Local environment

An international concern with climate change has prompted a political commitment to the use of renewable energies. Yet, the operationalization and management of this political objective may be frustrated at the local level, where, it is suggested, an implementation impasse exists. This paper reports on a case study that examines the planning issues around the harvesting of wind at an

Understanding nature as an outcome of organising discourses generated through relative experiences of our surroundings has been the groundwork of a political ecology that deals with the distribution of environmental justice among people with different degrees of power. In this paper, we examine how the environmental legislation and the tourism industry have constructed the term Caiçara as a way to categorise the inhabitants of the Atlantic Forest Coast of Brazil, in ways that meet their goals, but in turn occludes the discourse of the Caiçara themselves. Ethnographic research conducted in Ponta Negra, a small coastal community located at the heart of the Juatinga Ecological Reserve (Paraty, Rio de Janeiro State), as well as a review of key legislation, management plans and tourism materials form the empirical basis of this research. First, we offer a critical examination of the historical origin of the term Caiçara. We then compare contradictory ideas of Caiçara produced by Brazilian environmental legislation and the tourism industry. While the environmental legislation has characterised the Caiçara as fallen angels who are no longer conservation allies, the tourism industry has profited by selling them as ecologically noble savages who still live in harmony with the environment. Our analysis shows how Ponta Negra people have become objects of powerful discourses of nature that hinder the recognition of their collective rights and weaken their position to negotiate for their own desires and aspirations related to their identity and livelihoods.

Sustainable development is now widely accepted as a policy framework in planning and development both internationally and in South Africa. Within this framework, technocentric scientific approaches to environmental management, which are reflective of weak ecological modernization, have dominated environmental practice both in the developed and developing world. South Africa is a country in transition and as a result environmental law and policy have undergone significant reform. However, implementation and practice remains embedded within a weak ecological modernization approach. Through the lens of two case studies reflecting changing approaches and practices within state institutions, this paper explores the shifts taking place in the construction, adaptation and application of policy frameworks and tools used in the drive towards sustainability in South Africa. The research uses critical approaches to ecological modernization (Hajer, 1995; Christoff, 1996) and deliberative policy analysis (Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003; Hajer, 2003, 2003; Hajer, 2004) to explore these shifts. It suggests that the shift towards strong ecological modernization has taken place as a result of the adaptation of international practice to the South Africa context, the global acceptance of more integrated approaches, the opportunities for change that ‘institutional ambiguity’ and ‘multi-signification’ create, and pockets of innovation that have developed when intellectual actors shift the boundaries of environmental practice.

This paper discusses how food mapping was used to introduce Industrial Design and Landscape Architecture students to the important issues of food security and sustainability in urban design. It is based on the experiences of teachers and students in an undergraduate course, “Meals in Metropolis”, at the RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Students were introduced to concepts such as localism, diversity, food security, resilience, innovation and integration. Three outcomes were produced; food chain maps, neighbourhood food maps, and redesign posters, which applied an ecological systems perspective to redesign current urban agriculture models of production. The paper has two outcomes: (1) the demonstrated uptake of new knowledge by the students and (2) the contribution of new knowledge to the Melbourne food movement. Together, these outcomes reveal an emerging landscape of innovative food production within Melbourne that could manifest into a more resilient, distributed urban food system.

Ideally towns and cities should be the place where children and youth can socialise, observe and learn about how society functions and contribute to the cultural fabric of a community.
They should also be sites where they find refuge, discover nature and find tolerant and caring adults who support them. Positive examples of children’s authentic participation and social
mobilisation in creating better cities around the world are beginning to emerge – it is important these stories are shared and used as models of good practice. This special issue provides some new ways of thinking about children, youth and sustainable cities.

This paper develops theoretical insight from the rapid development of the coastal town of Bluffton, South Carolina. Bluffton has experienced rapid growth and development over the past 15 years, associated with the amenity-based migration of tourists, second homeowners, and retirees. The local management strategies that dominate regional development often project visions of coastal growth around the possibility of healthy environments and strong economies. The debates around these strategies have centred on the sustainability of development and environmental change, and have contributed to the production of amenity-based landscapes. However, I argue that these debates enforce normative ideals for “good” and “bad” development, which materially and discursively reinforce forms of inequality on the landscape. In particular, this paper will show how contrasts between new development projects and existing communities normalise certain city-building strategies that obscure, or even legitimise, race and class inequalities. Consideration of development/environment debates and the landscapes they help to produce provide an opportunity to envision an alternative future that emphasises social and ecological justice.

This paper investigates the emergence of the urban gardening movement as a form of post-environmentalist political practice. Despite the general acknowledgment of the relevance of environmental issues in the contemporary world, according to Post-Environmentalism, environmental thinking is becoming increasingly “de-politicised”. The aim of the paper is to suggest that “re-politicisation” of environmental politics is possible, taking into account the political practices emerging in urban space. The attachment to place materiality can, by means of common practices, make evident forgotten or ignored environmental relations; and it can make them a “public issue”. These kinds of practices relay upon the association of humans and non-humans, as crucial actors in the political constitution of urban space. For instance, critical urban gardening practice may oppose the mainstream of environmental politics; it implies the use of biological material as a form of political expression, and activates material-semiotic networks existing in the urban environment.

... of discriminatory environmental decision making, factors such as poverty, housing discrimination and the location of jobs, transportation and other ... Case Studies The material for this article is based on three communities that have fi led Title VI environmental justice complaints. ...

This article brings to light one aspect of alternative agri-food practices by exploring the values and meanings domestic food producers associate with their actions, thereby making a small contribution to increasing understanding of the act of urban backyard food production. While Australian backyards have long been productive spaces, there has been little examination of this phenomenon in the Australian context. Limited quantitative data give some insight into the extent of domestic production, and while there is an increasing interest in certain aspects of the local food system, including community gardens and farmers markets, there is a dearth of literature that explores the contemporary act of domestic production. This work seeks to situate the act of domestic production within the broader movement calling for change within the global food system, particularly that being articulated by the food sovereignty movement. Drawing on Gibson–Graham's diverse economies framework, and through interviews with eight domestic food producers in one Australian city, this work finds that the act of growing food at home offers space for hope – where small acts can be seen as part of the broader food sovereignty movement seeking to remake our food system.

There is growing recognition of the importance of women’s empowerment in its own right and for a range of development outcomes, but less understanding of what empowerment means to rural women and men. The challenge of measuring empowerment, particularly across cultures and contexts, is also garnering attention. This paper synthesizes qualitative research conducted conjointly with quantitative surveys, working with eight agricultural development projects in eight countries, to develop a project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI). The qualitative research sought to identify emic meanings of “empowerment,†validate the domains and indicators of the quantitative index, provide greater understanding of the context of each project and of strategies for facilitating empowerment, and test a methodology for integrating emic perspectives of empowerment with standardized etic measures that allow for comparability across contexts.