Chapter 2: Environmental governance today

What influences environmental governance? A significant part of the challenge of environmental governance is that it takes place in the context of a rapidly changing world. Those changes reach far beyond the accelerating decline of ecosystems to include economic, political, and technological trends that are redefining our relationships with ecosystems, often for the worse. Globalization, growing trade, and international investment magnify our actions beyond national borders. New fishing, farming, and extraction technologies enable rapid exploitation of natural resources and drive landscape-scale change. Yet, the spread of democracy and the emergence of a robust civil society in most nations have increased public expectations and the demand for “good governance.” These trends give us new options for improving environmental governance as well.

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