The contribution of human activities to climate change is well understood. Yet the integration of climate change considerations into local decision making tools designed to govern activities affecting the environment, such as Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), remains underdeveloped and inconsistently applied for proposed policies, programs, plans and projects. This study reviews progress across a range of 19 EIA regimes and identifies and assesses regulations and guidelines that have been established to promote the integration of climate change considerations within EIAs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBased on research conducted by myself and colleagues as part of the Southern Cape Interdisciplinary Fisheries Research Project, I present an overview of residents' perspectives on the Stilbaai Marine Protected Area, located on the Southern Cape coast of South Africa. Currently, South Africa's marine governance sector is often fraught with politicking, inefficiencies, and other effects that strain the social-ecological system. This research shows that despite some fragmentation of governance, there are opportunities, and a general willingness, to engage in activities that take care of the local environment on the behalf of residents, that serve to educate about ocean-positive behaviours and engage visitors more meaningfully on the benefits and value of the Stilbaai Marine Protected Area.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBased on 18-months of ethnographic fieldwork in South Africa's Western Cape province, we suggest ways in which marine resource law enforcement activities can be evaluated at the level of individual fisheries compliance inspectors, to gain a more accurate understanding of the state of marine resource law enforcement. We show that these individual assessments can be scaled up to speak about specific compliance stations, and further, that these local-level assessments can be scaled up to the regional and provincial levels, without losing sight of the needs and value of the individual inspector. This paper contributes to the broader conversation on compliance in marine resource governance, as well as opening a new avenue of discussion: how to incorporate inspector-focussed social indicators.
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