Case Study of Environmental Policy Models at Local Level Applicable to Developing Countries

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

In recent years, serious environmental problems have emerged in the Asian region, accompanying rapid economic growth. But, environmental regulations are not always functioning well in present Asian countries, in spite of established environmental legal systems and a high degree of environmental awareness among the people. Coping with such difficulties, we can refer Japanese experience of environmental regulations in past 50 years. It is no doubt that there is a large difference in historical and regional conditions between present Asian countries and past Japan.So, we will use the Japanese lesson, while it is necessary to consider such difference. In this article, I analyze two Japanese cases, first one is prohibition of catching and eating fish and shellfishes in Kumamoto Minamata Disease problem, second one is regulation of SOx in Kitakyushu-city, and take some lesson for coping with environmental problems in present Asia.As the result, I find four factors which are requisite for the success of environmental regulation at local government level. First one is the initiative of responsible officials in local government. They need to lead the regulations for coping with conflict situations. Second one is that regulative staffs must learn by experience, so they need staying their position for a long time. Third, it is desirable that regulated companies are organized and leading companies accept regulation positively.Last, experts in environmental regulation need to grasp environmental recognition of people from their expierence from every day life. For their expierience, People often feel no anxiety about danger by environmental ploblems. So, experts must take such safety recognition of people into consideration with regulation for environmental problems.