by Cassandra Brooks
Environmental Studies, University of Colorado Boulder

Photo above: Emperor penguin and icebreaker in the Ross Sea, Antarctica (credit: John B. Weller).  

Every year I travel to Hobart, Tasmania at the southern tip of Australia to study international negotiations about protecting the oceans around Antarctica. The future of our oceans demands the establishment of large protected areas and arguably we are leading the way in the Antarctic.

The Antarctic region is exceptional. The coldest, windiest, iciest, driest, and most remote of continents is celebrated for its rich history of exploration, science and diplomacy. The Antarctic Treaty System, the suite of legal agreements that govern the region, lay out strict principles in the service of peace, science, and environmental preservation.

Among these agreements, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) carries forward the mandate for conserving the Southern Ocean ecosystem, including its marine living resources. Fishing is allowed under the Convention, but only under strict, ecosystem and science-based management.

CCAMLR has been deemed a leader in international ocean management for its precautionary approach. In line with this leadership, in 2002 CCAMLR committed to designating a network of Southern Ocean marine protected areas in accordance with global international targets. Working towards this goal, CCAMLR adopted the world’s first international marine reserve in 2009 when they protected 94,000 km² south of the South Orkney Islands. In 2011 they adopted a management framework to guide the protected area process.

Then in 2016, CCAMLR made headlines when they adopted, by consensus, a vast 1.6 million km² marine protected area in the Ross Sea. This is the world’s first large-scale international marine protected area, and in a region deemed to be one of the healthiest marine ecosystems left on the planet.

My research revolves around understanding under what conditions consensus is possible in managing these global commons. In recent years, I have seen that competing national incentives among CCAMLR states and complex international relations extending far beyond the protected area negotiations stymie consensus as states negotiate power and fishing access in this icy commons at the bottom of the world.

Adélie penguins hunting in the Ross Sea, Antarctica (credit: John B. Weller). 

Looking to what ultimately drove consensus in the Ross Sea can provide insight into the process of reaching consensus and understanding the necessary trade-offs. China and Russia steadfastly blocked adoption of a Ross Sea marine protected area until 2015 and 2016 when high-level diplomacy created a political window of opportunity. China’s support for the Ross Sea protected area in 2015 has been directly attributed to presidential level political meetings between the United States and China.

In 2016, Russia was isolated as the last member state not supporting the adoption of a Ross Sea protected area, not a good political position. Further, Russia had an opportunity and incentives to demonstrate leadership. Russia was chairing the annual CCAMLR meeting and was preparing to celebrate the 200^th anniversary of its contested discovery of the Antarctic continent. Russian President Vladimir Putin had announced that 2017 would be a special ‘Year of Ecology’ and he had appointed a new ‘Special Representative for Ecology’.

Perhaps most importantly, the United States Secretary of State, John Kerry, wanted a Ross Sea marine protected area to be part of his legacy. With his term coming to an end, he brought the issue to the forefront with his counterparts in Russia throughout 2016.

Pressure was building both inside and outside of the meeting room for Russia to join the consensus. But before Russia would agree to adopt the Ross Sea protected area, the Russian delegation requested changes to the proposal, negotiating for a higher level of fishing to be allowed inside and around the Ross Sea protected area.

That left one outstanding issue to deal with: Duration. How long would the protected area be in place for? To meet the demands of countries who wanted to ensure future access, the protected area was adopted for 35 years. With these final concessions, consensus was achieved and the Ross Sea marine protected area was immediately a source of pride for CCAMLR member states.

In managing one of the great oceanic commons, despite political plays, CCAMLR has continued to be an international leader. No other international management body has outpaced CCAMLR in adopting marine protected areas. The Southern Ocean harbors the world’s largest marine protected area in the Ross Sea and three large areas remain under negotiation for protection: The Western Antarctic Peninsula, the Weddell Sea and the East Antarctic. Negotiations will resume in October 2018 when member states again gather in Hobart, Tasmania.

It is often unclear in the moment how a political window of opportunity opens. International consensus demands patience. It may still take some time to align national incentives and generate international diplomacy for the remaining areas to achieve protection. One thing is clear: CCAMLR has collectively agreed to designate a network of marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean and ultimately the 25 members need to find the political will to see the effort through.

by Juhi Huda, Ph.D. Candidate/Lead Graduate Teacher
Environmental Studies Program

You won’t stir up much controversy if you claimed that stories are important to human existence. Without stories, communication would not be possible or at least be difficult. These stories, often referred to as narratives, are indeed powerful and frequently used by policy actors to communicate information about policy issues. They are also relevant for groups engaged in influencing the policy process to achieve a desired policy outcome. A policy process framework that focuses on the influential role played by narratives in the policy process is the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) – a theoretically grounded framework used to understand policy process influences. It examines strategically-constructed stories that contain measurable elements and strategies that influence public opinion toward support for a particular policy preference. For example, policy scholars using the NPF have studied narratives of coalitions for and against installation of wind turbines off Nantucket in the United States (Shanahan et al. 2013) or the siting of a nuclear power plant in India (Gupta et al. 2014) among others.

A policy area ripe for exploration of its underlying narratives is agricultural biotechnology, which abounds in conflicting narratives from both camps – for and against the issue. Given the large mix of actors and stakeholders (including national, state, and local governments, scientists, farmers, non-profit organizations, and corporate sector actors), understanding the on-going debate about the advantages and disadvantages of the adoption of genetically modified (GM) crops becomes a complex matter. All stakeholders involved in the policy debate – whether in support of GM crops or against them – claim to have scientific evidence that supports their respective policy positions. But policy decisions are not made solely on the basis of scientific evidence.

It is important to delve into other factors that are taken into account in the policy decision-making process and investigate questions such as – What factors influence public opinion on contentious scientific and policy issues? What are the social dimensions of scientific issues and scientific dimensions of social issues? And how do these and other relevant aspects lead to policy change? One way to get at these relevant factors is through exploring the varied narratives employed by different actors in the policy issue and studying the prevalence of these factors in their narratives.

Below, I provide a brief example from my research in which I use the Narrative Policy Framework to examine narratives in agricultural biotechnology policy in India. Through an analysis of the narratives used by stakeholders, I examine how the policy issue of the commercialization of Bt eggplant¹ – which was going to be India’s first GM food crop – is framed by opponents and supporters of the GM crop. One of the findings of the study is that more frequent use of evidence may not be associated with narrative strategies to successfully influence policy outcomes. Examining the narratives of supporters and opponents of the GM food crop, those in support of the GM food crop used more evidence as compared to those who opposed it. Yet the decision did not go in their favor. The matter, of course, is not that simple. Use of scientific evidence may not be singularly influential in the policy process, but it is important to explore what may be other factors that can be leveraged to gather support for a particular policy preference. An analysis of the narratives and the elements contained therein may help throw light on some of these factors.

1. This transgenic eggplant is created through the insertion of a gene cry1Ac from the soil bacterium (Bacillus thuringiensis) into eggplant and is said to provide the plant with resistance against lepidopteran insects like the Brinjal Fruit and Shoot Borer (Leucinodes orbonalis) and Fruit Borer (Helicoverpa armigera).

Works Cited

Gupta, K., Ripberger, J. T., & Collins, S. (2014). The Strategic Use of Policy Narratives: Jaitapur and the Politics of Siting a Nuclear Power Plant in India. In M. D. Jones, E. A. Shanahan, & M. K. McBeth (Eds.), The Science of Stories: Applications of the Narrative Policy Framework in Public Policy Analysis (1st ed., pp. 89–106). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Shanahan, E. A., Jones, M. D., McBeth, M. K., & Lane, R. R. (2013). An Angel on the Wind: How Heroic Policy Narratives Shape Policy Realities. Policy Studies Journal, 41(3), 453–483. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12025

Elizabeth Koebele (Assistant Professor at University of Nevada Reno), former CSTPR graduate student and RA on the flood project, presents at the concluding stakeholder workshop for flood study participant communities in September 2017.

by Deserai Crow, School of Public Affairs, CU Denver and CSTPR Faculty Affiliate and Elizabeth Albright, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University

Nearly five years ago this coming fall, a stationary storm settled on Colorado’s Front Range foothills, dropping more than 16 inches of rain over 72 hours in some places. Flash flooding along foothills communities (Boulder, Lyons, Longmont, Estes Park, and Loveland, among others) occurred within hours. As the flood waters moved east, Colorado’s plains communities (Evans and Greeley, among others) were impacted.

Communities, households, and individuals are vulnerable to floods due to factors such as human development and changing weather patterns associated with climate change. Local governments focus much of their preparedness attention on emergency response, such as evacuation and restoration of utilities, and may assume that those skills can translate into longer-term disaster recovery.

However, during disaster recovery, local governments are faced with a myriad of policy challenges, from repairing and replacing infrastructure to broader questions of reducing vulnerability to future hazards, which must be dealt with over months and years with no clear path toward ‘success’.

Understanding how local governments respond to a disaster and plan for the future is critical to consider in order to determine whether experiencing a disaster results in safer and more resilient communities. Our work is focused on what leads to increased community resilience to future disasters. We have spent the last four years focused on understanding how communities, the public, and governments can learn from disasters.

Resilience, as we define it in our study, is seen when communities learn to adapt to hazards they face, encourage feedback and learning among and from residents, and make decisions with future risks and goals in mind. The goal of our study is to help communities learn how to improve recovery decisions that decrease their vulnerability to a wide variety of hazards and prepare for future disasters that may strike. Hazards in this case include flood risk, but can also include natural, human-made, accidental, economic, or other risks that communities face. The difference between ongoing vulnerability to hazards and long-term resilience may, in part, depend on learning from and adaptating to disaster risks in local communities. Residents and decision makers who understand the factors that increase the likelihood of successful resilience policy may be more likely to develop long-term local-level adaptability and resilience.

While communities learn most dramatically from their own experience with disasters, we believe our research can help communities that face myriad hazards establish processes that can mitigate their risk for future disasters. Based on our research findings, we presented the following recommendations to local governments working on disaster recovery planning at a fall workshop with our research participants.

Risk Perception, Communication, and Community Participation

1. Conduct a disaster recovery planning process similar to existing disaster preparedness processes including the processes and personnel that will guide recovery.
2. Develop a forum to bring together leaders of existing neighborhood and community groups to facilitate conversations about including a diversity of residents in planning and advocacy, identifying important mitigation/recovery resources, and partnering with the local government and other organizations on recovery goals.
3. Maintain an on-going dialogue between local officials and community members to facilitate an in-depth understanding of local hazard risks and risk reduction strategies, focused on using multiple methods of communication and education targeted at specific segments of the community (e.g., children, older adults, immigrants).
4. Capitalize on residents’ direct experiences with hazards to learn more about potential high-risk areas; incorporate these residents into the process of developing risk reduction tools such as hazard maps.
5. Make risk maps available to the public, using simple color-coding or other systems, so that individuals can clearly see their own risk as well as their neighborhood and community risks.

Needs of Diverse Communities

1. Seek assistance from faith-based organizations and community non-profits that are already working with residents who face barriers to accessing government aid programs and decision-making processes.
2. Work across governmental departments (such as human services, health, animal control, and code enforcement) to find points of positive engagement with residents regarding risk and resilience, including developing both an emergency plan and a recovery plan to work with their constituents and identify segments that may be most affected by a disaster.
3. Identify existing relationships in the community – both organizations and individuals – who will be important points-of-contact after a disaster to assist and communicate with various segments of the population, rather than relying only on government-run or established leadership.

Financial and Budgetary Planning

1. Incorporate disaster finance planning in all government departments rather than sequestering the skills only within a single department. Consider requiring an existing training module (or developing a more robust module for communities within a single state) for emergency managers and financial and procurement staff, to train them in the requirements for response and recovery documentation.
2. Determine an appropriate level of budget reserves and clearly document the justification for this level so future government staff and elected officials have insight into past budgetary decisions.
3. Develop pre-disaster relationships and formal partnerships (e.g., MOUs) between larger and smaller capacity governments to aid smaller communities, including with fiscal management, during disasters.

The full report of our project findings is available at our project website. Our hope is that local governments can use the recommendations to move towards a more resilient state in the face of ongoing and increasing hazards.

Drs. Crow and Albright thank the study participants who gave generously of their time over three years, collaborator Dr. Todd Ely, and research assistants Dr. Lydia Lawhon, Dr. Elizabeth Koebele, Dr. Jack Zhou, Corrie Hannah, and Daniel Kojetin. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation and pilot data were collected through a quick response grant from CU’s Natural Hazards Center.