Full Description
Climate change and environmental degradation have intensified the pressures on crucial resources such as food and water security and air quality. In this collection, academic researchers and practitioners who have lived and worked in countries as geographically and culturally diverse as Brazil, China, India, Ghana, Palestine, Uganda and Venezuela draw on their wide-ranging international and inter-sectoral experience to offer valuable comparative insights into the relationship between research and evidence-based policy for sustaining natural resources. Their contributions provide a novel mix of disciplinary perspectives ranging across geography, ecology, social policy, the political economy, philosophy, international development, engineering technology, architecture and urban planning. They examine the institutions involved in generating and mediating evidence about the sustainability of natural resources in a changing environment, and the different methodologies employed in collecting and assessing evidence, informing policy and contributing to governance. The authors demonstrate not only that social science evidence on governance and policy implementation to sustain natural resources must complement natural science inputs, but also that local communities must be an integral part of any programme development.
This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Social Science.
Contents
Foreword 1. Sustaining natural resources in a changing environment: evidence, policy and impact 2. International water targets and national realities in Sub-Saharan Africa: the case of Uganda 3. Towards sustainable development: planning surface coal mine closures in India 4. The impact of urbanisation on land resources in Chongqing, China, 1997-2015 5. Negotiating transparency: NGOs and contentious politics of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative in Ghana 6. Gendered participation in community forest governance in India 7. Community empowerment in changing environments: creating value through food security 8. Environmental impact assessment: evidence-based policymaking in Brazil 9. Low carbon energy and international development: from research impact to policymaking
