Protected areas have been an integral part of contemporary nature protection for about a century and a half. One of the most interesting protected area networks was designed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Here, we present a case study of the history of a particular state nature reserve (or zapovednik) in Kyrgyzstan, using key informant interviews and reviews of current and historical documents. We examine the management of this area from the time of its creation under Soviet rule, through the collapse of the USSR, to the present day. We also make policy recommendations for the future, given the profound changes in the post-Soviet economy and political structure. We conclude that the collapse of the USSR has inflicted numerous changes on the environmental protection sector in Kyrgyzstan, but that the Issyk-Kul Nature Reserve continues to be run according to the Soviet paradigm, with a few minor adjustments. Funding structures and mechanisms for the support of conservation and other environmental issues are of paramount importance in the changing economic climate and democratization throughout the former USSR. Our work can be used as a template for studying protected areas in the region and lays the groundwork for more comparative research that could be carried out in and around Kyrgyzstan's other protected areas and those in other republics of the former USSR.

The Laurentian Great Lakes represent the world's largest freshwater ecosystem and contain irreplaceable biodiversity. Lakewide Action and Management Plans (LAMPs) hold the highest potential for ecosystem management in the Great Lakes but have not specifically addressed biodiversity status or strategies for conservation. For four Great Lakes, recently completed biodiversity conservation strategies (blueprints) have assessed the status and threats to biodiversity and recommended strategies for conservation and restoration; a blueprint is under way also for Lake Superior. Here, we compare the completed blueprints and explore challenges to conservation planning for large ecosystems. We also assess whether earlier blueprints are being adopted and offer suggestions for more effective implementation. All of the blueprints focus on biodiversity in the lakes and coastal areas, and some include tributaries and migratory species. Biodiversity status was rated as fair (out of desirable range but restorable) in each lake, with some exceptions and considerable spatial variability. Aquatic invasive species ranked as a top threat to biodiversity in all four blueprints. Other highly ranked threats included incompatible development, climate change, terrestrial invasive species, dams and barriers, and non-point-source pollutants. The recommended strategies are characterized by six themes: coastal conservation, invasive species, connectivity and hydrology, fish restoration, nearshore water quality, and climate change. Each blueprint highlights high-priority strategies, but successful protection and restoration of Great Lakes biodiversity require revisiting these priorities in an adaptive approach.

Environmental Practice 15:462–480 (2013)

Although many environmental justice studies have examined disproportionate environmental burdens imposed on impoverished and minority neighborhoods, locational disparities of brownfields in terms of racial and socioeconomic factors have been underexplored. This study is assessed current racial and socioeconomic disparities at brownfield locations in the Detroit region, and we discuss why racial and socioeconomic disparities of brownfield locations exist. This study combines the locations of brownfields provided by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality with 2000 United States census data and the census block group as the unit of analysis. Results indicate that brownfields are disproportionately located in impoverished and minority neighborhoods. In addition, race is independently associated with brownfield locations. Connections among deindustrialization, concentration of poverty, and residential segregation can offer an explanation of why locational disparities of brownfields exist. Future studies should examine why racial and socioeconomic disparities exist at brownfield locations.

Environmental Practice 13:340–353 (2011)

In order to inform natural resource policy and land management decisions, landscape values mapping (LVM) is increasingly used to collect data about the meanings that people attach to places and the activities associated with those places. This type of mapping provides geographically referenced data on areas of high density of values or associated with different types of values. This article focuses on issues and challenges that commonly occur in LVM, drawing on lessons learned in the US Forest Service Olympic Peninsula Human Ecology Mapping Project. The discussion covers choosing a spatial scale for collecting data, creating the base map, developing data collection strategies, the use of ascribed versus assigned values, and the pros and cons of different mapping formats. Understanding the common issues and challenges in LVM will assist policy makers, land managers, and researchers in designing a LVM project that effectively balances project goals, time and budgetary constraints, and personnel resources in a way that ensures the most robust data and inclusive public participation.

Environmental Practice 16: 138–150 (2014)

Urban stormwater runoff rates are expected to intensify with climate change. Permeable surfaces, a low-impact development (LID) stormwater management technology, can be used to mitigate the impacts of urban stormwater runoff. Permeable surfaces have demonstrable benefits for use in northern climates, but widespread use requires greater recognition of this potential. This article reports on the multiple barriers associated with the installation of a permeable surface in single-family residences, along with the characteristics and incentives associated with early adopters. Results from standardized, self-administered mail-back questionnaires distributed within a Kitchener, Canada, community identified awareness, cost, and technological acceptance as permeable surface adoption barriers. Other results indicate that Kitchener residents possess the necessary characteristics to support permeable surface adoption once technical and economic barriers are resolved. This article contributes insights on barriers to LID urban stormwater management practices to both the academic and applied literatures.

Environmental Practice 16: 6–18 (2014)

To enable successful public participation in environmental decision making, practitioners need to know what works, but evaluation of proposed and existing processes is often lacking. We tested three tools for evaluation—focus groups, Q method, and surveys—at two contaminated sites with extensive public participation. Each tool is evaluated based on its requirements for implementation, the information it produces, and its acceptability to stakeholders. Which tool is most appropriate depends heavily on the available resources, what is happening at the site, and the evaluator's goals.

Environmental Practice 14:101–109 (2012)

Although administered from the top-down, China's environmental governance is characterized by decentralization, a feature that has been cited as the cause of poor implementation of policies at the local levels. To address this implementation gap, the central government in China has instituted environmental targets in its evaluation system of local leaders. However, the system of performance evaluation based on statistics and indicators has revealed problems of data and information abnormalities, falsification, and collusion between local officials to hide or misrepresent data. Little academic attention has been paid to sub-national institutions in place for data collection, reporting, and verification in China. This paper seeks to understand how institutions collect and transfer environmental data in China's vertical governance structure, as well as the challenges faced primarily by provincial Environmental Protection Bureaus (EPBs) to shed light on why discrepancies and gaps in environmental data might exist. Using data gathered from semi-structured interviews of environmental protection officials in nine provinces and two municipalities across China, this paper provides an analysis of environmental monitoring, reporting, and verification at primarily the provincial level. The consequences of a complex, decentralized environmental monitoring system in China has meant provincial environmental protection bureaus face a multitude of challenges, including a lack of institutional coordination, weak incentives for environmental performance evaluation, limited autonomy for enforcement, and varied capacity and public demand for improved information.

Environmental Practice 15:280–292 (2013)

There has been a rapid increase in knowledge regarding the importance of the external environment to our health. Eight characteristics of the outdoor environment (serene, wild, lush, spacious, the common, the pleasure garden, festive/centre, and culture) have been identified as fulfilling recreational needs through a number of environmental psychology studies carried out at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Alnarp, Sweden, between 1995 and 2005. The external environment has become an increasingly decisive factor in people's choices regarding where to live and work; the landscape has become a competitive factor in attempts made by companies and local authorities to attract well-educated, mobile manpower and housing. Knowledge-based companies predominate in the Öresund Region of Sweden and Denmark, which at present has substantial recreational values making it an attractive area in which to live and work. The region's annual population growth is approximately 20,000 to 25,000 inhabitants. The prime ministers of Sweden and Denmark have expressed a common objective that the Öresund Region be one of Europe's cleanest metropolitan regions. The objective of this article is to present methods for implementing the eight characteristics as indicators for impact assessment in planning projects. The article presents case studies of the application of environmental impact assessments in the municipalities of Malmö and Svedala, which are situated in the immediate vicinity of the Öresund Bridge. Development plans are being evaluated through impact assessment. Mitigation and compensation measures are being created to achieve the environmental quality goals defined by the eight characteristics. The case studies referred to in this article are in very early planning phases, either the feasibility or pre-feasibility phase. This article does not present complete investigations of balancing, but discusses some principal ways of defining values and suggests measures for mitigating and compensating for negative impacts on existing values.

Environmental Practice 9:206–217 (2007)

Elemental mercury is put to magico-religious uses, most problematically the sprinkling of mercury on floors of homes in Caribbean and Latino communities. Indoor mercury spills are persistent and release toxic levels of mercury vapor over long periods of time. Surveys in these communities have demonstrated widespread and large-scale mercury sales for ritualistic use, elevated mercury vapor levels in public hallways, increased amounts of mercury in wastewater, and elevated urine mercury levels in Latino children. Yet no clear connection has been drawn between ritualistic mercury use and these elevated levels, nor has any pathology been associated with such use. Social, political, and economic factors have acted to preclude advocacy for these affected communities, whose members are largely unaware of their mercury exposure (frequently secondhand) and of its adverse health effects. Without the political mandate to act, environmental agencies have not allocated the resources necessary for environmental professionals to assess and respond to this latent environmental health disaster. Steps to investigate and respond to this impending public health emergency are suggested, as presently there is no coordinated plan for assessing and remediating the tens of thousands of dwellings around the country likely to be contaminated with actionable levels of mercury vapor.

The state of brownfield remediation and rehabilitation approaches continues to advance significantly, particularly with respect to the types of brownfield technologies available for assessing and treating contaminants. However, largely absent is a structured means for integrating the objectives of multiple stakeholders (e.g., municipality, developer, regulator, community) comprehensively by using a classification method that can differentiate among the brownfields based on an overall suite of relevant characteristics—such as community issues, site characteristics, development potential, and financial viability—and analyze them categorically. Existing brownfield scoring schemes, ranking methods, and identification approaches that were developed in the past by various organizations can be used as classification mechanisms, but many of these systems are designed for a specific group of stakeholders or jurisdictions and cannot be used to evaluate situations outside their intended original use. Nevertheless, they provide useful starting points to consider what the desirable elements are within a comprehensive classification system. This article reviews 12 contemporary brownfield classification systems and analyzes their strengths and weaknesses. It concludes that the lack of a multidisciplinary approach in the development of the existing classification systems limits their use on a broader scale. Lastly, the article establishes the need for a broader multidisciplinary classification system that can serve as a basic framework for systematic decision making regarding brownfields.

Environmental Practice 11:285–300 (2009)

The notion of a brownfield brings to mind sites littered with the remains of past industrial activity: crumbling buildings, frozen machinery, and railroad tracks overgrown with weeds. To anybody interested in an area's history and cultural heritage, such sites can be potential treasures (Brown, 2001; Quivik, 2001). But to others, especially city officials struggling to maintain a solid tax base and neighbors worried about safety and property values, these sites are more likely to be seen as blights on the landscape, pieces of industrial property that have been used, discarded, and left for another generation to deal with (Jakle and Wilson, 1992). Unlike “greenfields,” vacant pieces of property that have never been developed, brownfields come with the risk of contamination and the costs of demolition and cleanup.

Many Chinese economic actors in Africa have come under harsh criticism for the alleged environmental impact of their activities. This impact is not always documented, is uneven across the continent, and should be compared to that of business actors from other countries—in particular from the OECD. One major factor accounts for the recorded differences: the policy and regulatory framework within which these business actors operate. The African weak state is not conducive to the adoption of robust standards and their subsequent implementation. However, the shift in Chinese policy at home on environmental issues is already producing some changes for the state-owned companies, and there is a growing concern in China's leading circles about the international image of the nation and its companies turning global.

Environmental Practice 15:220–227 (2013)

Sustainable development has become a central objective of policy worldwide. Although the term is widely used, there is little agreement on what it means in practice and how progress toward it can be measured. The European Commission, as part of its Programme on Competitive and Sustainable Growth, commissioned the SUMMA (SUstainable Mobility, policy Measures and Assessment) project. Among SUMMA's objectives were to define and operationalize the concept of sustainable transport and mobility in terms of its environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and to define outcome indicators from the transport system that can help policy makers monitor progress toward its achievement. To achieve these objectives, we used the systems approach, which identifies the interrelationships among the elements of a complex system and helps in the design of policies to steer the system toward sustainability. This article describes the first phase of the systems approach: the set of outcome indicators that we developed and how we defined the transport system in terms of three markets—a movement market, a transport market, and a traffic market—in which choices are made that result in traffic streams. The traffic streams determine the values of the outcome indicators, which can then be used to identify good policies. The approach is illustrated with examples from the SUMMA project.

Over the past century, both the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins have been economically and ecologically devastated by the establishment of self-sustaining populations of aquatic invasive species. In the Mississippi River basin, some of the most significant damage has been attributed to the presence of reproducing populations of Asian carp in the main waterway and its tributaries. The ability of this nonindigenous invasive fish to outcompete native fish for food and habitat has led to the widespread establishment of Asian carp in the Mississippi River, impacting the natural balance of the aquatic ecosystem. Stakeholders in the Great Lakes region are acutely aware of the destructive impacts that could result if Asian carp become established as self-sustaining populations in the Great Lakes ecosystem, and are particularly concerned with the risk of a potential interbasin exchange of Asian carp through the canals and waterways that connect the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds. A regional consensus has been emerging that ecological separation is the primary long-term solution needed to minimize the potential of a future invasion. However, underlying economic, environmental, social, and political realities raise a complex set of issues that must be addressed in the course of enacting this solution. Through an examination of Asian carp life cycle and behavior, current Asian carp management and prevention efforts, and the implications surrounding the potential invasion of Asian carp, this report explores the multifaceted problems posed by this highly aggressive nonindigenous invader. It also discusses the fundamental reasons why permanent and equitable measures are needed to minimize the potential for an interbasin transfer of all aquatic invasive species for every life stage between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins.

Environmental Practice 12:342–356 (2010)

Environmental hazards in the home can contribute significantly to disease. These hazards disproportionately affect low-income, urban, and minority children. Childhood lead poisoning and asthma are prime examples of health concerns to which poor housing conditions may contribute. A community-academic partnership in Rochester, New York, created a model Healthy Home, an interactive museum in a typical city home, to help residents, property owners, contractors, and community groups reduce environmental hazards. The Healthy Home project educates visitors about home environmental health hazards, demonstrates low-cost methods for reducing home hazards, and helps visitors develop individualized strategies for action. In its first year of operation, over 700 people visited the Healthy Home. Evaluation surveys indicate that the Healthy Home experience motivated visitors to take action to reduce environmental hazards in their homes. Follow-up phone interviews indicate that most visitors took some action to reduce home environmental hazards. The Healthy Home has established a diverse Advisory Council to share its messages more broadly, invite input into future directions, and recruit visitors. This article presents experiences from the Healthy Home's first year, highlighting the partnership principles that guided its development and lessons learned from the process.

Environmental Practice 10:94–106 (2008)

This article is about socio-cultural expertise and knowledge in the context of environmental hearings in Alberta, Canada, to determine whether or not new oil sands projects should be approved. It identifies serious problems with cultural assessments about potential impacts on Aboriginal peoples done by consultants for oil sands hearings in Alberta and proposes that consultants doing cultural assessments should have qualifications equivalent to those of expert witnesses for the courts. It also raises the concern that the review panel members who preside over such hearings and their staffs may also lack expertise in socio-cultural matters concerning Aboriginal people. Both gaps impact directly on the recommendations made by review panels to the governments that make final decisions.

Environmental Practice 18: 148–165 (2016)

In response to observed and projected changes in climate, efforts to promote climate change adaptation to key stakeholder groups have been rapidly increasing. To help us understand the perceptions of resource managers in the Great Lakes region, we conducted a Web-based survey. We asked respondents to define climate change adaptation and to provide examples of both feasible and current adaptation actions. Responses from 441 individuals indicate that many did not have a clear, proactive concept of climate change adaptation. Only 74% provided a definition, and, of those, only 43% described adaptation as a proactive process. Nearly one third (30%) gave purely reactive descriptions, and 27% failed to convey the concept of intentionally responding to climate change impacts; half of these described climate change mitigation or evolutionary adaptation. Examples of feasible actions covered a range of current conservation practices and some adaptation-specific ideas (e.g., research on potential species' range shifts, managed relocation of species), along with such actions as updates to infrastructure. In comparison to feasible actions, actions identified as under way were biased toward early stages in adaptation, such as science and planning, increasing awareness, and capacity building. We suggest that targeted outreach can help catalyze movement from early-stage actions toward implementation of change: collaborative work with stakeholders to refine and customize the concept of adaptation and develop visions of successful adaptation is vital to the long-term conservation of the Great Lakes ecosystem.

Environmental Practice 15:377–392 (2013)

In practice, building collaborative relationships between environmental groups and industry is not an easy task during environmental rulemaking. However, this article uses original interview data to document a different perspective from agency officials and stakeholders across two case studies within the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ): the renewable fuels standard and the locomotive and marine engine rule. This article argues that OTAQ used a new approach, shuttle diplomacy, in these particular cases to negotiate stakeholder differences prior to publication of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. The findings from these interviews suggest that the intent of this rule development approach is to provide an atmosphere where stakeholders begin to trust in the process because they are helping to create it.

Environmental Practice 13:1–8 (2011)

Public participation in natural resource management has been described as paradoxical: citizens want the best science to guide natural resource management decisions, but not to the exclusion of their input; agencies want meaningful citizen involvement in their management decisions, but they also want citizens to trust their scientific expertise. As a result, many studies have focused on developing criteria for designing successful participatory processes. Rather than definitive guidelines, however, studies to date typically indicate broad rules of thumb, which may differ in situation-specific application depending on political and historical context. These observations suggest the need to identify contextual elements that influence the varying success of participatory process designs. One such element is the degree of understanding, or coorientation, between stakeholders and managers. This article expands the concept of coorientation to “coorientation contexts” to describe the real and/or incorrectly perceived barriers and opportunities for communication between natural resource managers and stakeholders. Examining participation philosophies and corresponding techniques reveals that certain types of communication are better suited to certain coorientation contexts. Tailoring participation strategies to the appropriate coorientation context throughout the evolution of public issues, i.e., “matching the forum to the fuss,” may ultimately result in more informed, equitable, and sustainable management decisions. Future empirical testing of this approach may improve natural resource managers' abilities to navigate successfully the paradox of public involvement in natural resource management.

Environmental Practice 9:195–205 (2007)