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Environmental Indicators – Agri-Environmental Indicators
248-255Views:90close relation. This means that policies related to the economy and the environment cannot be handled without each other. The United Nations Conference (Stockholm, 1972) was the first global conference to signal that environment concerns have increasingly become subject of mainstream socio-economic policies. The process started in the Seventies, laying emphasis on environment protection, plays an important role in the policy of international agencies. The use of environmental indicators is essential for monitoring the effects of environmental measures. The best way of evaluating sustainability if the results can be compared on a global level. International efforts are being made by the United Nations (UN), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Statistical Office of the European Commission (Eurostat) and other international agencies to develop a framework for environment statistics. This study deals with these frameworks, paying attention to agri-environment indicators. Hungary became a member of the UN in 1955, of the OECD in 1996, and will become a member of the European Union in 2004. The first summary in connection with environmental indicators of Hungary, taking the OECD Pressure – State – Response framework as a basis, was published in 1994. As a result, comparability of environmental indicators for Hungary with those used international are given.
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The use of MFA indicators in the characterization of the settlement sustainability
107-116Views:90One of the key sustainability challenges for the coming decades will be to improve the management of natural resources in order to reduce current levels of anthropogenic environmental pressure and respect the biological and physical limits and the carrying capacity of the planet. The first step towards meeting this challenge is an enhancement of the understanding of the material basis of our society. In the past 15 years, scientists in several research institutes have created a fast growing field of research, a new family of different methods, named material flow analysis (MFA). These instruments have an increasing policy relevance: international organizations (UN, EU, OECD) have encouraged member states to establish MFA accounting in their statistical programmes and urged governments and economic actors to use these tools. In this paper I present selected examples to reveal how the MFA approach and derived material flow indicators can be used for the evaluation of sustainability policies at municipality level.
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Tourism and sustainability in Hungary
135-143Views:97Sustainable development is a very popular conception since many years. In practice there could be many difficulties.
Economic, social and ecological systems are too complex to see all the consequences clearly. After all, sustainable criteria are indispensable for responsible planning.
Tourism is one of the world’s dynamically developing economic sectors. But according to this development, we have to confront with a lot of negative effects, like air pollution, or mass. With globalization, the opportunities for tourism increase: thanks to modern transport, places which were too far to be accessible before are now able to be reached. But there are consequences to this expansion. Unfortunately, growth e.g. in air transport causes considerable environmental damage.
In today’s fast-paced world, the sanctity of nature, a soundproof environment, clean air and rural life have become increasingly important. With the growth of demand and tourism globalized, these values can damage or disappear in a short time. So, in tourism, it is vital to project development plans with sustainable principles.
Just as other countries, in Hungary, the development of sustainable tourism is slowly becoming a priority. Fortunately, in plans for the next few years, there appear more concrete ideas on ways to make sustainable tourism grow.
In my study, I assess Hungary’s position in sustainable tourism, examining how sustainable tourism indicators fit in sustainable development indicators and how can we measure aims of sustainable tourism. -
Towards a new national sustainable development strategy – findings of in-depth interviews
39-46Views:126Hungary’s new national sustainable development strategy is expected to be drawn up by 2012 and social debate for discussion has already been under way. This document provides the basis of all other strategies, programs and plans. I prepared a survey by the method of structured in-depth interviews to explore the opinion of experts engaged in environmental issues and strategy development about sustainable development, the situation of the Hungarian strategy adopted in 2007 and applied indicators. The picture is highly diverse: there is a lack of unified viewpoint even about the concept of sustainability. However, the definition of a common, jointly adopted concept is the first stage in strategy development. Precisely formulated objectives and their related indicators are required for a strategy to fulfill its role – this is the theoretical part of strategic thinking.
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Challenges and agroecological approaches in crop production
75-89Views:178Never has the need been greater for an ecosystem approach to agriculture. As our global population exceeds 9 billion in the next 30 years, with a concomitant demand for agricultural products, ever more pressure will be placed on our agricultural systems. Meanwhile, climate change is altering the ecological settings in which agriculture is practiced, demanding adaptation. Knowledge generated by long-term research will help to address one of the grand challenges of our time: how to meet sustainably the growing world demand for agricultural products – in a way that minimizes environmental harm and enhances the delivery of a diverse array of ecosystem services.