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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.
List of contents
Law, Politics, and Institutions for a Border Environment.- Improving Institutional Response to Environmental Problems.- Impact of Two NAFTA Institutions on Border Water Infrastructure.- Binational Cooperation and the Environment at the U.S.-Mexico Border: A Mexican Perspective.- Characteristics of the Border Community.- Characteristics of Border Communities.- "Off the Backs of Others": The Political ecology of credit, debt, and class formation and transformation among the Colonias of New Mexico and Elsewhere.- Immigration, Agriculture, and the Border.- Border water.- Financing Bilateral Water Projects on the U.S.-Mexico Border: Past, Present and Future.- Lessons in Transboundary Resource Management from Ambos Nogales.- Changes in Trade Policy and Wastewater Emissions for a Border Watershed.- The Geography of Water Transfers and Urbanization in Baja and Southern California.- Restoring Instream Flows Economically: Perspectives from an International River Basin.- Air Pollution, Transportation, Energy, Hazardous Materials.- Solving Transboundary Air Quality Problems in the Paso del Norte Region.- Border Congestion, Air Quality, and Commerce.- U.S. Transportation Responses to NAFTA: A Window on U.S.-Mexico Transport Issues.- The US-Mexico Border Energy Zone.- Whither Hazardous-materials Management in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region?.- Biological Resources, Terrestrial and Quatic Habitat Protection.- Divergence in Californian Vegetation and Fire Regimes Induced by Differences in Fire Management across the U.S.-Mexico Boundary.- Whales and Shared Coastal and Marine Management of the Border Pacific.- Sea Turtle Conservation across the Shared Marine Border.- Migration of Exotic Pests: Phytosanitary Regulations and Cooperative Policies to Protect U.S. Ecosystems andAgricultural Interests.
Summary
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.
