Both Sides of the Border: Transboundary Environmental Management Issues Facing Mexico and the United States (The Economics of Non-Market Goods and Resources Book 2)

This volume complements Shared Space: Rethinking the U.S.-Mexico Border Environment, edited by Lawrence Herzog and Environmental Management on North America's Borders, edited by Richard Kiy and John Wirth. This volume expands the range of issues addressed in previous volumes as well as focuses on comprehensive assessments of cooperative efforts of the U.S. and Mexico to solve environmental problems. All environmental media are addressed along the border: land, air, water, as well as sources of pollution (transportation, agriculture, energy, industrial production, urban growth, hazardous waste generation) and biodiversity resources (migratory aquatic and terrestrial forest and insect species). Academic, government, environmental management and policy audiences can benefit from the volume to address environmental policy for borders around the world because the chapters integrate natural science and social science theory, analytical methods and data into the arena of international environmental policy analysis. The Mexican -- United States border represents much more than the meeting place of two nations. Our border communities are often a line of first defense -- absorbing the complex economic, environmental and social impacts of globalization that ripple through the region. In many ways, our success or failure in finding solutions for the environmental, social and economic issues that plague the region may well define our ability to meet similar challenges thousands of miles from the border zone. Border residents face the environmental security concerns posed by water scarcity and transboundary air pollution; the planning and infrastructure needs of an exploding population; the debilitating effects of inadequate sanitary and health facilities; and the crippling cycle of widespread poverty. Yet, with its manifold problems, the border area remains an area of great dynamism and hope -- a multicultural laboratory of experimentation and grass-roots problem-solving. Indeed, as North America moves towards a more integrated economy, citizen action at the local level is pushing governments to adapt to the driving forces in the border area by creating new institutional arrangements and improving old ones. If there is one defining feature of this ground-up push for more responsive transboundary policies and institutions, it is a departure from the closed, formalistic models of the past to a more open, transparent and participatory model of international interaction.

Twenty theoretical papers and case studies, presented by Fernandez and Carson (both of the U. of California), explore issues of natural resource and management in the boundary region of the U.S. and Mexico. Differing environmental results due to separate management regimes, the management efforts of bi-national institutions, and inseparable connections in environmental concerns are some of the major themes addressed. The primary focus is on the political, economic, and social institutions that impact on environmental management. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Preliminaries......Page 1 Contents......Page 7 Foreword......Page 9 Acknowledgements......Page 11 Introduction......Page 13 I. Law, Politics, and Institutions for a Border Environment......Page 25 II. Characteristics of the Border Community......Page 85 III. Border Water......Page 141 IV. Air Pollution, Transportation, Energy, Hazardous Materials......Page 265 V. Biological Resources, Terrestrial and Aquatic Habitat Protection......Page 395 Conclusion......Page 497