No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Following a series of conflicts between conservationists and local stakeholders around protected areas during the 1980s, conservation policies have widened to incorporate a greater reliance on communication and education, partnership approaches and the use of sustainability terminology. The debates surrounding conservation have begun to extend beyond a previously narrow, scientific focus to encompass issues such as competing environmental values, land tenure, public access and local participation. In order to examine how changes in conservation ideology have affected operational practice, this study involves an exploration of current procedures and sources of conflict, with a focus on the use of protected areas to conserve peatlands. This is undertaken through a qualitative analysis of attitudes towards conservation procedures, environmental values, restoration and sustainability projects around case-study sites in northern and north-eastern Scotland, based on interviews with local stakeholders and conservation representatives. The findings suggest that changes in procedure have contributed to a more positive relationship between conservation agencies and local stakeholders. However, significant sources of conflict still remain between stakeholders and conservationists, including differences in the values placed on peatland environments, different interpretations of stewardship and management, and stakeholder resentment over the use of institutional power to control land management. In addition, despite a growth in sustainable development initiatives, conservation is often still seen as a land-use which prevents economic development. Similarly conservationists, despite being seen as sympathetic on an individual level, are believed to attribute a low priority to economic concerns. Overall, while changes in conservation procedure are acknowledged by stakeholders, the process is a gradual one, and many issues relating to past conflict remain. The role of environmental restoration and sustainability, two 'ways forward' for conservation, are evaluated in this context.

Changes in moral benefits and socio-economic conditions point to the extension of standing to permit the judicial representation of the public interest in the environment. The suggestion that the enforcement of environmental law benefits from wide public participation in judicial proceedings sets the framework of research into standing for concerned citizens and environmental associations. English law gives an example of how private law procedures cannot incorporate the public interest in the environment. In public law, however, well-acclaimed environmental associations have standing to litigate environmental issues. United States law shifts from the 'environmentalism' of Congress legislation that gives any citizen standing to sue to the restrictive 'constitutionalism' of the Supreme Court, expressed mainly by the separation of powers doctrine. Under the judicial protection afforded by German law to individual rights, environmental associations are only exceptionally permitted as plantiffs, in ten out of sixteen Lander. In Greek law, the circle of potential plantiffs is wide due to the interpretation of the Constitution by the Courts to derive a right to the environment and accept environmental protection as a public interest. The European Court of Justice, because of the relevant Treaty of Rome provisions and the mainly economic nature of the European Community, defines standing by the individuality criterion, thus limiting it considerably. The common minimum features of these five legal systems result to observations as to the definition of standing, the variables of standing extent, the objections for its expansion and the role of judicial activism in the formulation of standing requirements.

Contaminated land can pose risks to human health, buildings and the environment. In principle, the regulatory mechanisms already exist in the UK to minimize the risks that can arise from the redevelopment and use of contaminated sites. However there is known to be wide variation in way the redevelopment of contaminated land has been controlled by various regulatory authorities. This thesis examines the control system for the redevelopment of contaminated land in the UK and assessesh ow and why variation in regulatory standards occurred. The empirical investigation is based on a comparative case study methodology. Four regulatory regimes, representing contrasting standards of regulation have served as case studies. The focus of the study is the redevelopment of former gasworks sites as it is common for such sites to be contaminated with harmful substances such as coal tar, phenols, spent oxide, cyanide, sulphur and asbestos. The recommended procedures and activities presented in official policy and guidance notes provide a benchmark for the assessment of regulatory practice. For an analysis of variation this thesis uses a theoretical framework developed from a critical review of the main approaches within the policy implementation literature and insights from organizational studies. The regulatory regime is complex and effective regulation requires input, and action, by various technical experts. For this reason the research, empirically and theoretically, focuses primarily on the linkage, and/or relationship between expert knowledge, communication and action for explanations of variation. The thesis argues that the level of commitment by individual regulatory experts and officers to the policy aims was a critical factor in explaining the variation in the standards of regulation. Moreover, for those redevelopments where contaminated land had been raised as an issue by certain institutional actors then regulatory performance was good