,又使得小区居民更加弱势。环境正义运动的主要诉求之一,就是要使民众有意识地参与环境政策过程。本文以此为基础,观察美国北卡罗来纳州华伦郡多氯联苯掩埋场抗议事件的发生,与其後二十几年的发展。本文从四个方面观察华伦郡这段抗议与矫正环境不正义的历史,分别是诉求观点、专业能力、政治结盟以及政策回应。研究结果得出四点结论：首先,能够引起广泛共鸣的环境正义诉求,是帮助小区内外联盟的重要基石;其次,小区居民专业知识与态度的培养,有助于提升居民与政府部门沟通的层次与地位;再次,弱势居民政治力的提升与政治结盟,是提高居民受害事实与基本权益能见度的重要管道;最後,政府的正面响应提升了民泉与政府共同合作解决小区污染问题的可能性。     

Climate Change Policy Implementation: A Cross-Sectional Analysis

Why would countries invest resources to protect the global atmosphere, a global common‐pool resource? After all, this is an open‐access resource with no restrictions on appropriating its benefits. Furthermore, why would they do so under the aegis of a weak global regime (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC) that has virtually no provisions for sanctioning noncompliance and when the largest contributor to the problem is not participating in the regime? This article examines why a number of countries have implemented the UNFCCC. I hypothesize that countries implement UNFCCC because they corner domestic environmental benefits, namely reduction in local pollution. In my empirical analysis of 127 countries, employing an ordinal logistic regression model, I find that local air pollution is associated with higher levels of implementation of the UNFCCC. Thus, I conclude that the incentives to implement a relatively weak global regime can be found in the domestic political economy.     

构建和谐社会与环境犯罪之预防

构建社会主义和谐社会是我国社会主义建设理论的又一重大突破,也是我们急需研究的重要课题。社会主义和谐社会的建成,是我国实现富强、民主、文明的社会主义强国的目标,也是社会主义发展的主要标志。自然生态环境是人类生息劳作的地球家园,是构建和谐社会的重要因素,分析环境犯罪的概念状况和新特点,提出预防环境犯罪的对策,对构建和谐社会具有理论和现实意义。     

浅议不可量物侵害

不可量物侵害是民法上的一个重要概念,我国《物权法》首次规定了这一制度.文章研究了不可量物侵害的性质和各国的立法模式,评价了我国《物权法》相关规定的优缺点,并探究了容忍义务的理论基础,最后阐明了不可量物侵害与环境污染之间的关系.     

精神文明建设与环境保护

环境保护的成败直接关系到社会主义现代化建设的成败.加强社会主义精神文明建设,是保护环境、实现可持续发展战略的根本途径.这不仅要充分认识精神文明建设对环境保护的重要作用,尤其应坚持以人为本,实现社会文明;还应从环境的角度,拓展精神文明建设的新思路,把道德建设放在突出位置.     

论环境健康与政府环境责任

通过分析自然环境对人体健康的影响,指出环境健康问题的严重性,而在环境健康问题越来越严重的今天,根据法律规定,政府负有不可推卸的环境责任,根据政府对环境责任的错误认识提出了要狠抓落实环境民主,改进现有政府环境理念,达到环境善治的观点。     

试论公民环境权的生成与合理定位

公民环境权的合理定位与配置 ,对于保障环境法秩序的实现有着重要意义。文章从公民环境权的生成问题入手 ,否定了公民环境权为环境行政权的“衍生形态”或“反射性利益”的错误认识 ,提出公民环境权作为一种人生而应有的权利 ,其法定化将对公民的“偏好”及环境行政权的合理化有重大作用。由此提出公民环境权并非“环境权私权化”的产物 ,而是天然地归属于一种社会性权利 ,这是由环境的物品属性决定的 ,同时也将对其权利的保护与救济产生重大影响。