Interregional sustainability: governance and policy in an ecologically interdependent world

Abstract This paper develops a theoretical interregional approach to sustainability in an interconnected world. We make the case that achieving sustainability – living equitably within the limits of living systems – requires the recognition of our ecological interdependence and interconnectedness across regions and the resultant need for supra-regional policy to shape local resilience and global sustainability. Approaching sustainability conscious of interregional connections reveals that: (1) virtually every significant human population or country lives, in part, on energy/material flows to and from distant places elsewhere around the world, (2) production, consumption and policy decisions in any given locale have the potential to create unseen unsustainable burdens on connected productive ecosystems in distant locales, (3) ecological change in one region has the potential to jeopardize the sustainability of other regions, and (4) society in almost any region has interests in sustaining the vitality of ecosystems in other regions. We highlight a range of supra-regional ecological linkages and discuss the types of interregional feedback and policy responses needed. We highlight how such an quasi-global focus not only provides further insight into the social and ecological challenges global society is facing, but also reveals places for positive human intervention and leadership in the name of sustainability and resilience.

[1]  Phoebe N. Okowa.  State Responsibility for Transboundary Air Pollution in International Law , 2001 .

[2]  T. Homer-Dixon.  Environment, Scarcity, and Violence , 2010 .

[3]  Robert D. Bullard,et al.  Just Sustainabilities : Development in an Unequal World , 2003 .

[4]  Julian L. Simon,et al.  Hoodwinking the Nation , 1999 .

[5]  D. Pirages,et al.  From Resource Scarcity to Ecological Security: Exploring New Limits to Growth , 2008 .

[6]  Dennis L. Meadows,et al.  Limits to growth : the 30-year update , 2004 .

[7]  D. Pearce.  Blueprint 4: Capturing Global Environmental Value , 2000 .

[8]  M. Renner.  Fighting for Survival: Environmental Decline, Social Conflict, and the New Age of Insecurity , 1996 .

[9]  Herman E. Daly,et al.  Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development , 1997 .

[10]  S. Barrett.  Environment and Statecraft , 2003 .

[11]  Meidad Kissinger,et al.  Footprints on the prairies: Degradation and sustainability of Canadian agricultural land in a globalizing world , 2009 .

[12]  T. Princen.  The shading and distancing of commerce: When internalization is not enough , 1997 .

[13]  Ken Conca.  Consumption and Environment in a Global Economy , 2001, Global Environmental Politics.

[14]  H. French.  Vanishing Borders: Protecting the Planet in the Age of Globalization , 2009 .

[15]  Meidad Kissinger,et al.  Importing terrestrial biocapacity: The U.S. case and global implications , 2010 .

[16]  Foye Hatton,et al.  Peter Dauvergne, The Shadows of Consumption: Consequences for the Global Environment , 2009 .

[17]  R. Goodland,et al.  Environmentally Sustainable Economic Development: Building on Brundtland , 1992 .

[18]  Jari Kaivo-oja,et al.  Science and Technology for Sustainable Development , 1996 .

[19]  Maurie J. Cohen,et al.  Exploring sustainable consumption : environmental policy and the social sciences , 2001 .

[20]  Thomas Princen,et al.  The Logic of Sufficiency , 2005 .

[21]  William E. Rees,et al.  Ecological footprints and appropriated carrying capacity: what urban economics leaves out , 1992 .

[22]  Jo Dewulf,et al.  Renewables-based technology : sustainability assessment , 2006 .

[23]  William E. Rees.  Ecological Footprints and Biocapacity: Essential Elements in Sustainability Assessment , 2006 .

[24]  Darren Swanson,et al.  Creating adaptive policies : a guide for policy-making in an uncertain world , 2009 .

[25]  Louis Lebel,et al.  Guest Editorial, part of a Special Feature on Scale and Cross-scale Dynamics Scale and Cross-Scale Dynamics: Governance and Information in a Multilevel World , 2006 .

[26]  John D. Donahue,et al.  Governance in a Globalizing World , 2000 .

[27]  H. Haberl,et al.  Quantifying and mapping the human appropriation of net primary production in earth's terrestrial ecosystems , 2007, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[28]  Terry Barker,et al.  Carbon leakage from unilateral Environmental Tax Reforms in Europe, 1995–2005 , 2007 .

[29]  W. Rees.  Achieving Sustainability: Reform or Transformation? , 1995, The Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Cities.

[30]  J. Simon.  The Ultimate Resource , 1983 .

[31]  P. Glasbergen,et al.  VOLUNTARY AGREEMENTS IN WATERSHED PROTECTION EXPERIENCES FROM COSTA RICA , 2007 .

[32]  Jeffrey Barber.  Production, Consumption and the World Summit on Sustainable Development , 2005 .

[33]  Charles P. Kindleberger,et al.  International trade statistics , 1954 .

[34]  F. Chapin,et al.  A safe operating space for humanity , 2009, Nature.

[35]  R. Kasperson,et al.  A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science , 2003, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[36]  William E. Rees,et al.  When Consumption Does Violence: Can there be Sustainability and Environmental Justice in a Resource-limited World? , 2012 .

[37]  R. Russo,et al.  PAYMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES IN COSTA RICA: EVALUATING IMPACT AND POSSIBILITIES , 2006 .

[38]  J. Speth.  Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment , 2004 .

[39]  Georg Borgstrom.  The Hungry Planet: The Modern World at the Edge of Famine , 1972 .

[40]  R. Norgaard,et al.  Market governance failure , 2007 .

[41]  Lorenzo Cotula,et al.  Land grab or development opportunity? Agricultural investment and international land deals in Africa. , 2009 .

[42]  Karen T. Litfin.  The greening of sovereignty in world politics , 1998 .

[43]  John Dearing,et al.  Sustainability or Collapse: What Can We Learn from Integrating the History of Humans and the Rest of Nature? , 2007, Ambio.

[44]  Yu Zhang,et al.  Importing Timber, Exporting Ecological Impact , 2005, Science.

[45]  M. Mason.  The New Accountability: Environmental Responsibility Across Borders , 2004 .

[46]  Small Is Stupid: Blowing the Whistle on the Greens , 1995 .

[47]  Meidad Kissinger.  Interregional ecology - resource flows and sustainability in a globalizing world , 2008 .

[48]  R. Kasperson,et al.  Global Environmental Risk , 2001 .

[49]  J. Macneill,et al.  Beyond Interdependence: The Meshing of the World's Economy and the Earth's Ecology , 1991 .

[50]  Elizabeth R. DeSombre,et al.  The Institutional Dimensions of Environmental Change: Fit, Interplay, and Scale , 2002 .

[51]  T. Princen.  Consumption and environment: some conceptual issues , 1999 .

[52]  Charles Francis,et al.  Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble , 2006 .

[53]  C. S. Holling,et al.  Panarchy Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems , 2002 .

[54]  William E. Rees,et al.  What’s blocking sustainability? Human nature, cognition, and denial , 2010 .

[55]  Joachim von Braun,et al.  "Land grabbing" by foreign investors in developing countries: Risks and opportunities , 2009 .