Large Portfolio

Sandra Rousseau, HUBrussel and KU Leuven Monitoring and enforcement are essential elements in any environmental policy and their role is crucial in deter­mining the effectiveness of a particular policy. Incomplete enforcement has therefore proved to be a very important factor in the practice of environmental regulation and its implications will be the focus of this contribution. Regula­tors do not automatically know the compliance status of individuals and firms subject to environmental policy. Site visits and reporting requirements will be needed to establish compliance and to detect violators. These monitoring activities are costly and budgets available to inspection agencies are... Read More ››

Matt Keene, US Environmental Protection Agency Evaluators often discuss the challenges faced by the field of evaluation. In our writing (and over our beers) we lament that evaluations are not used, that evaluation is too infrequent, that evidence is misused, that clients are too apprehensive, that budgets are too small, time is too short, data is inadequate and so on. To address the challenges, we recommend, repeatedly, that policies change, programs change, attitudes change, cultures change, etc. The collection of obstacles preventing more efficient progress toward effectiveness are often perceived as external to the field, pressing upon our work... Read More ››

Jorge Hargrave, Brazilian Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA) The Brazilian Amazon covers an area of more than 5 million km² and is mainly covered by tropical rainforests, which provide irreplaceable environmental services. The fast pace of occupation in the region led to indiscriminated forest clearing. After the reaching of an outstandingly high deforesta­tion rate in 2004 (27.4 thousand km²), the Brazilian Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Defor­estation in the Amazon put in place an integrated set of government policies that combine satellite monitoring, enforcement operations and land tenure regularisation, alongside initia­tives to encour­age sustainable activities. In... Read More ››