Turning the Tide

Turning the Tide

Author: Great Britain. Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 9780101639224

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This Royal Commission report on protection of the marine environment focuses on the impact of marine fishing in the seas around the UK, both on fish populations and the wider ecosystem. It consider a range of issues including the role of the fishing industry and its growth over the last 50 years; the legal framework for the marine environment and fisheries, at the national, European and international levels; the impact of fishing and the legacy of overfishing; aquaculture fisheries; marine protected areas; improved fisheries management; and a system of marine spatial planning. The report concludes that, as a society, we give much lower priority to protecting our seas compared with the land, and over-fishing is a global problem which has led to the collapse of fisheries in many areas. This situation requires significant urgent change which recognises the need for sustainable fisheries management and avoids the degradation of our seas, placing it within the context of wider management of human activities in the marine environment. Recommendations made include: the introduction of a Marine Act to establish a statutory framework with strategic objectives for marine environmental protection; a move away from a presumption in favour of fishing rights to a precautionary approach which requires demonstration that fishing activity is environmentally sustainable; establishing a network of marine protected areas within the UK over the next five years, which would lead to 30 per cent of the UK's exclusive economic zone being closed to commercial fishing; and a change in the emphasis of research away from management of fish populations towards a wider focus on the marine environment.


Knowledge, Policy, and Expertise

Knowledge, Policy, and Expertise

Author: Susan Owens

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2015-08-06

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 0191063045

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This book presents a fascinating analysis of expertise and policy formation, based on an in-depth study of the UK Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. The Commission provided expert advice to governments from 1970 to 2011. Often portrayed as a scientific body, it was in fact an interesting hybrid, which embodied wide-ranging expertise. It delivered thirty-three reports, leaving a significant mark on British environmental policy, and having influence within Europe and beyond. Drawing upon an extensive literature and a wide range of sources, Knowledge, Policy, and Expertise provides the only full account of this important advisory body, covering a period in which the policy landscape was profoundly transformed. It offers a rich and detailed analysis of authority, autonomy, and trust; of the diverse roles that advisors can play and the networks within which they operate; and of the circumstances of influence in which expert advice comes to be accepted gratefully, used strategically, absorbed in diffuse ways, or ignored. Above all, this book demonstrates the complexity and contingency of knowledge-policy relations, contributing substantially to a theory of expertise, and drawing out important implications for the future of good advice.


Britain and the Sea

Britain and the Sea

Author: Glen O'Hara

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2010-06-30

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 1350306959

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O'Hara presents the first general history of Britons' relationship with the surrounding oceans from 1600 to the present day. This all-encompassing account covers individual seafarers, ship-borne migration, warfare and the maritime economy, as well as the British people's maritime ideas and self perception throughout the centuries.


Novel Materials in the Environment

Novel Materials in the Environment

Author: Great Britain. Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 9780101746823

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The Royal Commission's decision to study novel materials was motivated by concern about the potential for releases to the environment arising from increasing industrial applications of metals and minerals that have not previously been widely used and, secondly, by the embodiment of nanoparticles and nanotubes in a wide range of consumer products and specialist applications in fields such as medicine and environmental remediation. Most of the evidence received focused on nanomaterials - particles, fibres and tubes on the scale of a few billionths of a metre. Chapters 2 and 3 explore the extent to which novel substances are currently being deployed, the plausible pathways by which they might enter the environment, their likely environmental destinations in use or disposal and the possible consequences of their release to those destinations. Chapter 4 considers what arrangements would be most appropriate for the governance of emerging technologies under two conditions that pose serious constraints on any regulator. First is the condition of ignorance about the possible environmental impacts in the absence of any kind of track record for the technology. Second is the condition of ubiquity - the fact that new technologies no longer develop in a context of local experimentation but emerge as globally pervasive systems - which challenges both trial-and-error learning and attempts at national regulation. Both new governance approaches and modifications to existing ones are likely to be called for. They will need to be rooted in ideas of adaptive management that require multiple perspectives on the issues. The Commission's recommendations are based on the premise that it is the functionality of the material, not particle size or mode of production, which is critical for evaluating its potential impact on the environment or human health.


Sustainable Diets

Sustainable Diets

Author: Pamela Mason

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-03-27

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 131777003X

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How can huge populations be fed healthily, equitably and affordably while maintaining the ecosystems on which life depends? The evidence of diet’s impact on public health and the environment has grown in recent decades, yet changing food supply, consumer habits and economic aspirations proves hard. This book explores what is meant by sustainable diets and why this has to be the goal for the Anthropocene, the current era in which human activities are driving the mismatch of humans and the planet. Food production and consumption are key drivers of transitions already underway, yet policy makers hesitate to reshape public eating habits and tackle the unsustainability of the global food system. The authors propose a multi-criteria approach to sustainable diets, giving equal weight to nutrition and public health, the environment, socio-cultural issues, food quality, economics and governance. This six-pronged approach to sustainable diets brings order and rationality to what either is seen as too complex to handle or is addressed simplistically and ineffectually. The book provides a major overview of this vibrant issue of interdisciplinary and public interest. It outlines the reasons for concern and how actors throughout the food system (governments, producers, civil society and consumers) must engage with (un)sustainable diets.


Routledge Handbook of National and Regional Ocean Policies

Routledge Handbook of National and Regional Ocean Policies

Author: Biliana Cicin-Sain

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-05-15

Total Pages: 828

ISBN-13: 1317658051

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This comprehensive handbook, prepared by leading ocean policy academics and practitioners from around the world, presents in-depth analyses of the experiences of fifteen developed and developing nations and four key regions of the world that have taken concrete steps toward cross-cutting and integrated national and regional ocean policy. All chapters follow a common framework for policy analysis. While most coastal nations of the world already have a variety of sectoral policies in place to manage different uses of the ocean (such as shipping, fishing, oil and gas development), in the last two decades, the coastal nations covered in the book have undertaken concerted efforts to articulate and implement an integrated, ecosystem-based vision for the governance of ocean areas under their jurisdiction. This includes goals and procedures to harmonize existing uses and laws, to foster sustainable development of ocean areas, to protect biodiversity and vulnerable resources and ecosystems, and to coordinate the actions of the many government agencies that are typically involved in oceans affairs. The book highlights the serious conflicts of use in most national ocean zones and the varying attempts by nations to follow the prescriptions emanating from the 1982 UN Law of the Sea Convention and the outcomes of the 1992, 2002, and 2012 sustainable development summits. The interrelationship among uses and processes in the coast and ocean requires that ocean governance be integrated, precautionary, and anticipatory. Overall, the book provides a definitive state-of-the-art review and analysis of national and regional ocean policies around the world.


Draft Marine Bill

Draft Marine Bill

Author: Bernan

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 492

ISBN-13: 9780104013533

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The Marine Bill was designed to establish a new UK-wide strategic system of marine planning to balance conservation, energy and resource needs, based on the principle of sustainable development and working with the devolved administrations. The Committee reports here reservations about the framework nature of the draft Bill. It was felt that too much of its policy is contained in secondary legislation or guidance. That there are significant areas of confusion of responsibility - between UK and international, especially EU, obligations; between devolved administrations; the many agencies and other bodies who will be involved in delivering the proposals in the Bill.


Global Commodity Governance

Global Commodity Governance

Author: F. Gale

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2011-02-01

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 0230304699

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The Forest and the Marine Stewardship Councils constitute new global governance institutions using voluntary certification and labelling as market incentives to encourage sustainable management. Utilizing a comparative political economic framework, the authors analyse shifting British, Canadian and Australian responses to the stewardship councils.