Stephen Dovers argues that better public policy is the key to creating a more sustainable environment. Environment and Sustainability Policy: Creation, Implementation and Evaluation shows what this might involve. It is an intensely practical book, intellectually original and rigorous, and written in a concise and accessible style.

Dovers melds a close knowledge of traditional public policy with a deep understanding of the sustainability problems and an appreciation of the complex institutional systems which make up modern civil society. He establishes an operational framework for policy analysis and prescription and provides ways of fulfilling key elements of an effective policy process:

• Problem framing – social debate, monitoring environmental change, handling uncertainty, analysing existing policy, and scaling and framing policy problems.
• Policy framing – policy principles, the policy statement, and policy goals.
• Policy implementation – policy instrument choice, implementation and communication planning, resources, enforcement and compliance, and embedding policy monitoring.
• Policy monitoring and evaluation – ongoing monitoring, evaluation and review, extension, and adaptation.
• Inclusion in public policy – coordination and integration, public participation, transparency and accountability, and communication mechanisms.
• Institutional settings and reform for effective policy.

Table of Contents

Figures and tables
Preface: why this book?
Acknowledgements

PART I: POLICY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
CHAPTER 1: Orientation and introduction
CHAPTER 2: Thinking about policy
CHAPTER 3: Environment and sustainability as policy and institutional problem
CHAPTER 4: Policy cycles and models, environment and sustainability

PART II: CHECKLISTS AND FRAMEWORKS FOR POLICY ANALYSIS
CHAPTER 5: Problem-framing
CHAPTER 6: Policy-framing
CHAPTER 7: Policy implementation
CHAPTER 8: Policy monitoring and evaluation
CHAPTER 9: Participation, transparency and accountability

PART III: PROSPECTS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL AND SUSTAINABILITY POLICY
CHAPTER 10: Coordination, integration, and institutional change

Bibliography

"The complexity of ecological sustainability demands new approaches to the formulation and evaluation of environmental policy and practice - Stephen Dovers’ Environment and Sustainability Policy provides an important and timely framework to help with this critically important task.

Dovers masterfully explains why researchers, land managers, and environmental professionals are all deeply enmeshed in government policy making and how all these different players can work more effectively together to achieve environmental sustainability. This book is essential reading for anyone involved in Natural Resource Management."

-- Professor David Bowman, Director of Australian Research Council Key Centre for Tropical Wildlife Management, Charles Darwin University