Terre Satterfield and I just published a new Open Access paper in Conservation Letters titled “Environmental governance: A practical framework to guide design, evaluation, and analysis” (LINK). Though governance is recognized as one of the most important factors for ensuring effective environmental management and conservation actions, it is a topic that has not received nearly enough attention to date. In this paper, we propose that there are four general objectives – to be effective, to be equitable, to be responsive, and to be robust – that need to be examined across the institutions, structures and procedures of environmental governance. Our aim is to provide a practical and adaptable framework that can be applied to the design, evaluation, and analysis of environmental governance in different social and political contexts, to diverse environmental problems, and at a range of scales.
A practical framework for environmental governance (Bennett & Satterfield, 2018)
Abstract: Governance is one of the most important factors for ensuring effective environmental management and conservation actions. Yet, there is still a relative paucity of comprehensive and practicable guidance that can be used to frame the evaluation, design, and analysis of systems of environmental governance. This conceptual review and synthesis article seeks to addresses this problem through resituating the broad body of governance literature into a practical framework for environmental governance. Our framework builds on a rich history of governance scholarship to propose that environmental governance has four general aims or objectives – to be effective, to be equitable, to be responsive, and to be robust. Each of these four objectives need to be considered simultaneously across the institutional, structural, and procedural elements of environmental governance. Through a review of the literature, we developed a set of attributes for each of these objectives and relate these to the overall capacity, functioning, and performance of environmental governance. Our aim is to provide a practical and adaptable framework that can be applied to the design, evaluation, and analysis of environmental governance in different social and political contexts, to diverse environmental problems and modes of governance, and at a range of scales.
Bennett, N.J. & Satterfield, T. (2018). Environmental governance: A practical framework to guide design, evaluation, and analysis, Conservation Letters, e12600. [OPEN ACCESS LINK]
Nathan J. Bennett 