Place and Environment Commons^™

Institutional Influences And The Governance And Administration Of The Programa Produtor De Água Payment For Ecosystem Services Program In Brazil, Thomas G. Safford

Faculty Publications

Payment-for-Ecosystem-Services (PES) has been promoted as an innovative approach to environmental governance capable of simultaneously advancing conservation and sustainable development objectives. While studies commonly assess the ecological and economic performance of PES schemes, less attention has been given to their organizational and administrative effectiveness. This study examines these governance dimensions of one of Latin America’s most prominent PES initiatives—the Water Producer Program (WPP) in Brazil. Drawing on a meta-synthesis of 125 publications, the analysis investigates how regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive institutional forces shaped WPP implementation. Guided by neo-institutional theory and institutional bricolage, findings show that WPP governance operated through hybrid …

Implementing Just Climate Adaptation Policy: An Analysis Of Recognition, Framing, And Advocacy Coalitions In Boston, U.S.A., Jeffrey T. Malloy, Catherine Ashcraft, Paul Kirshen, Thomas G. Safford, Semra Aytur, Shannon H. Rogers

Faculty Publications

Cities face intersectional challenges implementing climate adaptation policy. This research contributes to scholarship dedicated to understanding how policy implementation affects socially vulnerable groups, with the overarching goal of promoting justice and equity in climate policy implementation. We apply a novel framework that integrates social justice theory and the advocacy coalition framework to incrementally assess just climate adaptation in Boston, Massachusetts in the United States. Boston made an ambitious commitment to address equity as part of its climate planning and implementation efforts. In this paper, we evaluate the first implementation stage over the period 2016–2019 during which Boston developed coastal resilience …

Tracking Change In The North Country: Paths To The Future Of Coös County, Eleanor M. Jaffee

Carsey Publications

From 2008 through 2018, the Neil and Louise Tillotson Fund of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation partnered with the Carsey School of Public Policy (formerly the Carsey Institute) at the University of New Hampshire for a research project titled Tracking Change in the North Country. In this brief, author Eleanor Jaffee summarizes several major products of this research partnership and considers how they may inform future directions for North Country policy and programming.

Engagement In A Public Forum: Knowledge, Action, And Cosmopolitanism, Jennifer F. Brewer, Natalie Springuel, James Wilson, Robin Alden, Dana Morse, Catherine Schmitt, Chris Bartlett, Teresa Joihnson, Carla Guenther, Damian Brady

Geography

Facing challenges to the civic purpose of higher education, some scholars and administrators turn to the rhetoric of engagement. Simultaneously, the political philosophy of cosmopolitanism has gained intellectual favor, advocating openness to the lived experiences of distant others. We articulate linkages between these two discourses in an extended case study, finding that a cosmopolitan ethos of engagement in a rural context can improve (1) understanding among people ordinarily separated by spatialized social-ecological differences, (2) prospects for longer term environmental sustainability, and (3) the visionary potential of collaborative inquiry. Despite globalization of food systems and neoliberal shifts in fishery management, an …

The Importance Of Outdoor Activity And Place Attachment To Adolescent Development In Coös County, New Hampshire, Jayson Seaman, Sean R. Mclaughlin

Carsey Publications

This brief discusses the rates of participation in structured and unstructured outdoor activities as Coös County youth age, along with the relationship between outdoor activity involvement and indicators of place attachment throughout this period. The analysis is based on data collected between 2008 and 2013 as part of the Carsey Institute’s Panel Study of Coös County youth. Authors Jayson Seaman and Sean McLaughlin, who concentrate on a subsample of 222 youth who completed surveys in both eighth and twelfth grade, report that Coös County youth participated in outdoor activities at a rate 20 percent higher than national averages for youth …

Harvesting A Knowledge Commons: Collective Action, Transparency, And Innovation At The Portland Fish Exchange, Jennifer F. Brewer

Geography

While localist visions of alternative food systems advocate for the expansion of local ecological knowledge through more proximate producerconsumer relationships, globalized seafood supply-demand chains persist. Moving beyond this dichotomy, commons scholars recognize that collective action among resource users at the local level can shape cross-scalar producer relations with government and more capitalized firms operating in regional and global markets. In the case of the New England groundfishery, a quasi-public fish auction not only transformed the scalar, logistical, and financial parameters of harvester-buyer relationships, it altered the production and use of local knowledge among some harvesters, and their technological choices. Resulting …

Granite Staters Weigh In On Renewable Energy Versus Drilling: Environmental Quality Of Life Ranks High Across Party Lines, Lawrence C. Hamilton, Cameron P. Wake

Carsey Publications

Since the fall of 2001, the University of New Hampshire’s Survey Center has been conducting the Granite State Poll—a statewide, scientific survey of public opinion and behavior concerning policy issues—via telephone interviews with random samples of New Hampshire residents about four times each year. Starting in 2010, the poll began regularly including environmental topics among its mix of survey questions. In 2012, the environmental questions expanded to include non-climate topics, in connection with a new five-year project on Ecosystems and Society under the New Hampshire Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research. In this brief, authors Lawrence Hamilton and Cameron Wake …

Public Perceptions Of Environmental Management In The Puget Sound Region, Thomas G. Safford, Matthew Cutler, Megan M. Henly, Karma Norman, Phillip Levin

Carsey Publications

Using data from a phone survey of 1,980 Puget Sound residents conducted in 2012, this fact sheet describes public perceptions of different environmental interventions. Puget Sound residents widely support a range of proposed interventions designed to protect and restore the marine environment. These proposals include restricting boating and shipping activities to protect marine mammals such as killer whales and sea lions; more strongly enforcing existing environmental rules and regulations; spending government money to restore the environment for fish and wildlife; and providing tax credits to businesses that voluntarily reduce their environmental impact. Residents are divided about whether existing environmental regulations …

Urban-Rural Differences In Concern About The Environment And Jobs In The Puget Sound Region, Thomas G. Safford, Matthew Cutler, Megan M. Henly, Karma Norman, Phillip Levin

Carsey Publications

Using data from a phone survey of 1,980 Puget Sound residents conducted in 2012, this fact sheet examines the severity of different environmental problems and compares the strength of concern about the lack of jobs and beliefs about the environment. Too few jobs and the loss of wildlife habitat were the two community issues most likely to be ranked as important problems among residents of Puget Sound. Environmental concern is higher among urban than rural residents, while those in rural areas are more likely than urbanites to believe the lack of jobs is a threat to their community.

Read more …

Beliefs About Development Versus Environmental Tradeoffs In The Puget Sound Region, Thomas G. Safford, Matthew Cutler, Megan M. Henly, Karma Norman, Phillip Levin

Carsey Publications

Using data from a phone survey of 1,980 Puget Sound residents conducted in 2012, this fact sheet outlines residents’ views about the importance of environmental protection as well as their opinions about energy development, protection of wild salmon, and land use regulation. Seventy-four percent of Puget Sound residents believe that protecting the environment should be a priority even if it means limiting economic growth. The majority of residents favor both increased use of renewable energy (82 percent) and protecting wild salmon (75 percent). Residents are more divided about curbing development, with those from rural areas being more apt to prioritize …

Activism In The Gulf Coast After The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Sara Em Gassman

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Social Impact Of The Gulf Oil Disaster: Diverging Views From Communities In Florida And Louisiana, Jessica D. Ulrich

Carsey Publications

Carsey researchers surveyed over two thousand residents of the Gulf Coast following the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in 2010 to analyze their perception of the spill. Nearly one-half of all Gulf Coast residents perceived damage to the environment and wildlife as the most serious result of the oil spill. Perceptions regarding the impact of the spill reflect the different relationships to the oil economy in the two states--”Floridians are most concerned about effects on tourism and Louisianans on the fishing and oil industries. Louisianans were more than twice as likely as Floridians to think that their state and …

Paper Fish And Policy Conflict: Catch Shares And Ecosystem-Based Management In Maine’S Groundfishery, Jennifer F. Brewer

Geography

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration professes support for ecosystembased fisheries management, as mandated by Congress in the Fishery Conservation and Management Act, and as endorsed by the Obama Administration’s national ocean policy. Nonetheless, driving agency policies, including catch shares and fishing quotas, focus principally on individual species, diverting attention from ecosystem considerations such as habitat, migratory patterns, trophic relationships, fishing gear, and firmlevel decision making. Environmental non-governmental organization (ENGO) agendas manifest similar inconsistencies. A case study of Maine’s groundfishery demonstrates implications of this policy conflict at the local level. There, multigenerational fishing villages have historically pursued diversified and adaptive …

Affordable Heat: Lowering Vermont's Fuel Bills And Greenhouse Emissions, Richard Cowart

Carsey Publications

Policy Leadership Initiative Year III Addressing Energy Challenges for Low-income Families in Northern New England

Affordable Heat: A Whole-Buildings Efficiency Service For Vermont Families And Businesses, Richard Cowart, Richard Sedano, Frederick Weston, Brenda Hausauer

Carsey Publications

Policy Leadership Initiative Year III Addressing Energy Challenges for Low-income Families in Northern New England

Perceived Control, Voluntariness And Emotional Reactions In Relocated Areas Of Russia, Ukraine And Belarus, Carol Jeniffer Figueiredo, Britt-Marie Drottz-Sjöberg

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

[Excerpt] "The Chernobyl accident occurred at a time of considerable social and economic changes in the former Soviet Union. The contamination due to the accident still covers parts of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Some areas were considered too contaminated to suit long-term human settlement and a considerable number of people were therefore moved from their homes and resettled in other areas. Resettlement policies often differed between the states. Some variations in state policy included the duration before implementation of the decision to resettle people from certain areas, the swiftness of the transition, and the acceptance of personal initiatives in the …

Apprenticeship And Conservation Incentives, Robin Alden, Jennifer F. Brewer

Geography

Apprentice programs offer a method to encourage responsible individual behavior by laying the foundation for successful collective property rights. Apprenticeship has three purposes: to restrict the rate of entry, to affect the quality of the participant, and to create the conditions for collective action for sustainability. Apprenticeship could be an important fishery management tool, particularly in decentralized, adaptive management regimes that require ongoing, multi-party negotiation for success. It is not vocational training; instead it serves a public purpose: to create the conditions for stewardship and participation in management. This perception of collective property right mimics customary practice in some successful …

Risk And Recreation: Differences Due To Gender, Age And Education, Joanna Burger

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Dr. Burger explores the differences in risk perception due to gender, age and education with regard to recreation activities on former U.S. Government weapons test sites.

Fairness As Compassion: Towards A Less Unfair Facility Siting Policy, Benjamin Davy

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Dr. Davy argues that siting efforts fail because of perceived injustices and urges authorities to search more aggressively for ways to avoid injustice and to cope with the anguish of those who may be unavoidably shortchanged.

Procedural And Substantive Fairness In Landfill Siting: A Swiss Case Study, Ortwin Renn, Thomas Webler, Hans Kastenholz

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

The authors describe the design and implementation of a process for siting a landfill. They see it as an application of procedural equity expressed in discourse ethic philosophy - one that includes checks for competence and substantive fairness.

Risk Perception And Trust: Challenges For Facility Siting, Howard Kunreuther, Paul Slovic, Donald Macgregor

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

The authors maintain that, by granting legitimacy to different notions of fairness and building on common values such as responsibility, it is possible to design siting procedures that promote social cohesion, trust and a sense of fair play.