Biennial Report
Spring 1999 - Spring 2001
The Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC) is a core project of the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP) based in Bonn, Germany. The International Project Office of IDGEC is located at Dartmouth College.
Table of Contents
·
Mission Statement
·
Letter from the Chair
·
Scientific Steering Committee
·
IDGEC Science
o
Atmospheric Systems
o
Terrestrial Systems
o
Marine Systems
o
Theme on Institutions and Knowledge
o
Science Integration
·
IDGEC Partnerships
·
Network of Researchers
·
International Project Office
·
Future Trajectories
·
List of IDGEC Publications
·
Financial Summary
Mission
Statement
IDGEC sponsors and coordinates research on the role of institutions in shaping human/environment interactions -- especially with respect to global environmental change, sustainable development, and human welfare -- in order to add to our general knowledge of social institutions and to build intellectual capital for improved policymaking in response to environmental changes.
Letter from the
Scientific Steering Committee Chair
The IHDP core project on the Institutional Dimensions of
Global Environmental Change (IDGEC) moved from the planning stage to the implementation
stage during the first half of 1999 with the publication of the IDGEC Science
Plan in April and the first meeting of the project's Scientific Steering
Committee (SSC) in June. Now, two years on, the project has compiled a track
record that can be examined for evidence of accomplishments to date and
indications of future directions.
At the outset, the SSC decided to launch a small number
of flagship activities dealing with substantive matters of such high priority
that they warrant examination under the auspices of the steering committee
itself. The current flagships deal with atmospheric systems— the Carbon
Management Research Activity (CMRA); marine systems— the Performance of
Exclusive Economic Zones (PEEZ); and terrestrial systems— the Political
Economy of Boreal and Tropical Forests (PEF). Each activity team has published
a Scoping Report, and several have organized scientific workshops and submitted
funding proposals to support ongoing work. The flagship activities have begun
to play a leadership role in mobilizing sizable groups of scientists around
their research agendas. In addition, they have triggered the emergence of new
themes that cut across the concerns of the flagships, such as the problem of
compliance and the linkages between institutions and knowledge.
IDGEC has also worked hard to build partnerships with
other organizations and research communities, including other global change
research programs, national committees, university-based research teams, and
even the secretariats of international environmental regimes. A particular
focus of attention has been the effort to join forces with the other major
global change research programs to pursue cross-cutting issues relating to
carbon, water, and food systems. IDGEC has played a prominent role in the
development of the Global Carbon Cycle Joint Project and will collaborate with
the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme and the World Climate Research
Programme to drive this project forward in the near future.
Under the capable leadership of Dr. Syma Ebbin, IDGEC's
International Project Office has also made substantial progress in activating a
worldwide network of individual researchers interested in the project's
scientific agenda. Long-term, international scientific programs like IDGEC can
only succeed to the extent that they are able to build intentional communities
of individuals who share common interests, and who find the scientific
framework provided by the project helpful in organizing their work and
facilitating collaboration with like-minded colleagues.
IDGEC is now a going concern. By the time of the next biennial report, it should be possible to report initial findings pertaining to the project's basic science questions and analytic themes.
Oran R. Young
Dartmouth College
IDGEC Scientific Steering
Committee
Oran R. Young, Chair
Dartmouth College, USA
Russell Reichelt,
Vice-Chair
CRC Reef Research, Australia
Elena Andreeva
Russian Academy of Sciences,
Russia
Scott Barrett
Johns Hopkins University, USA
Angela Cropper
The Cropper Foundation,
Trinidad and Tobago
Alf Håkon Hoel
University of Tromsø,
Norway
Leslie King
University of Northern
British Columbia, Canada
Paul Mathieu
Catholic University of
Louvain la Neuve, Belgium
Madiodio Niasse
Consultant, Senegal
Suparb Pas-ong
Walailak University, Thailand
Peter Heinz Sand
University of Munich, Germany
Agus Sari
Pelangi, Indonesia
Merrilyn Wasson
Australian National
University, Australia
Yoshiki Yamagata
National Institute for
Environmental Studies, Japan
IDGEC Science
The IDGEC Science Plan lays out three Research Foci and three Analytic Themes that are intended to lend coherence and structure to the collaborative efforts of many researchers working on the roles that institutions play both in causing and in confronting large-scale environmental changes. The Research Foci, which deal with matters of causality, performance, and design, are familiar concerns in the literature on social institutions. By contrast, the Analytic Themes, which deal with the problems of fit, interplay, and scale, address new issues that the IDGEC Scientific Steering Committee believes are at the cutting edge of research on the institutional dimensions of environmental change. Increasing knowledge about these matters will constitute one of the major contributions of the project over the next five to 10 years. Yet the problems of fit, interplay, and scale are themselves in need of further elaboration in conceptual and analytic terms to make them suitable to serve as key elements in the IDGEC research program.
One of the first major products of IDGEC is a book prepared by Oran Young to meet this need. The book, which MIT Press will publish early in 2002, is entitled The Institutional Dimensions of Environmental Change: Fit, Interplay, and Scale. In addition to extended discussions of the three Analytic Themes, the book explores the differences between what IDGEC calls collective-action models and social-practice models of institutions, and provides an account of the relationship between analysis and praxis with regard to institutions. Because of the time involved in formal publication, and because this book is meant to be helpful to all those working in the field, the International Project Office has posted the text of each chapter on the IDGEC website.
At its first meeting, the IDGEC Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) decided to launch three flagship activities focused on substantive institutional issues relating to atmospheric, marine, and terrestrial systems as a means of organizing work dealing with the project's theoretical and applied concerns. These activities, which are known as the Carbon Management Research Activity (CMRA), the Performance of Exclusive Economic Zones (PEEZ), and the Political Economy of Boreal and Tropical Forests (PEF), are major vehicles for the organization of IDGEC research. The Scoping Reports and other documents relating to the flagship activities are available at www.dartmouth.edu/~idgec.
With the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol, the international community has embarked on an effort to develop a global regime that will address climate change. Transforming these agreements into effective climate change institutions poses a monumental challenge.
The IDGEC Carbon Management Research Activity (CMRA) has two “themes.” The first explores the institutional issues related to the administration and implementation of the climate regime in its present form and focuses on issues of compliance. The second theme focuses on the longer-term ability of the regime to change over time, to adapt to the insights gained through the process of implementation, changing technologies, scientific understandings, and global socio-economic conditions.
The CMRA Scoping Report was published and distributed in March 2000. It is also available in full text on the IDGEC website: www.dartmouth.edu/~idgec. The initial implementation meeting of IDGEC’s CMRA was held on May 29-30, 2000 in Tokyo, Japan. The meeting was attended by more than 30 researchers from 12 countries and a range of disciplines, and was sponsored by the Japanese National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), and the International Human Dimensions Programme.
The purpose of the meeting was to move the research activity from its initial scoping phase into the research phase. There were several objectives in doing so.
The first objective was to stimulate a discussion among the participants about the institutional issues and research questions raised by the Scoping Report, and to identify those that are of particular concern to policy-makers and researchers.
The second objective of the meeting was to elaborate on the most important of these research questions and identify, in concrete terms, an initial set of research projects that could be undertaken under the CMRA to begin to resolve them.
Finally, the SSC wanted to elicit participants’ ideas about how to best develop the linkages and network of researchers necessary to move the activity forward.
While the participants did not reach specific conclusions regarding the range of issues and topics discussed at the meeting, a general consensus did emerge regarding a number of issues:
Ø There was general agreement that a coordinated research program to look at the range of institutional issues associated with the climate regime is timely and of tremendous interest to both researchers and policy-makers.
Ø Two questions emerged as being particularly important: (1) What is the relationship between the Clean Development Mechanism rules and incentives for participation in it? and (2) How effective are the various options being considered in the compliance mechanism?
Ø The participants recognized that an expanded network of researchers is necessary to move the activity forward, and that additional efforts are necessary to draw researchers from important regions that were not represented at the first planning meeting, such as Africa and Latin America.
Ø Participants expressed interest in being part of an on-going dialogue with the policy community on institutional questions associated with the climate regime, and expressed interest in holding a series of discussions with participants in the meetings of the Conference of the Parties and its subsidiary bodies.
Ø Participants welcomed recommendations and nominations from the FCCC Parties of other researchers who might become involved in this effort.
A report of the proceedings of this meeting was edited by Granville Sewell, IDGEC Research Fellow, and published by the NIES. The report, available on the IDGEC website, contains the presentations made by workshop participants and outlines the important institutional research questions that they believe are of interest to both researchers and policy-makers. This report, together with the Scoping Report, is intended to be a point of reference for the further development of the CMRA.
Future Directions
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and NIES have awarded the CMRA simulation team, Granville Sewell and Yoshiki Yamagata, some funding to begin development of two simulation “games” aimed at exploring the implications of different institutional contexts, rules, and mechanisms in the international carbon management regime. One simulation is focused on carbon emissions trading mechanisms and the other will focus on compliance. The effort provides an exciting opportunity to assist policy-makers in developing effective regulatory mechanisms and institutional structures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to get a handle on anthropogenic climate change.
The state of the world's forests is an emerging global issue. There is little doubt that deforestation is a serious problem in many parts of the world. A recent United Nations publication, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Global Forest Resource Assessment 2000, “suggests that the average annual net loss of forests during the 1990s was 9 million hectares.”
At the same time, there is a growing recognition of the critical role that forests play in providing a variety of environmental services of global importance. Forests are critical for carbon sequestration, for the maintenance of biological diversity, for the well-being of local communities, and for providing resources for sustainable development.
IDGEC’s forest activity has published a Scoping Report entitled, “The Political Economy of Tropical and Boreal Forests” (PEF), available in full-text on the IDGEC website: www.dartmouth.edu/~idgec. The PEF research agenda focuses on three themes: the effects of political decentralization on forest management, the impact of globalization on the condition of forests, and the consequences of international forest agreements. IDGEC’s forest activity looks at the following types of issues:
v Why do some forms of resource tenure promote sustainable forest management practices and outcomes, while others lead to degradation?
v
Under what conditions
does decentralization result in better forest management practices and
outcomes?
v
Under what conditions
does integration in the global economy lead to more sustainable management of
forests?
v How do local, national, and international institutions interact with respect to forest management and to what effect?
v How can international environmental and trade regimes be redesigned so that they will facilitate sustainable and equitable management of forestlands?
Accomplishments
Implementation is getting underway in this activity. The Asia-Pacific Network has recently awarded PEF Scoping Report author Dr. Suparb Pas-ong at Walailak University in Thailand a grant to conduct an institutional analysis of forest conditions in four countries of Southeast Asia. A total of six case studies will be completed: three will focus on upland forests, two on coastal (mangrove) forests, and one will include both forest types. Within the context of globalization and decentralization, the analysis will focus on the interplay between local, national, and international institutions because the success of environmental institutions depends not only on their own strength, but also how they interact with other institutions.
Additionally, a group of African and European research institutions have been awarded a grant from the European Union for their research project on “Changes in Land Access, Institutions and Markets in West Africa” (CLAIMS). Among them is the Institut d’Etudes du Developpement at the Catholic University of Louvain la Neuve, at which SSC member Paul Mathieu is affiliated.
The authors of the PEF report and some of IDGEC’s SSC members have also submitted a proposal to the European Commission Programme on Tropical Forests in Developing Countries. They’ve pulled together an impressive team of researchers from around the world to collaborate on the proposal.
A series of case studies in Asia and Africa have been selected with the goal of identifying the forces driving forest changes in these areas. The project focuses on institutional determinants of af/de/reforestation, including the decentralization of political institutions within individual countries, the globalization of markets for timber and other wood products, and the interplay between institutional arrangements operating at different levels of social organization.
With support from Dartmouth’s Dickey Center for International Understanding, IDGEC has embarked on a project focused on the political economy of boreal forests. Student Research Assistant Katie Greenwood began work on this project in the spring of 2001, developing an annotated bibliography of data and references relating to boreal forests. Work on this project will continue and result in a report synthesizing information on the nature and role of institutions in boreal forest use and management in northern nations.
Future
Directions
With several grants in various stages of implementation and development, the work of the PEF flagship is quickly entering the stage when research findings will be available. PEF has created a vibrant community of international researchers linked by common interests in the institutional drivers of forest use and management.
Marine Systems
The establishment of 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) brought 11 percent of the world’s ocean, 90 percent of the world’s fish catch, and approximately 25 percent of the world’s primary productivity under the jurisdiction of coastal states. This shift constituted one of the most far-reaching distributional and institutional changes in the history of the world.
IDGEC’s ocean governance activity has published a Scoping Report entitled “Performance of Exclusive Economic Zones” (PEEZ). The full text is available on the IDGEC website: www.dartmouth.edu/~idgec.
The PEEZ research agenda addresses four broad clusters of effects associated with EEZ-based regimes:
v How
can we account for the variation in the performance of EEZ regimes?
v
How have EEZs affected the conservation, distribution,
and efficient use of marine resources?
v How has the creation of EEZs changed traditional notions of sovereignty?
v How have EEZs affected the way in which ideas and knowledge about resource management and conservation are developed and introduced?
The PEEZ project took its first step toward implementing its research agenda by convening a workshop in Tromsø, Norway in March 2001. SSC member Alf Håkon Hoel, of the Department of Political Science at the University of Tromsø, convened the meeting. The emphasis was on inviting young scientists, including doctoral and post-doctoral researchers. A summary report of the workshop is available on the IDGEC website: www.dartmouth.edu/~idgec.
The Tromsø workshop brought together a team of 14 internationally based researchers addressing the issues on the PEEZ agenda. It also provided a forum for the presentation of individual research projects, and a discussion of how the PEEZ project can move forward by refining research questions and sharpening the project focus.
Discussions centered on the North Atlantic and North Pacific regions; the team hopes to expand this to include a greater emphasis on Southeast Asia and the South China Sea region in the next workshop. The papers and discussions focused on the production of knowledge and ideas regarding marine systems, institutional dynamics, the institutional dimensions of national policy space, and institutional interplay.
Particularly promising avenues for PEEZ include studies of the interplay among ocean governance arrangements and the global trade and biodiversity regimes, the implementation of EEZ arrangements in national settings, and comparisons between ocean governance and other emerging arrangements dealing with matters like genetic resources.
The next workshop will likely be held in Australia in late 2001 or early 2002. The focus for this meeting will be institutional arrangements in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Australia region relating to exclusive economic zones, and the issues of equity and sustainability. It is envisioned that the papers presented at the two workshops will be developed into a book. PEEZ plans to develop a database describing the participants’ research projects that can be accessed via the IDGEC website.
Virginia Walsh, the former executive officer of the IDGEC International Project Office, has been working on developing a cross-cutting Theme on Institutions and Knowledge (THINK) under the joint umbrella of IDGEC and the Center for Global Change and Governance (CGCG) at Rutgers University. The project is designed to establish CGCG as a “hub” within IDGEC’s global network of researchers.
A Scoping Report is in progress and should be published later in 2001. Additionally, an IDGEC-sponsored panel examining the THINK research questions will take place at the 2002 ISA meeting. The panel will bring together researchers from a variety of disciplinary, methodological, and cultural perspectives to sharpen and extend individual projects through friendly and pointed debate. The design is explicitly pluralistic, encouraging participation by analysts who bring a variety of perspectives to bear. The panel will be organized as a workshop to facilitate the development of a book-length edited volume for submission to MIT Press’ Politics, Science and Environment series, or a special issue of the journal Global Environmental Politics.
IDGEC science activities are not isolated projects; rather, they are connected to one another through a variety of cross-cutting themes. The research questions and emerging results demonstrate a number of linkages, shared threads, issues, and drivers.
Over the past year, two such cross-cutting themes have been identified and are emerging as research agendas that cut across the three flagship activities. They are knowledge systems and compliance. In addition, the Analytical Themes of interplay, scale, and fit, and the Research Foci on causality, performance and design, are also intended to cut across the research activities and to provide a focus for research and conclusions.
As the results of the flagship research activities have begun to emerge, other cross-cutting concepts, issues, and questions became apparent:
1. sustainable development;
2. distributional impacts of the performance of institutions;
3. institutional responses to uncertainty including issues of resilience and adaptation;
4. discourse and discourse analysis in the creation and operation of institutions;
5. impacts of globalization, decentralization and interplay among trade and environmental regimes;
6. social impacts or side effects of institutional performance, such as impoverishment, loss of livelihood or culture, corruption, and crime; and,
7. the role of transnational corporations in reinforcing or subverting institutions.
In the coming years, IDGEC will examine these issues in the three flagship activities. This will facilitate efforts to synthesize and integrate the results emerging from the research in the three areas.
The IDGEC SSC has articulated a strategy focused on creating partnerships with others pursuing compatible agendas; the initial focus is to select a few partners whose activities seem particularly compatible. In addition, the SSC has decided to prioritize partnerships that afford opportunities to build bridges between IDGEC and the natural science and policy communities.
Global change research projects like IDGEC are not funding agencies in their own right. To succeed, they must find ways to identify and knit together sizable groups of scientists who have access to resources of their own, but who find it attractive to join forces in collaborative efforts to develop convincing answers to a common set of high priority science questions.
In successful cases, the result is an unusually powerful research engine. Nonetheless, the transformation of a diverse collection of scientists into an effective research community pursuing a common agenda requires leadership, hard work, and access to at least some material resources. Efforts to achieve this goal generate transaction costs, including the resources required to develop websites, organize workshops, and provide communications mechanisms. As a result, initiatives in this area require deliberate choices and careful planning.
One of IDGEC’s ultimate goals is to catalyze an international community of researchers focused on the science questions framed in the Science Plan and Scoping Reports. To further this goal, the IDGEC International Project Office has reevaluated and reprioritized the IDGEC communications strategy. Recognizing the critical nature of utilizing innovative communications systems, such as the Internet, the International Project Office has decided to emphasize electronic communications over printed means, thereby conserving both resources and money.
To this end, the International Project Office has recently completed an overhaul of the IDGEC website (www.dartmouth.edu/~idgec) and has initiated an IDGEC email discussion group. The International Project Office is actively working to expand IDGEC’s on-line holdings of full-text reports and publications so researchers in remote or developing areas of the world may access relevant reference materials easily and inexpensively.
Additionally, after printing and mailing two paper issues of IDGEC News, the International Project Office has shifted to distributing its biannual newsletter by email and via the IDGEC website. The International Project Office has published an IDGEC brochure for distribution at conferences and by mail.
The International Project Office is also continuing to expand its international network of interested researchers. The IDGEC network has expanded to include over 400 individuals, and the International Project Office is constantly updating the network database.
Planning is also underway for future IDGEC panels at scientific conferences. IDGEC will sponsor several panels focusing on institutional interplay and the institutional dimensions of the climate change regime at the Open Science Meeting of the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Research Community in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in October 2001. Another IDGEC-sponsored panel exploring knowledge systems is planned for the 2002 ISA meeting.
International
Project Office
Core
Staff
Syma
Ebbin
Executive
Officer
Chrystel
Buell
Administrative
Assistant
Kay
McCabe
Grants
Coordinator
Priorities of the International Project Office include enhancing the IDGEC publication base and expanding on-line holdings of IDGEC-relevant publications. The International Project Office is also looking into developing a series of easily accessible and policy-relevant publications for translating scientific literature on institutional dimensions of global environmental change to a broader audience, including policy-makers and laypeople.
Although the International Project Office of IDGEC is funded through a grant from the NSF, this support does not provide any funding earmarked for specific research activities focused on IDGEC’s science questions, or for the development of publications, workshops and conferences. In the future, the International Project Office will seek external funding to augment the resources at hand. Among other activities, such funding could be used to:
Suparb Pas-ong and Louis Lebel, “Political
Transformation and the Environment in Southeast Asia.” Environment 42(8), (2000): 8–19.
Workshop Reports
Granville Sewell and Yoshiki Yamagata eds.,
"Report of the Initial Planning Meeting," IDGEC CMRA, May 29-30 2000.
Tokyo: Center for Global Environmental Research, National Institute for
Environmental Studies
Alf Håkon Hoel, "Report on the Workshop on
the Performance of the Exclusive Economic Zones: Management, Trade and
Knowledge," IDGEC PEEZ, March 30-April 1, 2001. Tromsø: University
of Tromsø
The production of this Biennial Report has been made possible through funding provided by the US National Science Foundation grant no. BCS0080786, the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change, and Dartmouth College.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation, the IHDP Scientific Committee, Secretariat, nor its sponsors, ICSU (International Council for Science) and ISSC (International Social Science Council).
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IDGEC-International Project
Office* |
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Financial Statements for FY
2000 and 2001 |
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Year Runs: September 1 -
August 31 |
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FY 2000
|
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FY 2001 |
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Expenses: |
|
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|
|
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Executive Salaries |
$
33,824 |
|
$
34,669 |
|
Support Staff Salaries |
$
20,231 |
|
$
22,904 |
|
Scientific Research Salaries |
$
12,113 |
|
$
17,065 |
|
Fringe |
$
9,175 |
|
$ 15,688 |
|
|
|
|
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Printing/Publications |
$
6,809 |
|
$
5,357 |
|
Mailing Costs |
$
3,009 |
|
$
1,054 |
|
Telephone |
$
369 |
|
$
200 |
|
Supplies/Equipment |
$
3,258 |
|
$
2,196 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
SSC Meetings |
$
22,523 |
|
$
30,990 |
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Other Travel |
$
12,435 |
|
$
7,014 |
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|
|
|
|
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IDC: Rent, Utilities,
Corporate Overhead |
$
34,886 |
|
$
33,933 |
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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Total Yearly Expenses |
$
146,200 |
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$
171,130 |
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Income: |
|
|
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National Science Foundation |
$
89,240 |
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$
96,313 |
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Dartmouth College |
$
36,237 |
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$
38,632 |
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University of Bonn: |
|
|
|
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International Human
Dimensions Programme |
$
20,723 |
|
$
36,185 |
|
|
|
|
|
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Total Yearly Income |
$
146,200 |
|
$
171,130 |