Environmental Management

1152 Words3 Pages

The role of the State is still crucial to twenty-first century environmental policy making. The State through its various different organizations is involved in implementing policies related to the direct and active manipulation of the environment (Wilson, 1997). The State devises a set of rules governing the access and withdrawals of the resource stock (Grafton, 2000). For example, forest officials, such as the Forestry Commission in the United Kingdom directly manages and exploits state owned forests. The State’s indirect environmental management policy role is often considered the most important. The distinctive feature of the State is that it has control through coercion in a given territory. Through the perspective of environmental management policies, this is important as the State is lawfully in a -position to force non-State environmental managers in the pursuit of its own policy and environmental outlook (Wilson, 1997). State policies designed to regulate logging on private and publicly owned land are enforced through legal acts and contravention of these regulations could lead to prosecution. These official policies require non-State environmental managers to alter their practices in line with rules set by the state (Wilson, 1997; UK Forestry Standard, 2011). Therefore, State environmental management policies are designed to control the environmental management practices of other groups associated with taking from and adding to the environment. The uniqueness of the State’s policy making role is that it holds great responsibility for the promotion of the common good for all within the national territory and has the authority to fulfil this. Consequently the State plays an enormous role in environmental policy making. Alt... ... middle of paper ... ...nge. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity are both environmental regimes established under the auspices of the United Nations. Agreements such as these provide a criterion for positive environmental action whereas their related protocols outline specific ways to address particular features of the overall environmental problem. Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol assigns emission reduction targets to States, aiming to reduce global warming. The internationalism of environmental management is predominantly constructed upon the commitment, negotiations and agreements between individual States. This new structure of environmental management reflects the growth of a global civil society and has mobilised States at the international level.

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