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What is local about local environmental governance? Observations from the local biodiversity action planning process
Author(s) -
Evans James
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
area
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1475-4762
pISSN - 0004-0894
DOI - 10.1111/j.0004-0894.2004.00224.x
Subject(s) - action (physics) , process (computing) , local governance , rhetoric , biodiversity , corporate governance , local planning , local government , sustainable development , local authority , political science , environmental resource management , environmental planning , sociology , business , geography , public administration , economics , law , ecology , computer science , biology , linguistics , philosophy , physics , finance , quantum mechanics , operating system
In line with the tenets of sustainable development, environmental policy has privileged action at the local level. This paper explores how the local has been manifested in practice, drawing upon an extensive qualitative study of biodiversity action planning in Birmingham, UK, undertaken between 1999 and 2002. Analysis highlights the embedded and geographically uneven character of the process, and a number of local path dependencies are identified that act to both constrain and enable the process. It is concluded that environmental policy tends to accept the positive rhetoric of local action rather uncritically. In practice, the local is manifested in a number of different ways, with highly heterogeneous effects.