2. WSSD.
Preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development,
the ten-year follow up to the Earth Summit in Rio, discuss
the need to “promote the establishment or strengthening
of existing authorities and mechanisms necessary
for policy-making, coordination and enforcement” and to
“develop and maintain effective legal systems, including
strong and clear laws related to compliance, monitoring,
enforcement, and for citizen participation.” (UNCSD,
2002).
3. UNEP
Guidelines. UNEP recently developed guidelines for
enforcement and compliance addressing concerns at both
the international and national level. (UNEP, 2002)
a.
Chapter I of UNEP’s new guidelines addresses compliance
with multilateral agreements. It comprises twenty-nine
paragraphs, which spell out the purpose, scope and definitions
of the terms used in this part of the text, as well as
other issues considered necessary for enhancing compliance:
preparatory work for negotiations, effective participation
in negotiations, assessment of domestic capabilities during
negotiations, compliance considerations in multilateral
environmental agreements, review of effectiveness, compliance
mechanisms after a multilateral environmental agreement
comes into effect and dispute settlements provisions.
Other issues covered in this chapter are national implementation,
including national measures, capacity building and technology
transfer. Emphasis is placed on international co-operation
by the United Nations and other relevant international
organizations as well as through multilateral and bilateral
initiatives.
b. Chapter
II of the guidelines addresses national enforcement
and international co-operation in combating violations
of laws implementing multilateral environmental agreements.
Comprising fifteen paragraphs, this chapter spells out
the purpose, scope and definitions of the terms used in
this part of the text, as well as national enforcement
of laws and regulations, institutional framework, national
coordination, training for enhancing enforcement capabilities
and public environmental awareness and education. Emphasis
is placed on international co-operation and coordination,
bearing in mind the need for consistency in laws and regulations,
co-operation in judicial proceedings, institutional framework
and capacity building and strengthening.
4. Montevideo
III. Language in Agenda 21 empowered UNEP
and other organizations to more actively support compliance
and enforcement activities, including capacity building.
UNEP responded with a number of initiatives, including
the Programme for the Development and Periodic Review
of Environmental Law for the First Decade of the 21st
Century (also known as “Montevideo III”). The final Montevideo
III Programme, approved in 2001, lists as a priority the
need to increase the effectiveness of environmental law
and stresses implementation, compliance and enforcement.
(UNEP, 2001).
5. North
American Agreement for Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC).
This well known regional agreement calls for increased
transparency for the efficient enforcement and compliance
with environmental laws in North America, including measures
for monitoring compliance and provides its Council of
Ministers with authority to develop recommendations to
State Parties regarding indicators for reporting the state
of the environment, techniques and methodologies for data
gathering and analysis on environmental law enforcement
issues. [See Articles 1(f), 1(g), 1(h), 2(1)(e), 2(2),
5(1)(b), 10(2)(a), 10(2)(c), 12(2)(c)].
ii.
Call for Indicators
1. Agenda
21. Chapter 40 of Agenda 21 notes that traditional
indicators (for example, GNP and measurements of individual
resource or pollution flows) do not provide adequate indications
of sustainability. (Agenda 21, Chapter 40.4). Due to
the inability of traditional indicators to provide the
necessary information, chapter 40 calls on the international
community to develop and promote new indicators that would,
in part, help track progress towards achieving the goals
of Agenda 21. (Chapter 40.6-40.11) Similarly, Chapter
8.21 calls on countries to develop “Institutional capacity
for collecting compliance data . . . and conducting periodic
evaluations of the effectiveness of compliance and enforcement
programs.” Chapter 8.6 states that “Countries could develop
systems for monitoring and evaluation of progress towards
achieving sustainable development by adopting indicators
that measure changes across economic, social and environmental
dimensions.”
2. WSSD
Preparations. Several participants in the regional
and global preparations for the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable
Development have noted the value of environmental indicators
generally and the profound absences of indicators dealing
with issues of implementation, enforcement and compliance
with environmental laws and policies. (INECE, 2001).
3. NAAEC.
This agreement established the Commission
for Environmental Cooperation (CEC). The CEC initiated
a project in 1997 to “explore development or indicators
or criteria for evaluating the performance of the Parties
in implementing policies and programs for effective environmental
enforcement.” The NAAEC also states that approaches and
common indicators can be considered by the Council. (Article
10(2)(c)).
- Implementation,
Enforcement and Compliance Indicators Defined.
Environmental indicators have traditionally been limited
to measuring the health and status of environmental
media like air and water quality, waste management
and land use. To date, few efforts have attempted
to address issues of implementation, enforcement and
compliance. Definitions and examples of indicators
for these issues are set forth below:
i.
Implementation Indicators. Governments
are required to take steps to implement commitments they
have made in international agreements and national policies.
Implementation can take the form of new laws, programs
or the recognition of new rights afforded individuals.
An example of an implementation indicator is whether a
party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora has passed the four pieces
of implementing legislation required under the agreement.
(see http://www.cites.org).
ii.
Enforcement Indicators. Once a government
has adopted environmental laws they need to enforce them.
An example of a commonly used enforcement indicator is
the number of enforcement actions (civil, criminal or
administrative) brought by the government during a given
time period. (USEPA, 2001)
iii.
Compliance Indicators. Once the laws are
in place and are being enforced, other indicators measure
the level of compliance in the regulated communities.
The compliance rate is an example of this type of indicator.
Note that this indicator is predicated on the existence
of enforcement inspections. (USEPA, 1992).
- Examples.
While there is relatively little work on
these types of indicators, the following indicator
projects attempt to address issues of implementation,
enforcement and compliance.
i.
The North American Commission for Environmental
Cooperation (CEC). In 1997, the CEC initiated a project
to explore the development of indicators or criteria for
evaluating the performance of the Parties in implementing
policies and programs for effective environmental enforcement.
The objectives of this project are to document current
work in the area of enforcement indicators and provide
a forum for dialogue with a view of establishing a baseline
group of indicators. Ultimately, the CEC hopes to develop
more effective indicators for use by the three parties
to the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation.
(NACEC, 1999).
ii.
United Sates-Mexico Border XXI Program.
The Program’s Cooperative Enforcement and Compliance
Workgroup periodically publish several indicators for
the border area including: number of inspections conducted
in the area, number of enforcement actions and penalties,
amount of money spent on injunctive relief and supplemental
environmental projects, and the amount of pollution reduced
as a result of enforcement. (see U.S. Mexico Border
XXI Homepage at http://www.epa.gov/usmexicoborder/index.htm).
iii.
USEPA [fill in based on Mike Stahl’s paper]
iv.
PROFEPA – Mexico. In recent years Mexico’s
Procuraduría Federal de Protección al Ambiente (PROFEPA)
has initiated, with relative success, a program of compliance
and enforcement indicators known as ICNA’s, or Indices
de Cumplimiento de la Normatividad Ambiental (Indexes
of Compliance with Environmental Normativity).
- INECE’s
Plan for Developing Indicators
- Overview
& Objective. The objective of the INECE
Enforcement Indicator project is “action and accountability
through better policy evaluation” in order to create
a safer and healthier environment, and to promote
sustainable development. The INECE environmental
indicators project aims to develop a system for evaluating
capabilities of environmental compliance and enforcement
programs at the national, regional, and/or international
level. It also aims to develop a process to allow
a country or region to develop a system for evaluating
compliance and enforcement. The initial stage of
the project involves researching and surveying programs
worldwide. The project also aims to develop a functional
index of environmental compliance and enforcement
indicators based on the information gathered during
the first stage of the project.
- Applications.
The INECE indicators will be designed for a wide range
of applications, including for example:
i.
Parliaments and National Governments- to
help set priorities and allocate budgets; and to help
them identify which indicators are relevant for evaluating
environmental compliance and enforcement in a particular
region or field;
ii.
Practitioners- to evaluate alternative
enforcement policies and practices;
iii.
International and Bi-lateral Donors- to
help set priorities and allocate funding;
iv.
The Regulated Community- to help understand
their obligations and gauge their performance;
v.
Citizens and NGOs- to apply political pressure
to improve environmental enforcement by understanding
the success or failure of the current policies;
vi.
Investment Bankers and other Financial Entities-
to measure and qualify investment grades in emerging markets.
- Users/Partners.
The design and use of the INECE indicators will draw
upon a diverse group of constituencies including,
for example:
i.
Government Policy-Makers – legislators,
judges, and high level members of the executive.
ii.
Enforcement Practitioners -- regulators,
inspectors, and other implementers of policy;
iii.
International Actors – including UNEP,
UNDP, CSD, MEA Secretariats, OECD, World Bank;
iv.
Regional Actors – including the European
Union, regional development banks (IDB, ADB, EBRD) and
the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation;
v.
Bi-lateral Donors – including the Netherlands,
the United States, and Canada;
vi.
Academia -- including Yale Center for Environmental
Law (see Esty, 2000), University of Southern Chile
(see their current work with Global Forest Watch
at http://www.globalforestwatch.org
) and CESIN at Columbia University, and the Beijing Institute
of Environmental Research;
vii.
NGOs – including the World Resources Institute,
the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law (SPDA), Thailand
Environment Institute, the Center for Environmental Law
of the South (DASSUR) and the Environmental Management
and Law Association of Hungary.
- Principles.
The indicator project will be guided by a set of principles,
or criteria, developed from the best experiences of
other leading indicator projects. (see WRI,
et al., 2002; OECD, 2001; UNCSD, 2001; WB,
1999; NACEC, 1999; USEPA, 1997). The guiding principles
include:
i.
Transparency. Transparency refers both
to the process of developing the indicators, as well as
their use.
1. Transparency
in development. The project will make all assumptions
explicit and invite a broad coalition of stakeholders,
including government representatives, to participate throughout
the life of the project. (NACEC, 1999) All project terms
will be explicitly defined to maintain consistency. Progress
of the INECE Indicators project will be available through
the Secretariat and via the Internet, with appropriate
functions to enable the indicator development team to
receive suggestions and comments. Data and data collection
methods will also be publicly available. (UNCSD, 2001).
2. Transparency
in use. The indicators will be easy to access for
civil society (WRI, 2002), as well as policymakers and
practitioners (EPA, 1997). The project realizes that
the rights to access environmental information and to
participate in environmental decision making are still
in deficit in various nations. This project will serve
as an additional call to those nations to guarantee such
rights.
ii.
Informative. The indicators will provide
the information that various users/partners want and need.
They will be presented in a visually engaging and easy
to understand format that makes the underlying data clear
and useful to civil society, government, and the regulatory
community. (Hardi, 2001). Through this process, voluntary
compliance by industry will be improved and international
certification efforts, such as ISO 14000, will be encouraged.
(NACEC, 1999). Cooperation will be encouraged between
regions/networks that have similar practices and levels
of enforcement. This includes sharing information, establishing
common practices, and discussing the experiences of the
region.
iii.
Indicators will also measure values such as effectiveness
in the access to justice, environmental information and
civil society participation in environmental decision
making.
iv.
Comparable. The indicator project will
balance the need for uniformity in the collection of data
and the measurement of indicators with the recognition
that countries at different stages of development require
different measurement. (NACEC, 1999). The project will
develop a graduated set of indicators for use by countries
depending on the stage of their enforcement program with
aggregated indexes that will allow for comparison of the
different data accumulated. A measurement that is useful
in one region may not be useful in another. However,
there is considerable additional value in having some
of the indicators for developing and developed countries
being comparable. Use of a graduated set of indicators
will be considered to allow countries/regions to adapt
the indicators to the needs of the area. For example,
enforcement indicators used by less developed or developing
countries may include the number of trained staff and
promulgation of environmental laws. Developed countries
may use a complex set of indicators that combine indicators
such as the number of air monitoring stations, number
of plant audits, number of permits issued, and number
of enforcement actions with indicators on pollution potential
and the number of plants in a sector. The data from developing
and developed countries will be weighted and aggregated
by technical experts to allow for meaningful comparison
despite the different measurements. The project will
encourage developing and less developed nations to make
their utmost effort to implement the indicators both at
the national and sub-national levels, according to their
legal regimes.
v.
Policy Relevant. The indicators will be
designed with an emphasis on utility. Specific emphasis
will be placed on priority setting, resource allocation,
and accountability for policy performance. (USEPA, 1997).
vi.
Credible. The indicator project will draw
upon expertise from around the world and across sectors
to develop a more robust set of measures that allow for
flexibility and continuous improvement. Every effort will
be made to insure the underlying methodology, measures,
and data are complete, accurate and timely. (Hardi, 2001).
vii.
Compatible. The indicators will be designed
to be compatible with other existing reporting requirements
(e.g. UN, WB, OECD, etc.). This will have two
major benefits. First, it will minimize duplicate
reporting or excess reporting burdens, resulting in reduced
costs. Second, it will allow the indicator project to
build from the baseline of an existing framework and methodology,
to be determined through further research and case studies,
in order to allow for comparability and data aggregation.
In the process, implementation, enforcement and compliance
data will become linked to traditional measures of environmental
quality and sustainability. (NACEC, 1999). Thus the
indicators will not exist in a vacuum but rather will
be able to “plug-in” to these other measurements giving
a greater audience to the indicators and a greater reach
to INECE’s message.
viii.
Technologically Sophisticated. The indicators
will incorporate, as possible, the latest information
technologies including GIS, remote sensing (Hardi, 2001),
internet search engines and complex searchable databases.
ix.
Measurable. The indicators should be measurable
and the process of collecting, analyzing, and publishing
the data should be cost effective (USEPA, 1997; OECD,
2001). Benefits of environmental enforcement and compliance
will be stressed because they often exceed the costs to
implement the necessary measures, although they often
may be difficult to value. Additionally, the data collected
will be presented in a format that can be easily understood
by policy makers, as well as the general public.
- Examples
of Other Principles. Both the USEPA and OECD
have a set of principles that guide its indicator
project. A short summary of these principles is offered
for comparison to the INECE principles.
i.
OECD. Three basic criteria are used in
OECD indicator work: policy relevance and utility for
users, analytical soundness, and measurability. (OECD,
2001).
1. Policy
relevance and utility for users – An environmental indicator
should provide a representative picture of environmental
conditions, pressures on the environment or society’s
response; be simple, easy to interpret and able to show
trends over time; be responsive to changes in the environment
and related human activities; provide a basis for international
comparisons; be either national in scope or applicable
to regional environmental issues of national significance;
have a threshold or reference value against which to compare
it, so that users can assess the significance of the values
associated with it.
2. Analytical
Soundness – An environmental indicator should be theoretically
well founded in technical and scientific terms; be based
on international standards and international consensus
about its validity; and lend itself to being linked to
economic model, forecasting and information systems.
3. Measurability
– The data required to support an indicator should be
readily available or made available at a reasonable cost/benefit
ratio; adequately documented and of known quality; and
updated at regular intervals in accordance with reliable
procedures.
ii.
USEPA Performance Measures criteria. (USEPA,
1997).
1. Relevant
– in keeping with EPA’s mission, goals, objectives, and
priorities, and the needs of external stakeholders
2. Transparent
– understandable, so they enlighten users about program
or agency performance
3. Credible
– data to support the measures is complete and accurate
4. Feasible
– the cost of collecting data does not outweigh its value
5. Functional
– encourage organizations and employees to engage in effective
and constructive behavior and activities
6. Comprehensive
– important to many operational aspects of organizational
performance.
- Conceptual
Framework
i. Importance
of a Common Conceptual Framework. In order for INECE
indicators to be used in connection with other existing
environmental and sustainability indexes, it is important
to adopt a conceptual framework that is compatible with
these ongoing efforts. There are a number of frameworks
in use around the world today. They include Stock/Capital
& Flow, Accounting, Integrated Assessment, Human-Ecosystem
Interaction, Components- Problems, and Sustainable Development
Holistic. (Hardi, 2001). The INECE project will use
the most commonly employed framework -- Pressure-State-Response
(PSR). Alternative frameworks will continue to be reviewed
as appropriate.
ii.
Pressure-State-Response Model
1. PSR
is Widely Used. The PSR framework follows a cause-effect-social
response logic, and was developed by the OECD from earlier
work by the Canadian government. (Hammond, 1995). The
PSR model and modified versions are used by a number of
government agencies and institutional indicator projects,
including: UNCSD, Core Set of Indicators; UNEP, Global
Environment Outlook; World Bank, Environmental Performance
Indicators; World Bank Central American Environmental
Indicators; European Union, EuroStat Environmental Pressure
Indicators; European Environmental Agency Headline Indicators;
EBRD-OECD Environmental Indicator Set for Countries in
Transition-CEE/NIS; World Economic Forum, Environmental
Sustainability Index; Statistics Canada, Human Activity
and the Environment. (Hardi, 2001).
2. Example
of PSR Defined: OECD Environmental Indicators. The
PSR model is used to structure the OECD work on environmental
policies and reporting. The PSR model helps decision
makers and the public view environmental, economic, and
other issues as interconnected. (OECD, 1997; Hardi, 2001).
a.
Pressure indicators describe pressures from human activities
exerted on the environment, including natural resources.
Pressure indicators are closely related to production
and consumption patterns. They can be used to show progress
in decoupling economic activities from related
environmental pressures, or in meeting national objectives
and international commitments.
b. State
indicators measure the quality or condition of the environment--particularly
declines attributable to human activities. Examples of
state indicators include measures of stratospheric ozone
concentrations, of urban air quality, or of fish stocks.
c.
Response indicators gauge the efforts taken by society
or by a given institution to improve the environment or
mitigate degradation. Thus they measure how policies
are implemented by tracking treaty agreements, budget
commitments, research, regulatory compliance, then introduction
of financial incentives, or voluntary behavioral changes.
These indicators measure progress toward regulatory compliance
or other governmental efforts, but do not directly tell
what is happening to the environment.
iii.
Examples of Other Frameworks. Other frameworks
also may provide valuable insights into indicator development.
1. Input-output-outcome.
This is a project based approach that combines the
project’s outcomes and impacts into one. This framework
is organized along a project’s overall objectives, its
components and its impacts. The overall objectives are
those the project is designed to meet, while the components
are the means by which the implementation of the project
is to be carried out. The framework comprises three sets
of indicators, those covering the overall objectives of
the project, impact indicators; those relating to the
components of the project, output indicators; and those
relating to the pre-project conviction, baseline indicators.
The World Bank Set of Environmental Indicators (WB, 1999)
and the World Wildlife International, Living Planet Report
use the input-output-outcome framework. (WWF, 2001).
2. Intentions-actions-results.
This is a newly proposed indicator framework to measure
and assess environmental performance. INECE is currently
waiting to learn about this framework from the OECD. Updated
information will be placed on the INECE Indicators Forum.
(http://www.inece.org/forumsindicators.html).
- Methodology.
The Indicators project methodology, or process,
will include the following steps.
i.
Identify Working Group. The INECE Secretariat
with the help of the Indicators Subcommittee of the Executive
Planning Commission will recruit a team of experts in
the development and implementation of performance indicators
and environmental enforcement fields to serve on a working
group that will review and advise on all matters related
to the development, selection, and testing of the INECE
Enforcement Indicators project. The working group will
discuss the preliminary issues of the indicator project
beginning at the 6th INECE Conference in April
2002 and will meet as needed to discuss indicators matters
and make recommendations.
ii.
Identify Users and Partners. The INECE
Secretariat, with the help of the Indicators Subcommittee
of the Executive Planning Commission, will identify users
of the INECE Enforcement Indicator and partners who will
be invited to participate in various capacities to oversee,
fund, and test the enforcement indicators project. Particular
attention will be paid to enforcement and compliance practitioners
and policymakers.
iii.
Prepare Case Studies. The Secretariat,
with the help of the indicators working group, will study
a selected group of indicator models to review, analyze,
and understand its potential value for use in the context
of enforcement indicators. The initial case studies are
described below and will include NACEC, EU accession countries,
WRI, WB, USEPA and PROFEPA.
iv.
Adopt Framework. The Secretariat has tentatively
selected the PSR model but the Project will ultimately
select a common conceptual framework based on a common
understanding of concepts and definitions. This will
most likely lead to the selection of the PSR model or
some variation.
v.
Select Principles. A number of principles
or criteria may guide the selection of the final set of
indicators. INECE will first establish which principles
or criteria will guide this selection process. All potential
indicators will be reviewed in light of these principles
or criteria.
vi.
Define Indicators. The Project will identify
and define the first two sets of indicators: implementation
and enforcement.
vii.
Use Phased Approach. The enforcement indicators
will be developed, refined, and tested in a phased approach
among representative countries. The phased approach will
allow the Secretariat and working group to pilot test
the indicators in regions with varied political, economic,
societal, and environmental circumstances. After testing,
the implementation and enforcement indicators will be
revised and harmonized and tested again to ensure applicability.
Once these indicators are developed, the project will
be expanded to included compliance, sustainable development,
and environmental protection indicators.
viii.
Provide Continuous Reassessment. The project
will continually reassess its approach -- including partners,
users, principles, and methodology – in order to expand
the reach and improve the quality of the indicators.
New partners will be sought. New techniques will be explored
to insure that the INECE Indicators remain on the cutting
edge of environmental policy making.
- Case
Studies. These will include the following among
others:
- North
American Commission for Environmental Cooperation.
Since 1997 the NACEC has explored the development
of indicators for evaluating the performance of the
Canada, the United States, and Mexico in implementing
policies and programs for effective environmental
enforcement. The long term goals of this project are
to explore the appropriateness of North American indicators
of effective environmental enforcement policies, programs
and strategies; support the development of more effective
indicators; and provide public reports on the Parties’
fulfillment of their obligation, using agreed upon
indicators. To date this project has issued a set
of background papers (NACEC, 1998) and the proceedings
their international dialogue on enforcement indicators
held in May 1998 (NACEC, 1999). Most recently, the
North American Working Group on Environmental Enforcement
and Compliance Cooperation (EWG) of the NACEC held
a workshop on informant indicators in Montreal in
March 2002. The North American process is of particular
interest to INECE since it is one of the few initiatives
around the world currently developing enforcement
indicators, admittedly with a regional focus, and
therefore they are discussing many issues similar
to those facing INECE.
- European
Union Accession Process. Every Candidate Country
seeking membership in the European Union must transpose
EU legislation into their national laws. Once these
laws are in place, the European Commission requires
that they be implemented. While the EU does not have
a set of indicators in place to evaluate the status
of this implementation, it has commissioned several
studies to analyze the administrative structures in
the individual candidate countries in order to ascertain
if they have adequate capacity to enforce these laws.
Recently, a report was issued that provides an overview
of the current status of these administrations. (ECOTEC,
et al, 2000). These studies are useful to
the INECE Indicators project since they cover, in
a narrative format, many of the issues that we will
be attempting to quantify in our indicators.
- World
Resources Institute. WRI is involved in a number
of projects around the world that deal with many of
the same issues that the INECE Indicator project will
face. WRI is also an important case study because
of the number and diversity of partners, drawn from
every sector and region of the world, assisting them
on these projects.
i.
The Access Initiative is led by WRI in
cooperation with the Environmental Management and Law
Association (Budapest, Hungary), Corporacion Participa
(Santiago, Chile), and the Thailand Environment Institute
(Bangkok, Thailand). It seeks to “improve decisions and
policies that affect the environment and human lives by
establishing common global practices for public access
to information, participation, and justice in environmental
decision-making.” (see The Access Initiative’s
Homepage at http://www.accessinitiative.org).
Currently, they are in the process of finalizing an indicator
framework, designed to measure and establish a set of
common practices in four broad areas: comprehensiveness
and quality of the general legal framework; degree of
available access to selected types of information about
the environment; degree of public participation in decision-making
processes; and comprehensiveness and quality of capacity
building efforts to encourage informed and meaningful
public participation. (WRI, et al. 2002).
ii.
Global Forest Watch is an international
data and mapping network that combines on-the-ground knowledge
with digital technology to provide accurate information
about the world's forests. It began in 1997 in four pilot
countries; Cameroon, Canada, Gabon, and Indonesia. Their
goal is to be in 21 countries, covering three fourths
of the world’s remaining frontier forests, by 2005. This
project draws on governments, NGOs and academics from
around the world, including: Cameroon, Canada, Chile,
Gabon, Indonesia, Russia, the United States, and Venezuela.
Its objective is to “infuse transparency and accountability
into the decision making processes that determine how
forests are managed and for whom” by: tracking the actors
(corporations, government agencies, individuals) that
are sponsoring development activities; mapping out where
these actors are operating; and monitoring the degree
to which these actors are following national and local
management laws and regulations. (see Global Forest
Watch’s Homepage at http://www.globalforestwatch.org).
iii.
Reefs at Risk is a project led by WRI in
cooperation with partners around the world. It began
in 1998 with a study on global pressures on reefs. (Burke,
1998). Recently they published a report on reefs in Southeast
Asia. (Burke, 2002). The project is to produce map-based
indicators of human pressure on coral reefs from five
broad categories: coastal development, overfishing, destructive
fishing, marine pollution, and sedimentation and pollution
from inland activities. The modeling approach involves
identifying component sources of stress that can be mapped
for each threat category. Once these components have been
selected, model rules are developed for translating them
into measures of threat. The model incorporates the effects
of management and natural features that influence how
human pressures impact coral reef ecosystems. The index
is designed to highlight areas where, in the absence of
good management, coral reef degradation might be occurring
or where it is likely to happen in the near future given
ongoing levels of human activity. The combined index provides
a regionally consistent indicator of human pressure on
coral reefs that serves as a proxy guide to coral reef
conditions. Their next project is a report on reefs at
risk in the Caribbean. (see http://www.wri.org/wri/reefsatrisk/).
- World
Bank Environmental Performance Indicators.
The World Bank is involved in a number of indicator
projects. One of these projects, the EPI, is a project-based
approach where an indicator’s defining characteristic
is that it quantifies and simplifies information in
a manner that facilitates understanding of environmental
problems by both decision makers and the public. (World
Bank, 1999). The goal is to assess how project activities
affect the direction of change in environmental performance,
and to measure the magnitude of that change. Indicators
that allow a quantitative evaluation of project impacts
are particularly useful because they provide more
information than just whether the project is improving
or degrading the state of the environment. Information
on the magnitude of a benefit is required to determine
whether it is worth the resources being expended to
achieve it. Similarly, information on the magnitude
of adverse impacts might indicate whether the harm
is justified given the other benefits of the activities
in question. Above all, an indicator must be practical
and realistic, given the many constraints facing those
that implement and monitor projects. This work is
of interest to INECE since it is unique in that it
uses a project-based framework (modified input-output-outcome-impact
approach) in contrast to the PSR model adopted by
most other indicator work. It may be particularly
informative in the later phase of the INECE project
when we deal with compliance indicators since compliance
is often measured in terms of sites, plants, and projects.
- United
States Environmental Protection Agency. USEPA’s
Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance began
a program in 1997 to develop and implement an enhanced
set of performance measure with the goal of increasing
the effectiveness of their programs. The first category
of the measures describes impact on the environment
from enforcement and compliance assurance outputs
and outcomes. The second category of measures describes
changes in behavior of the public or regulated entities.
The final category describes activities undertaken
by EPA or (if there is available data) the states
as part of the enforcement and compliance assurance
program. (USEPA, 1997). EPA’s work will be helpful
to INECE since they represent the cutting edge of
measurement in the field of enforcement and compliance
in a developed economy.
- PROFEPA
– Mexico. In recent years Mexico’s Procuraduría
Federal de Protección al Ambiente -PROFEPA has initiated
with relative success a program of compliance and
enforcement indicators known as ICNA’s, or Indices
de Cumplimiento de la Normatividad Ambiental (Indexes
of Compliance with Environmental Normativity). Mexico’s
PROFEPA work on indicators should serve to identify
problems and opportunities associated with the implementation
of information and analysis systems on enforcement
and compliance in developing countries.
- Other.
INECE will continue to search out new and informative
case studies to help guide the Indicator Projects
work.
- Staffing
and Budget [TBA]
- Bibliography
Burke,
Selig, and Spalding, Reefs at Risk: A Map-Based Indicator of Threats to the World's
Coral Reefs (WRI, 1998) available at http://www.wri.org/wri/indictrs/reefrisk.html
_____,
Reefs at Risk in Southeast Asia (WRI, 2002) available
at http://www.wri.org/wri/reefsatrisk/reefriskseasia.html.
Ecotec
Research and Consulting, Administrative Capacity for Implementnation and Enforcement of EU Environmental
Policy in the 13 Candidate Countries (2000) available
at http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/enlarg/administrative_capacity.htm.
Environment
Canada, National
Environmental Indicators Series (2002) available
at http://www.ec.gc.ca/Ind/.
Esty,
Daniel C., "Measuring National Environmental Performance
and Its Determinants," in The
Global Competitiveness Report 2000 (Michael Porter,
Jeffrey Sachs, et al., eds. 2000).
Hammond,
Adriaanse, Rodenburg, Bryant, Woodward, Environmental Indicators: A Systematic Approach
to Measuring and Reporting on Environmental Policy Performance
in the Context of Sustainable Development, (World
Resources Institute, 1995) available at http://www.wristore.com/wristore/enin.html.
Hardi,
Peter, Pumulo Muyatwa, Review Paper on Selected Environmental Reporting and Indicator Practices
(International Institute for Sustainable Development,
2001).
International
Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement,
Memo: Possible INECE Participation in
the World Summit for Sustainable Development, Johannesburg,
South Africa, 2-11 September 2002 (2001) available
at http://inece.org/EPC/Memo_01-10-26/Rio%2010%20Memo.htm.
_____,
Country Progress/Self
Assessment of Environmental Compliance and Enforcement
Programs: Preliminary Report (Draft, Undated).
North
American Commission for Environmental Cooperation, Indicators of Effective Environmental Enforcement:
A North American Dialogue – Background Papers (1998).
_____,
Indicators of Effective
Environmental Enforcement: Proceedings of a North American
Dialogue (1999) available at http://www.cec.org/files/pdf/LAWPOLICY/indic-e_EN.pdf.
