Luísa Schmidt

Marine Conservation in the Azores: Evaluating Marine Protected Area Development in a Remote Island Context

In the Archipelago of the Azores, over 110,000 km2 of marine areas presently benefit from some form of protection, including a suite of coastal habitats, offshore areas, seamounts, hydrothermal vents and large parcels of mid-ocean ridge. These areas are integrated in the recently established network of marine protected areas (MPAs), which stands as the cornerstone of Azorean marine conservation policies. This article describes and analyses the process of MPA establishment in the Azores and the current network of protected areas. Three phases of MPA development are identified, progressing from individual MPA establishment with little scientific support in the 1980s, the increasing scope of scientific research during the 1990s under European Union initiatives and the gradual implementation of an MPA network in the 2000s. Expert critical evaluation of the contemporary situation demonstrates that this network must be integrated within a wider regional marine management strategy, with MPA success being contingent upon the implementation of management plans, appropriate enforcement and monitoring, and bridging gaps in scientific knowledge.

The Difficulties of Designing Future Coastlines in the Face of Climate Change

Abstract This paper adopts two perspectives. The first is a framing process aimed at defining and examining the conditions for adopting adaptive coastal governance. The second applies to relevant themes of changing coastal policy, central to the testing of adaptive coastal governance, namely cooperative science, risk-sensitive planning, socially fair insurance cover and effective ways to design, finance and engage with local communities over actual coastal change. We illuminate both missions through case studies in North Norfolk (England) and Portugal, all notably affected by coastal change. In England and Portugal, there is a broad understanding and acceptance of the likely effects of climate change. This recognition encourages debates over risk-averse planning, the design of proactive insurance cover, creative relocation of endangered property and new ways of predicting and paying for coastal adjustment. Yet, moving from a basic willingness to engage with coastal change to actual practices of landscape adjustment through such policy shifts is proving very difficult. In this research, we find that coastal landscapes are lived experiences, resigned acceptances of inevitable change and hopeful imaginings. Coastal management institutions are not geared to resolving this incompatibility and this paper explains why.

Trends and Dilemmas Facing Environmental Education in Portugal: From Environmental Problem Assessment to Citizenship Involvement

Environmental education (EE) emerged in Portugal as an organized field of collective action about 30 years ago. At this time of the return to democracy, major social and environmental changes had begun to occur. Yet, after 30 years of EE, together with significant improvements in the education system and curricula, the real impacts of these mostly voluntary and aggressive efforts aimed at preparing future citizens to deal effectively and sensitively with environmental problem solving are not yet evident. The pathways and social context of these efforts aimed at upgrading EE in Portugal, and their apparent failure to meet their objectives, form the basis of the analysis in this paper. The authors examine the results of a survey questionnaire sent to 15,000 public and private schools all running projects formally associated with both EE and education for sustainable development (ESD). The primary purpose of the analysis was to identify the trends, constraints, and potentials for these EE/ESD projects and initiatives within primary and secondary schools. In addition, perspectives as to the emerging trends in ESD in Portugal are discussed, bearing in mind the shifting educational context.

Conflicting Climate Change Frames in a Global Field of Media Discourse

Reducing global emissions will require a global cosmopolitan culture built from detailed attention to conflicting national climate change frames (interpretations) in media discourse. The authors analyze the global field of media climate change discourse using 17 diverse cases and 131 frames. They find four main conflicting dimensions of difference: validity of climate science, scale of ecological risk, scale of climate politics, and support for mitigation policy. These dimensions yield four clusters of cases producing a fractured global field. Positive values on the dimensions show modest association with emissions reductions. Data-mining media research is needed to determine trends in this global field.

Who's afraid of Local Agenda 21? Top-down and bottom-up perspectives on local sustainability

Local Agenda 21 is essentially a process of democratic practicing, insofar as it involves sharing political competencies in decision making by the local authorities, and the mobilisation of all citizens and civil society organisations in the process. It is, thus, a course of action in which the willingness and openness of local political leaders is as important as the ability of citizens to take the initiative of learning about and getting involved in local public life. Unfortunately, there are no more than twenty LA21 processes running in Portugal, and most of them do not fulfil all the parameters required. This paper discusses some hypotheses on the lack of success of LA21 in Portugal, which are related to structural political conditions for local governance and public participation. Resorting to some surveys on environmental policy issues (applied to both the municipal leaders and the population), the aim is to characterise the trends of mobilisation on local sustainability in Portuguese society, particularly with regard to the citizenry and local administrations.

Alterações climáticas, sociais e políticas em Portugal: processos de governança num litoral em risco

The Portuguese coast is one of the most threatened by coastal erosion in Europe, a phenomenon that will be intensified by climate change, due to sea level rise and changes in the wave system in the Atlantic coast. Along with this physical fragility, the coast has witnessed an accelerated urban and tourist pressure, which increased in Portugal since the 60s. This phenomenon creates social fragility, which in turn links with a political fragility resulting from the states inability to deal with coastal management in a consistent way. The main response to coastal problems has been investing in heavy defence structures strongly supported by EU funds. However, this type of investment is increasingly compromised due to the economic downturn and the prospective reduction of European funds. Based on three case studies - in the North, Centre and South of Portugal - we will address the current social condition of risk perception in three unstable areas of the Portuguese coast, where urban centres with a strong touristic motivation were installed: Vagueira, Costa da Caparica and Quarteira. Despite having in common recent growth dynamics, these areas show different occupation processes and different levels of coastal erosion. The paper addresses these three places from the point of view of its administrative condition and the effects of public policies for coastal planning. Furthermore we propose a reflexion about the need for new institutional models of governance and sustainable coastal management.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster and its effects on media framing of fission and fusion energy technologies

This paper presents results of a comparison of media coverage of fusion and fission energy technologies in three countries (Germany, Spain and Portugal) and in the English language international print media addressing transnational elite, from 2008 to 2012. The analysis showed that the accident in Fukushima in March 2010 did not have significant impact on media framing of nuclear fusion in the major part of print media under investigation. In fact, fusion is clearly dissociated from traditional nuclear (fission) energy and from nuclear accidents. It tends to be portrayed as a safe, clean and unlimited source of energy, although less credited when confronted with research costs, technological feasibility and the possibility to be achieved in a reasonable period of time. On the contrary, fission is portrayed as a hazardous source of energy, expensive when compared to research costs of renewables, hardly a long-term energy option, susceptible to contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons or rogue military use. Fukushima accident was consistently discussed in the context of safety problems of nuclear power plants and in many cases appeared not as an isolated event but rather as a reminder of previous nuclear disasters such as Three Miles Island and Chernobyl.

The role of non-scholar organisations in environmental education: a case study from Portugal

The aim of this study was to identify, characterise, collect and systematise data on initiatives of environmental education in Portugal. Currently, there is no integrated governmental program on environmental education in this country, but only unrelated voluntary initiatives. Although surveys indicated a growing concern by young people on environmental issues, systematic studying on the issue was lacking. The field seemed to be characterised by wide diversity and disperse voluntary action by non-governmental agents and self-mobilised teachers. In the context of the Decade Dedicated to Education for Sustainable Development of UNESCO, governmental and non-governmental organisations dedicated to the environment now have a new opportunity to enhance and coordinate contributions to make environmental issues a priority for the next generation.

The Hegemony of Global Politics: News Coverage of Climate Change in a Small Country

ABSTRACT Researching media coverage of climate change may shed light on the different configurations of global and domestic factors affecting journalism and politics. This article analyzes climate change coverage in Portugal from 2007 to 2014 in comparison with 14 other countries. It shows that the Portuguese press tends to reproduce the global political agenda on climate change, mainly focusing on international events associated with global political decision-making processes, instead of providing a domesticated coverage, as observed in other countries. National and local levels of action are thus obscured. The interplay between global and domestic factors—including characteristics of Portugal’s press and politics, such as national political leaders’ lack of mobilization and communication on climate change, media’s deference to powerful sources, and reliance on international news feeds—creates the conditions for global politics to play an hegemonic role in media representations, which is likely to influence public engagement with climate change.

Outlining Community Perceptions of Climate Change in Local Adaptation Strategies Development: The Case of ClimAdaPT.Local

ClimAdaPT.Local’s goal was the development of 26 Municipal Adaptation Strategies for Climate Change (EMAAC). The project aimed to increase the capacity of these municipalities to incorporate adaptation to Climate Change (CC) in their planning instruments. To do so, several methodologies and tools were specifically developed. One of these, the local stakeholder engagement strategy, constitutes an innovation as far as the development of these strategies in Portugal is concerned. This paper focuses on this stakeholder engagement process and its achievements. ClimAdaPT.Local’s stakeholder engagement was workshop based. These were put in place in order to understand perceptions of CC, its impacts, local risks, but also survey potential inputs into the ongoing EMAAC development. Each session comprised several discussion tables, intending to: (i) obtain a global reference framework on perceptions and sensitivity to CC at the local level; (ii) complement the vulnerabilities assessment made by the technical staff from each municipality; (iii) inform, adjust and optimise the local adaptation strategies. In addition, stakeholders were asked to share their visions of the future, namely how CC and local territorial identity will be articulated in the near, and not so near, future. The analytical findings encompassed in paper refer to point (i). All in all, in Portugal, there is a widespread perception that CC is happening, in particular among social groups that engage in activities such as agriculture and fishing. And despite being considered to pose a threat, CC is, at the same time, broadly perceived as a window of opportunity to put in place measures that improve local living conditions.