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Revitalising the Waterside in a Community Context: The Experience of the Mersey Basin Campaign
No full textBook of abstracts : AESOP PhD workshop 1999, Finse, Depertment of Geography Univeristy of Bergen, NorwayIn the context of revitalising watersides, water, people, and their communities cannot be isolated each other. The waterside, the place where land and water meet, has always been vital in determining the amenity and quality of human settlements. The delivery of both economic and environmental sustainability to communities has been increasingly emphasised in waterside - related issues. However, revitalising watersides has been dominated by the concept of large-scale dockland regeneration hence ignoring community involvement.
In recent years, community involvement has been promoted as a key determinant in waterside - related issues in line with the principle of sustainability. It is now clear that revitalising waterside is a task not only for central government or local authorities, but also for all local partners, including private investors and local communities. Such an idea has stimulated the concept of a partnership approach in contemporary waterside revitalisation by recognising the need for integrated and holistic perspectives. However, it is recognised that there are operational difficulties in practice, partly because of traditional fragmentation and hierarchical approaches in environmental matters. It is important and timely to review the waterside partnership approach which encourages local populations to value their local waterside environments. By assessing a new generation of waterside partnership approach, the research aims to establish the best prospects of achieving good, long-term results in revitalising watersides.publishedVersio
Re-understanding Property Rights, Land Invasions and Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: The Case of Western Maranhao
No full textBook of abstracts : AESOP PhD workshop 1999, Finse, Depertment of Geography Univeristy of Bergen, NorwayThis research examines the main causes of agrarian land invasions and conflicts in the Brazilian Amazon frontier, and how, in some cases, these conflicts can become related to uncontrolled deforestation. Some of the literature has mentioned that insecure property rights over land are possible causes of land conflicts12 and deforestation.13 After analyzing the data and evidence that I have collected from my field research, I show how land invasions are caused not only by insecure property rights over land, but also by abrupt social changes and insecure property rights over timber, which result from the insecurity over land rights and poor enforcement of environmental regulations. In the case of Buriticupu, Brazil, the problems of insecure property rights over land and over timber, under certain social conditions, give incentives to land invasions and then deforestation.
The paper also takes a different look at the most common explanations of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The conventional wisdom in the literature generally assumes the process of deforestation and environmental degradation in the region are caused by independent private actors – construction companies, loggers, farmers, - stimulated by different government policies.publishedVersio
Interdependencies of Spatial Planning «in» and «for»Europe Effects of European spatial planning perspectives on the spatial planning systems of the Nordic countries especially at the regional planning level
No full textBook of abstracts : AESOP PhD workshop 1999, Finse, Depertment of Geography Univeristy of Bergen, NorwayA new catchword, as bright and promising as a rainbow, echoes in our circles: «European Spatial Planning». The term covers at least two different concepts. Ever since the first official draft of the «European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP)» was presented and adopted in Noordwijk (1997), European Spatial Planning has been mainly connected to the idea of planning for Europe. In addition, however, there is another conception, a bottom-up approach, on which the ESDP is based: European spatial planning also describes the variety and diversity of spatial planning concepts and systems within Europe.
In this contribution I will try to briefly examine the interrelationship between planning for Europe and planning in Europe, focusing on the Nordic countries and especially their regional planning level. The principal aim is to investigate, how different European spatial planning systems influence the spatial planning approach for Europe and vice versa. To facilitate discussion, I use a grouping of European national spatial planning systems into certain families, one of which covers the Nordic countries. In the first part of the paper I look at the question of families/groupings of spatial planning systems in Europe.
Proceeding from this to the main topic of this paper, the second part touches the question of the influence of the ESDP on the Nordic countries as manifest at the regional planning level. Since spatial planning is not included in the competence of the European Commission, the ESDP is designed as a bottom-up and not a top-down process. In fact, it is an inter-governmental approach adopted by the EU member states, although it has often be claimed that the ESDP is a product of French, German and Dutch planning thinking and planning traditions (Rusca 1998). Viewed from the perspective of planning families, this would mean that the ESDP rests on a mixture of Napoleonic and Germanic styles. If this is the case, what would this mean for planning in Europe, i.e. the bottom-up dynamics? Even more problematic s the reverse side of the coin: Would the top-down pressure strengthen harmonisation tendencies affecting other planning traditions in Europe?publishedVersio
Policy formation in rural development in the Netherlands
No full textBook of abstracts : AESOP PhD workshop 1999, Finse, Depertment of Geography Univeristy of Bergen, NorwayIn this abstract I will give an impression of my PhD-research project on policy formation in rural development. The nature of rural development and rural policy making has changed considerably, not only in the Netherlands, but throughout Europe. Underlying are changing demands placed on rural areas by society. In the next section I will give an image of the specific features of the development process in rural areas in the Netherlands and the policy problems at stake. I will proceed with the objectives of my PhD-research. These are followed by my research design combined with some central theoretical notions guiding my research. Finally, I will address a couple of methodological issues concerning my research project.
Rural policy change in the Netherlands
In rural areas in the Netherlands an important process of change is taking place. Both practices and policy arrangements in rural development differ considerably from the previous model for agriculture and rural areas based on the notion of modernisation. Until recently, Dutch society's main interest regarding the rural was agriculture's contribution to food security and gross national product. Rural development became almost synonymous to agricultural development. Now additional and partly substituting demands are placed on rural areas and agriculture. Rural areas are supposed to provide peace and quietness to weary city people and should offer attractive living surroundings for rural dwellers. The declining number of farmers should not only produce food as efficiently as possible; they also have to meet severe environmental, animal welfare and food quality standards. Furthermore, infrastructure, house construction and nature demands put an increasing pressure on rural space.publishedVersio