OSP Journal of Environmental Studies

Two Lessepsians Nudibranchs species, Tayuva lilacina [A. Gould, 1852] [Nudibranchia, Discodorididae] and Plocamopherus ocellatus Rüppell and Leuckart, 1828 [Polyceridae] and two Mediterranean Nudibranchs species Doris verrucoas [A. Gould, 1852] [Discodorididae] and Felimare picta [Philippi, 1836] [Chromodorididae] are reported for the first time in Latakia coastal water, and it is the first known occurrence of these four species in the Syrian Sea. The sea slugs were photographed in situ and identified in HIMR based on their species descriptions, Photographs and information available in global databases specialized in marine life.

This short paper will discuss the importance of harmonization of environmental management law based on L and C matrixes which may be used to develop artificial intelligence platform (AI-P). L and C matrixes are used here to show the process of legal harmonization. The AI-P will be able to facilitate national and international stake holders to communicate each other to harmonize their environmental management law, including natural, human, and man-made resources law (the law). What they should harmonize is legal and institutional aspects of the law (the aspect) and components of environmental management activity regulated by the law (the component). The aspect consists of legal objective, legal mandate, institutional organization carried out the mandate, means and infrastructure, network and working mechanism, and legal target as a part of legal objective. The component involves planning, organizing, actuating, and controlling or plan, do, check, and action. An expected result of legal harmonization is environmental public order as a prerequisite to realize legal objectives as stated in the law.

The devolution of power and resources by the State to local authorities much en vogue today in Cameroon and other areas of the world is fast becoming a governance model which could be relied upon for the assertion and articulation of communities based land management and ownership rights. This is so given that the advantages of bringing local communities to the decision-making centres to determine the fate of local lands and resource ownership and control can hardly be exhaustive in any single legal debate. Besides, it might be key to determining communities’ rights, while enhancing the dignity of its members. After all, communities’ lands are not only owned by a single generation, but by those considered as ancestors, the living and those yet to be born. To this effect, an attempt to weave the pieces of national land legislations within the decentralization paradigm arguably remains ideal in articulating efficient land governance. Thus, if Cameroonian government is embracing decentralization as governance option, then she must beside other things be ready and prepared to relinquish her high-handed and overwhelming powers and control over land and land resources to local stake holders especially local collectivities which could be construed to reflect the aspirations of the local communities they are supposed to represent.