Although agri-environmental policies represent only a small part of the agricultural support system, they symbolise a major change in the direction of government policy. Consequently, the move from supporting farmers for food production to supporting them for looking after the environment, involves a significant change in the culture of farming. In this thesis, the way farmers gave meaning to the changes occurring in agriculture, and to the growing importance of conservation issues, was considered. An actor-oriented approach was used to theorise farmers' interpretations of the situation in agriculture. This approach acknowledged individuals as knowing, active subjects directing their lives, but the importance of external conditions in facilitating and constraining farmers' choices and interpretations was recognised. The research was carried out in southern Scotland, where farmers' perceptions of changing agriculture, in the light of the designation of the Southern Uplands Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) scheme, were examined. In-depth, qualitative interviews with farmers were the main source of data. Major themes in farmers' interpretations of the situation in agriculture were the uncertainty and growing bureaucracy in farming. Additionally, many farmers felt they were increasingly dependent on, and controlled by, the government. The changing role of farmers in society was of interest; many felt that the status of farmers had declined. Whereas previously the public depended on them for food production, now farmers were reliant on public support. Farmers' construction of conservation, their views of Nature, and the meanings they attached to conservation activities, were examined. Their perceptions of conservationists were found to influence interpretations of conservation.

Aviation is at a turning point. Considerable improvements in aircraft emissions efficiencies are expected through technological improvements, air traffic management, and managerial strategies. But global demand for air travel is increasing at an even faster rate. Mostly for political reasons, aviation has been left behind in international efforts to tackle climate change. However, increasing pressure is on the industry for immediate action, thus making further delays impossible. / This thesis is an attempt to determine the best possible course of action for the industry. To this end, it begins by assessing contemporary understanding of aviation's impact on the environment, and provides an overview of efforts being made toward reducing aircraft emissions. It then examines various policymaking tools available to best address the issue, concluding with an emissions trading system. Finally, design characteristics of such a system are suggested, and used to provide an analysis of the European attempt to include aviation into its own emissions trading system.

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) was introduced to inform decision-makers of the potential environmental effects of the decision before them. It has been adopted worldwide and functions as one of the primary instruments for taking account of environmental consequences in project approval decision-making. To date, there has been very little systematic investigation that explores whether the decision-makers for whom the EIA information is produced actually use it, although there are indications that EIA information is not always effective in influencing decisions. This thesis examines how, and indeed if, environmental effects information influences the decision-making processes for which it is produced, and which factors determine the use of this information. Three main areas of concern are identified and investigated: the responses of individual decision-makers to environmental effects information; the characteristics of the effects information that influence these responses; and the processes by which the effects information is dealt with. At the core of the methodology employed for this research is the development of an exploratory model of EIA-based decision-making. This model builds on the insights into decision processes from a variety of disciplines, including psychology and planning. To test the utility of the model, it is evaluated against the New Zealand system of resource consent approval decision-making under the Resource Management Act, by means of case studies. Through interviews, direct observation, and analysis of written documents the decision processes in these cases are analysed. These techniques have been augmented by psychosocial methods that allow further probing into the decision processes that takes place in a decision-maker�s head. The research results show that the effort that is spent on the preparation of EIA reports and the improvement of EIA processes is not wasted. The EIA information clearly influences the decision processes for which it is intended but it is not influencing decisions optimally. EIA information often competes with information on environmental effects from other sources that is of higher quality, more credible, or better tailored to the decision-makers� information needs. A number of ways in which the use of EIA information could be enhanced is explored in this thesis. Foremost, the improvement of the effectiveness of EIA requires a wider adoption of a decision-making perspective on EIA, and a broader recognition of the information needs of the different decision processes for which EIA is prepared.

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The concept of sustainable development is increasingly common within international and national policy documents. Operationalising this concept has however proven to be problematic. The dissertation presents an explanatory model, which identifies that while economic factors are important within decision-making, ethical motivations are also changing the way firms operate. In response to a collective expression of environmentalism within society, government and industry, and proactive firms have begun incorporating sustainable development into decision-making. However, the organisational change necessary to implement these measures is identified as a complex process, dependant upon a strong organisational culture. Tourism agencies support the concept of sustainable development, citing a symbiotic relationship between product quality and the environment. However, with tourism numbers projected to double within the next 20 years, some question Australia’s capacity to maintain enduring environmental quality and to service the infrastructure demands of residents and tourists. To date, policy preference has predominantly focused on self-regulatory mechanisms that produce cost reductions and have promoted market driven corporate responsibility. While these factors have influenced proactive firms, within tourism accommodation this is generally not the case. This is due to the perception that sustainable practice impinges upon guest satisfaction and that evidence of a green consumer is yet to be identified and quantified in this highly competitive and price sensitive sector. The multi-disciplinary, mixed method inquiry process used in this study, employing quantitative and qualitative methods, provided rich data that supports the ethical and organisational propositions within the model. The study proposes that mechanisms designed in concert with critical sector issues are more likely to result in the development of effective policy to improve environmental performance. With accommodation properties tending to be either small or large multi-nationals, it was found that drivers are not consistent over property type, given differing decision-making frameworks. In addition, there was evidence of a lack of awareness of the environmental consequences of tourism and of practices to improve environmental outcomes. It is proposed, that incorporating the concept of environmental quality into existing service quality frameworks, currently supported by strong organisational cultures, are likely to moderate knowledge and performance deficiencies identified within the study.

Questions of uncertainty and value conflict are increasingly pervasive challenges confronting policy makers seeking to address the range of environmental problems generated by contemporary technological systems. Yet these questions are ultimately political and moral in nature, and require a framework of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) that is marked by informed and democratic civic governance. Reflecting this, the original, civic purposes of environmental assessment (EA) embraced science and public participation as interdependent elements in the creation of more sustaining forms of human-nature interaction. However, formal models of EA have forsaken meaningful democratic engagement to technique. Based on the instrumentalist assumption that better science automatically leads to better policy, EA has externalised the civic source of political energy that underpins its environmental expertise. Moreover, debates become polarised when science is uncritically imported into the adversarial forums of interest-based politics,so that environmental science is increasingly unable to support political action. I shall argue that the revolutionary potential of SEA to transform the policy process rests upon a recovery of its original, civic purposes. My thesis is that a deeper understanding of the relationship between scientific knowledge and political action is required if SEA is to be rigorous, and also relevant to public concerns. Philosophical pragmatism contributes epistemological resources vital to this task. By situating knowledge in the context of practice, and by recognising the dialogical, judgmental nature of rationality, the practical philosophy of pragmatism reclaims the contextually embedded nature of inquiry. When science is embedded in a wider ethical context, the meaning and purposes of environmental knowledge become central questions of policy. The procedural ethics of both liberal and Habermasian politics cannot address these questions, however, because they relegate questions of the public good to the realm of individual choice. Instead, I argue that public dialogue, guided by a praxisoriented virtue ethics, is required to recover objective environmental goods in the policy process. I also argue that Aristotlean rhetoric, with its focus on the credibility of expertise, is the mode of persuasive argument most appropriate for dialogical public forums. The public philosophy of civic environmental pragmatism is therefore presented as a richer theoretical framework for understanding the contribution of both experts and citizens in the development of environmental knowledge for policy. As a dialogical framework for SEA, civic environmental pragmatism constructively combines the critical/normative and instrumental/descriptive aspects of policy inquiry, both of which are required in the development of socially robust knowledge and politically feasible policy decisions.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2007. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 171-179). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on January 15, 2008) Includes bibliographical references.