Rather than conceptualizing governance in terms of discrete instruments (such as certification schemes or public-private partnerships) we start from the assumption that environmental governance (connecting various levels and scales of governing) constitutes a complex system in itself.
Below an overview
This COST Action aims to build a global transdisciplinary network of scientific experts and engaged stakeholders in the field of salinity research in the context of food security, sustainability and the intensifying climate crisis. Our activities will focus on: (i) understanding responses to heterogeneous soil salinity and other combined stresses in the soil-rhizosphere-plant continuum; (ii) building a knowledge-base to improve water and soil management, and crop production on salt-affected lands; (iii) showcasing the total value of salt-affected lands and saline landscapes; (iv) connecting various stakeholders involved in saline agriculture; and (v) developing targeted policy frameworks for the proper salinisation management, bringing saline agriculture as a complementary component in the European food security agenda for coastal and inland salt-affected lands. Mutual knowledge exchange and sharing best practices will contribute to more sustainable use of salt-affected lands and enhance the resilience of the landscape as a whole.
This study was conducted in collaboration with Università degli Studi di Firenze, Eötvös Loránd University, National Research Council of Italy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, University of East Sarajevo, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Copernicus University, Lancaster University, Agricultural University of Tirana, University of Novi Sad, University of Gothenburg, SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University, Centre of Biotechnolgy of Borj Cedria and more.
Contact information: Dr Kate Negacz
For more information, please visit the sites https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA22144/ and https://sustaincostaction.eu/
Eastern Africa faces severe agricultural challenges as a consequence of soil and water salinisation. Due to its long coastline, the effects of salinity are particularly severe in Mozambique, and excessive land clearing is exacerbating the degradation of the land. While initial efforts on Saline Agriculture have focused on classical approaches such as crop salt tolerance and improved soil/water management, there is a pressing need for more comprehensive solutions, harnessing the whole spectrum of agroecological management solutions adapted to salt-affected agricultural systems. At the same time, despite the severity of the salinity problem, Mozambique still lacks a consistent institutional approach to address the issue (including policy, education and research).
CARE addresses the knowledge and skills challenges within SEKU by providing targeted training and equipping the organization with the necessary expertise and resources. This program can enhance our understanding and capabilities in implementing saline agriculture for climate- and water-smart practices. CARE focuses on the following points:
By addressing these knowledge and skills gaps through CARE, SEKU can strengthen its overall functioning in saline agriculture and become a centre of excellence for research, training, and outreach activities in creating and implementing resilient farming systems for salt-affected crops.
This study is conducted in collaboration with Delphy, SEKU, The Salt Doctors and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Contact information: Dr Kate Negacz
With new networks established and global actions such as the Saline Water & Food System Partnership and the Global Campaign on Salinisation, the awareness of saline agriculture is increasing but more research is needed in the arid and semi-arid areas with salinised groundwater, especially in the Sub-Saharan Africa. The potentially saline groundwater affects food production but the extent and location of this problem is currently unknown. Additionally, saline initiatives in Sub-Saharan African countries have not been mapped yet.
Governance for biodiversity has expanded beyond the multilateral negotiations in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). A recent report, ‘Beyond the CBD: Exploring the institutional landscape of governing for biodiversity‘, identifies 108 international and transnational cooperative initiatives with relevance for biodiversity. The initiatives operate outside the auspices of the CBD, engaging nearly 10,000 non-state (e.g. companies and non-governmental organizations) and sub-national (e.g. cities and regions) actors, in various biodiversity-related policy fields such as energy, fisheries, agriculture and forestry.
Scientists today see mounting evidence that the entire earth system now operates well outside safe boundaries. According to a recent scientific assessment of the international Earth System Governance Project, human societies must change course and steer away from critical tipping points that might lead to rapid and irreversible change, while ensuring sustainable livelihoods for all. This requires a fundamental transformation in current patterns of consumption and production.
Governance and institutions are increasingly becoming a central concern within the more quantitatively oriented modelling and scenarios community. In order to understand the effectiveness of institutions in steering society and the international system at large towards sustainability, a number of approaches have been developed within International Relations and global environmental governance research, that potentially can be integrated into the on-going attempts to model political developments and interventions. The quest for integration of social science research into more formalized methodologies such as modelling, computer simulation and scenario development represents one of the cutting-edge research frontiers in sustainability politics. The research project involves a two-step methodology, which is based on the idea of institutional diagnostics. In the first step, the key features of the issue and the issue-area will be identified as clearly and sharply as possible. The second step deals with defining the nature of the institutional arrangements needed to mitigate the problem in question or to find ways to adapt to its impacts. The key challenge is to formalize the aforementioned qualitative factors, through quantitative techniques, such as computer based modelling.
Contact information: Prof. P.H. Pattberg.
W11-005 PBL Background 10June2011 FINAL.pdf
W11-003 PBL Biodiversity 10June2011 FINAL.pdf
Multi-stakeholder partnerships have become a much applied new mechanism in global environmental governance. At the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development the idea of multi-sectoral partnerships was taken to the intergovernmental stage — with the so-called Partnerships for Sustainable Development presented as an official outcome of the summit. These partnerships usually bring together governments, non-governmental organisations and the private sector; in contrast to the traditional outcomes of international summits such as intergovernmental treaties or declarations. Thus far, more than 300 partnerships have been formally registered with the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development.
This offers the opportunity for new, extensive, and comparable empirical research as well as renewed theoretical insight. The PARTNERS project hosted by the Department of Environmental Policy Analysis at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is interested in three interrelated questions: first, under what conditions did partnership arrangements emerge in global environmental politics? Second, how do they influence global environmental politics? And finally, how do partnerships perform in terms of democratic legitimacy and accountability or transform these concepts? To answer these questions, the research project developed a methodological approach that brings together quantitative and qualitative elements. The quantitative part consists of the Global Sustainability Partnerships Database (GSPD) which profiles the partnerships regime in the sphere of United Nations, as well as structured surveys that reflect the assessment of different sectors on the influence of partnerships. The qualitative part includes in-depth qualitative case studies, semi-structured interviews, as well as text and discourse analyses.
The project is now focusing further on two specific areas of investigation. Discourses around the Partnerships for Sustainable Development, specifically the discourses of privatisation of governance, sustainable development, and participatory democracy, are analysed from a historical, post-structuralist perspective. Also in-depth studies are conducted on partnerships in the Asian, in particular Chinese, context; in collaboration with the EU Science and Technology Fellowship Programme in China (STF-China) and the Renmin University in Beijing.
Contact information: Prof. Philipp Pattberg.
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