In this study a field study on the implementation of the United Nations Convention on Combating Desertification (UNCCD) in Tigray, Ethiopia has been carried out. The objective of this thesis is to study in general the implementa-tion of the UNCCD in Ethiopia. This thesis consequently focuses on how these issues are executed in practice at different levels, thus national, regional, district and community levels. However the focus is on some of the highly prioritised action programs that are presumed to facilitate the implementation of the UNCCD, which are the Action Programs for promoting awareness and participation, Action programs to improve institutional organisation and ca-pacity as well as Action program for empowerment of women. These action programs are studied in how they are presented at the National Action Plan (NAP) and Regional Action Plan (RAP) as well as how they are executed at different levels, i.e. at the Federal, Regional, district and Community levels. For this purpose the region of Tigray is chosen. The result of this study shows that the vast majority of the respondents in the study areas indicated an awareness of desertification in regard to land degradation. The implementation of NAP at this stage, hasn’t reach all the regions around the country however, three regions in Ethiopia, thus the Afar, Tigray and Amhara regions have been chosen as pilot projects in attempt to implement the NAP at regional level and preparation are made to implement the con-vention at different community levels. Officially these regions have been chosen to launch pilot projects since they are situated in the dryland areas and they match the definition of the UNCCD for severely affected areas. At the re-gional level several pilot projects mainly conservation activities that involved the community members are launched in different parts of Tigray. Many opportunities to increase awareness of the land degradation and empower people are created in order to combat desertification, however the success of these activities varies from district to district and community to community and is dependent on the authorities’ intention, ambition, determination and interest as well as the relation they posses with the community members in the society.

Hair care is a hygienic treatment and is supervised by the Local Environment and Public Health Committee in the municipality. According to the Swedish Environmental Code, hairdressers as all practitioners are required to take measurements to protect the environment and public health. In hygienic treatments hazards may arise from inadequate hygiene practice which spread infection. Hazards may also arise from the use of hair care products such as permanent wave solutions, bleaches and hair dyes. Some hair dye components are known to cause contact allergy, mostly in hair dressers who are exposed professionally but also in some cases in consumers. Bleaches increase the risk of occupational asthma in hairdressers. Some studies have shown an increased risk of cancer in hairdressers and possibly also in consumers. The use of cosmetic and hygienic products also affects the environment. Some components, e.g. surfactants, are hazardous to aquatic organisms, even though the contribution from hair care products is relatively small. Some hairdressers perform ear piercing. All activities that penetrate the skin involve a risk of infection. There is also a risk of developing a nickel allergy if the earrings are not nickel free. In Sweden, due to recently changed legislation, hairdressers no longer need to notify the Local Environment and Public Health Committee before starting a practice. The changes also mean that the rules about documentation of the measurements practitioners need to take to protect public health are less clear. The changes have made the supervision of hairdressers harder for the Local Environment and Public Health Committee.

This thesis looks at the current fracking debate on a national scale, before focusing specifically on how this debate is playing out in the landscape of Central Arkansas. Focusing on the lack of national regulation, the unique array of state regulations that have popped up are assessed in their effectiveness on the ground through speaking with residents of the area. The demographics of these residents are analyzed within an assessment of environmental injustice vulnerability. This ethnographic approach also compares the de jure v. de facto outcomes of these regulations through the narratives of residents working with organizations across the political spectrum, and specifically seeks to gauge their own personal stories and experiences with regulators and the fracking industry. Other key actors are identified. This thesis concludes that agency capture is a reality for these residents, and their perceived powerlessness drastically increases the power of the gas companies that monopolize the political agenda in the region.

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

This dissertation analyses the implications of international investment law on host states’ legal ability to protect the environment, regulate sustainable use of natural resources, and develop new approaches to manage environmental risks and uncertainties. ‘Environmental policy space’ is found to be a useful term when exploring the regulatory autonomy in this context. On one hand, investment law aims to ensure stability of the investment environment. On the other hand, environmental law needs flexibility to react to the degradation of the environment. It is found that those different aims do not have to be in conflict. There are useful mechanisms in national environmental law which provide for accessible, transparent and predictable decisions for the private actor. These mechanisms can fulfill the aim of stability in investment law. It is, however, concluded that core provisions of international investment treaties risk to put constraints to environmental law in a variety of ways. To diminish these risks, states, when concluding investment treaties, should make clear that constraining environmental regulation is not compatible with the overarching aim of sustainable development. Furthermore, the interpretation of provisions of investment protection must respect principles and instruments of environmental law not to continue being unbalanced towards investor interests. It is also concluded that allowing for investor – state arbitration, without the investor exhausting local remedies, will ignore the important national administrative review system of public environmental measures.

Street trees are an important component of the urban forest that can provide direct and indirect benefits to social and ecological sustainability in cities. Temporal and spatial interactions between human and non-human management agents determine the distribution and health of street tree populations in urban areas. This dissertation seeks to enhance our understanding of the spatial patterns and processes affecting street trees by investigating the agents and social-ecological determinants of changes to street tree distributions in urban residential neighborhoods. The research was guided by three primary questions: (1) Are recent changes to the spatial distribution of street trees influenced by socio-demographic household and neighborhood characteristics? (2) Which management agents are the strongest predictors of recent changes to street tree distributions and does the contribution of these agents vary in relationship to social-ecological patterns within a city? (3) To what extent are household street tree management decisions related to the built and bioecological material characteristics of the public right-of-way? These questions were investigated in a case study that examined street tree management and public right-of-way (PROW) canopy change associated with single-family residential areas in and near the City of Tampa, Florida. The methodological approach employed a multi-method design using a conceptual framework developed to capture the complexity of management within human ecosystems. Urban remote sensing and spatial analytical techniques were used to examine the geographic association between patterns of street tree change and socio-demographic characteristics. Household survey techniques were utilized to examine the determinants of street tree management; specifically planting, removal, and trimming. Interviews with key informants familiar with urban forest management provided additional insights to complement the location specific knowledge of household survey respondents. Street tree change was examined for the period of 2003 to 2006, and information about household management actions also included recent years (i.e., 2009-2011). A citywide pattern of street tree increases was disproportionately distributed with respect to socioeconomic status; with greater increases in affluent neighborhoods. Patterns of change within local portions of the study area revealed significant and spatially variable relationships with socioeconomic status, as well as race/ethnicity variables and indicators of lifestyle differences. The findings suggest that the citywide pattern of change associated with socioeconomic status may perpetuate an inequitable outcome in the distribution of street trees at the expense of less affluent neighborhoods. The local patterns of change indicate that the processes driving street tree distributions may also reflect differences in attitudes toward trees. The case study did not find sufficient evidence to link the actions of individual agents with street tree change. Street tree increases were more likely in areas where tree trimming had been reported and where property market values were greater, but less likely in PROW segments with overhead power lines. Households, public agencies and builders, but not neighborhoods, were the primary human street tree management agents. Past and ongoing land development and redevelopment decisions, including the configuration of PROW infrastructures, may be one of the most important factors affecting patterns of street tree change. Landscape decisions and practices influenced by household and neighborhood group dynamics also appear to be important factors affecting street tree change. Damages caused by storm event and differences in tree species lifecycle characteristics represent important non-human agents of street tree change. The findings indicated that public agencies are not the only managers of street trees and household tree management does not stop at the boundary of private property. There was no evidence of a relationship between household management actions and the material conditions of the PROW. However, there was a relationship between the presence of either power lines or sidewalks and household survey responses about who should bear responsibility for street tree management and the liability. Household respondents expressed an increased sense of personal responsibility for street tree management when a sidewalk was in front of their home. This dissertation addressed an important gap in understanding about the factors driving street tree change. Planting, removal, and trimming of street trees in Tampa is a shared responsibility with complex spatial patterns and multi-scalar drivers. An important conclusion is that the sustainability of street tree populations within the urban forest will require urban planners and managers to better understand how these management agents cooperate if they are to promote healthy, safe and beneficial street tree populations as a part of the urban forest.

Verslo teisės magistro baigiamojo darbo tema yra aktuali analizuojant žemės teisinio reglamentavimo Lietuvoje problemas. Žemės teisinė apsauga apima žemės ir aplinkos teisės šakų normas (tarptautiniu, Europos Sąjungos ir nacionaliniu lygiu), todėl darbe stengiamasi išsiaiškinti žemės teisinės apsaugos sistemą, jos ypatumus, taikymą ir kylančias problemas. Darbe analizuojamas Lietuvos teisės aktų atitikimas tarptautinei ir Europos Sąjungos teisei, apžvelgiama teismų praktika su žemės teisine apsauga susijusiose bylose. Darbo uždaviniai: 1. Remiantis Lietuvos Respublikos ir užsienio šalių teisės norminiais aktais bei moksline literatūra pateikti žemės teisinės apsaugos sampratą; 2. Atlikti žemės ir aplinkos teisės, kaip atskirų teisės šakų, reglamentuojančių žemės teisinę apsaugą, išskyrimo analizę; 3. Išanalizuoti teisės aktų, reglamentuojančių žemės teisinę apsaugą, sistemą bei pateikti jos vertinimą; 4. Atlikti žemės teisinės apsaugos įgyvendinimo Lietuvos Respublikos teismų praktikoje analizę. Darbo struktūrą sudaro trys dalys: pirmoje – formuluojama žemės teisinės apsaugos sąvoka; antroje - išanalizuotas žemės teisinės apsaugos reglamentavimas tarptautinėje teisėje, Europos Sąjungoje ir Lietuvoje; trečioje – pateikiama teismų praktikos žemės teisinės apsaugos klausimais analizė. Magistro baigiamajame darbe analizuojami ir sisteminami pagrindiniai tarptautinės aplinkos teisės principai, Europos Sąjungos ir Lietuvos Respublikos teisės aktai, įtvirtinantys žemės teisinę... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The topic of the master’s work in business law is relevant for analysis of problems in legal regulation of land in Lithuania. Legal protection of land includes provisions of branches of land law and environmental law (at international, European Union and national level), for this reason attempts were made to ascertain the system of legal protection of land and the peculiarities, application and the problems arising thereof. There were made analyses of conformity of laws of Lithuania to the international law and laws of the European Union, there was also made review of practice of the courts in cases related to the legal protection of land. Tasks of the work: 1. to present the conception of legal protection of land according to the laws of the Republic of Lithuania and of foreign countries and on the basis of the scientific literature; 2. to make an analysis of the partition of land law and environmental law as separate branches of law regulating legal protection of land; 3. to traverse the system of legal acts regulating legal protection of land and to present an evaluation of it; 4. to perform an analysis of implementation of legal protection of land in the practice of courts of the Republic of Lithuania. The structure of the work constitutes of three parts: in the first part – the conception of the legal protection of land is being formulated; in the second part – the regulation of the legal protection of land in international law, European Union and Lithuania is being... [to full text]

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is the systematic identification and evaluation of the potential impacts (effects) of proposed projects, plans, programmes, or legislative actions relative to the biophysical, cultural, and socioeconomic components ofthe natural environment (Canter 1996). The overall purpose ofEIA is to assist in shaping the development process, not to prevent development from taking place and to ensure that the environmental consequences of development proposals are systematically assessed and taken into account . Since the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, there has been a substantial increase in the adoption ofEIA worldwide (Sheate 1996). The main aim of this report is to investigate the role of Ezemvelo Kwazulu-Natal Wildlife (EKZN-Wildlife) with respect to EIAs inside and outside the protected areas in KwaZulu-Natal. It has four objectives. • To establish the role EKZN-Wildlife should play in the EIA process inside and outside protected areas • • • To establish which institutions should manage the EIA process for EKZNWildlife developments To ascertain ifEKZN-Wildlife can be designated as a relevant authority To establish if EKZN-Wildlife should consult professionally in IEM for income generation The research method used to achieve these objectives were qualitative, with respondents purposefully chosen from EKZN-Wildlife, DAEA and environmental consultants. A selfadministered questionnaire method was used to collect data, and both open-ended and closed questions were asked. Techniques such as Likert scale and semantic differential were used to allow respondents to express feelings by ratings with respect to opposing concepts. The data analysis was mainly through reduction and displays in the form of tables and graphs. This report, amongst its fmdings, found that apart from being an lAP, the role ofEKZNWildlife in EIA should be that of providing specialist input in particular to biodiversity related issues during the EIA process. It was also found that appointing EKZN-Wildlife as a relevant authority would be inappropriate and could .have negative consequences. Concerning the scheduled activities that EKZN-Wildlife undertakes, the report found that self-assessments could be considered for small projects but not for big projects. This report also found that an environmental consulting role for EKZN-Wildlife may not be a viable option to generate income. This report recognizes that EIAs incorporate much more than mere consideration of green issues and recommends that EKZN-Wildlife should adopt an interdisciplinary team approach when dealing with EIAs. EKZN-Wildlife should also engage the relevant authority in a constructive dialogue so that its role during the EIA process can be defined explicitly. This report also recommends that EKZN-Wildlife should investigate the nature and the possibility ofproviding the necessary specialist review during the EIA process. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is the only mechanism available for use by developing nations. It is there for highly important for the inclusion of these developing nations in the climate change regime. A consideration on the early implementation of the CDM in South Africa and China, being two countries with many similarities and differences and vastly different successes, provides important lessons on how to approach the climate change regime. Certain barriers exist purely due to the nature of countries in which the CDM applies as well as other barriers found within the CDM project life cycle and development. Through the comparison these barriers are explored and areas for development within South Africa are noted as well as weakness with the current climate change regime particularly the Kyoto Protocol. / Thesis (LL.M.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.

Air pollution, health and poverty convey overtones of moral dereliction of our people by the confederacy of perpetrators. It is true that a cocktail of chemical emissions pollute the Durban South area and the residents paying an enormous price to survive. With poverty abound, the people feel disenfranchised as their plea for a better environment fails to improve their standing. This short treatise looks at the role of people and the business as one part and the inclusion of the government on the other part. A comparison of covert techniques and manipulations used by business to circumvent the system. Legislation although adequate but lacking enforcement together with legal remedies as a way to stop this incursion to our Constitutional right. A paradigm shift to sustainability in exploring the many facets of invaluable 'practical solutions' to save and sustain our existence and our intergenerational society. The government authorities saddled with internal strife and the under-funded NGOs who are buoyed by media support still prove ineffective. The conglomerates with all their abundant resources covertly or otherwise propagate their maliciousness unchecked. The enforcement authorities, the judicial officers, the NGOs and the people must work harmously to stem this unacceptable moral degradation before it reaches abysmal proportions. / Thesis (LL.M.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.