A Socioeconomic Perspective of Environmental Degradation at Kepulauan Seribu Marine National Park,Indonesia

Kepulauan Seribu was designated as a marine protected area to promote and protect a healthy marine ecosystem and its biodiversity. However, despite numerous efforts to protect the area, the park continues to be impacted by both external and internal factors. External factors include domestic sewage, vessel traffic, industrial effluent, and urban run-off from metropolitan Jakarta. Meanwhile, internal factors include the problems created by tourism development and the impacts of the economic activities of the park's residents. The ongoing political and economic crisis in Indonesia, which has plagued the country since 1997, has amplified the pressure on the resources and on the well being of the park. This study traces and analyzes the intrinsic causes of the internal problems using a socioeconomic perspective. We suggest that alleviation of poverty and marginality of the park's residents should be prioritized, and that park management should be based on consensus building and participation of all stakeholders.     

A dynamic modeling approach to investigate impacts to protected and low-income populations in highway planning

Environmental justice (EJ) assessment has traditionally focused on identifying distributive effects to protected populations. Federal and State highway improvement programs have been established to stimulate economic development for these populations. While this issue has long been recognized as part of EJ initiatives, no quantitative comparisons of highway construction impacts on protected populations have been reported in the literature. This paper presents a dynamic modeling approach to investigate impacts to protected and low-Income populations in highway planning using an integrated Geographic Information System (GIS) and Genetic Algorithms (GAs) optimization framework. Using census and county level parcel data, the model integrates various socioeconomic factors into a GIS while generating highway alignments using GAs. Examples using county level census data from North Carolina are demonstrated to test the sensitivity of generated highway alignments with constrained distances from protected populations. The results indicate that it is important to consider local social and economic effects, in addition to regional planning objectives when measuring the effectiveness of feasibility studies associated with highway construction. Within the proposed modeling framework attention is directed on various EJ initiatives, such as environmental health and safety laws in minority and low-income areas. The model would help planners, designers, and policy-makers understand the intricate interrelationships among local communities, while facilitating more scientific and economically equitable planning for highway construction projects.