2. The nature of environmental management
Environmental management is an approach to environmental stewardship which
integrates ecology, policy making, planning and social development. Its goals
include:
• the prevention and resolution of environmental problems;
• establishing limits;
• establishing and nurturing institutions that effectively support environmental
research, monitoring and management;
• warning of threats and identifying opportunities;
• sustaining and, if possible improving, existing resources;
• where possible improving ‘quality of life’ ;
• identifying new technology or policies that are useful.
3. 1.Since the early 1970s popular texts have often published variants of ‘Laws of
Ecology’ (based on four ‘laws’ published by Commoner (1971) (environmental
management implications are in parenthesis):
1. Any intrusion into nature has numerous effects, many of which are
unpredictable (environmental management must cope with the unexpected).
2. Because ‘everything is connected’, humans and nature are inextricably
bound together; what one person does affects others (environmental
management must consider chains of causation, looking beyond the local
and short term).
3. Care needs to be taken that substances produced by humans do not
interfere with any of the Earth’s biogeochemical processes (environmental
management must monitor natural processes and human activities to
ensure no crucial process is upset).
4. Environmental management asks two questions:
(1) What kind of planet do we want?
(2) What kind of planet can we get?
Environmental managers may not achieve their objectives, might be criticized
(or sued), fall into disrepute with those who employ them, and lose public trust.
So, like most administrators, environmental managers are likely to follow risk-
aversion strategies, including:
• working to safe minimum standards;
• adopting sustainability constraints;
• following a ‘win-win’ or ‘least regrets’ approach (i.e. actions which seek
benefits whatever the outcome; actions which seek to reduce unwanted impacts,
respectively).
5. Approaches to environmental management
Environmental managers may be more or less anthropocentric or ecocentric, more
or less ‘green’, more or less supportive of technology. There is also a wide
spectrum of political and philosophical stances, all of which colour the approach
adopted)
1. Ad hoc approach: approach developed in reaction to a specific situation
2. Problem-solving approach: follows a series of logical steps to identify
problems and needs and implement solutions
3. Systems approach: for example
ecosystem (mountain; high latitude; savanna; desert; island; lake, etc.)
agro-ecosystem
6. 4. Regional approach: mainly ecological zones or biogeophysical units, which can sometimes
be international—i.e. involve different states, e.g. an internationally-shared river basin. For
example:
watershed (Easter et al., 1986)†
river basin (Friedman and Weaver, 1979; Barrow, 1998)† coastal zone†
island
command area development authority (irrigation-related) administrative region
sea (e.g. Mediterranean; North Sea; Baltic; Aral Sea, etc.)†
5. Specialist discipline approach: often adopted by professionals. For example:
air quality management
water quality management
land management
environmental health
urban management
ocean management
human ecology approach
tourism management/ecotourism
conservation area management
7. 6. Strategic environmental management approach: (see chapter 6)
7. Voluntary sector approach: environmental management by, or encouraged and
supported by NGOs. For example
debt-for-nature swaps
private reserves
‘ginger groups’ which try to prompt environmental management private
funding for research or environmental management
8. Commercial approach: environmental management for business/public bodies
9. Political economy or political ecology approach: (see chapter 13) (Blaikie,
1985)
10. Human ecology approach: (see chapter 13)
8. The implications of human population growth
WHO IS Thomas Malthus?
Damage to the environment can be a function of:
1. human population numbers;
2. high levels of consumption of that population (i.e. lifestyle);
3. technology used to satisfy consumption and dispose of waste (Harrison,
1990).
9. Limits to growth, sustainable development and environmental ethics
• Club of Rome (The Limits to Growth)
• Beyond the Limits by Meadows et al 1992) – sustainable development
• Environmental ethics - For effective environmental management there
must be means of resolving controversies regarding proper conduct
Ethics can be defined as a system of cultural values motivating people’s
behaviour (Rapoport, 1993). They draw upon human reasoning, morals,
knowledge of nature, and goals to act as a sort of plumb-line for development
and shape a worldview. Ethics operate at the level of individuals, institutions,
societies, and internationally.
10. The range of environmental ethics, dividing them into:
(a) Technocratic environmental ethics=resource-exploitative, growth-oriented;
(b) Managerial environmental ethics=resource-conservationist, oriented to
sustainable growth;
(c) Communalist environmental ethics=resource-preservationist, oriented to
limited or zero growth;
(d) Bioethicist or deep ecology environmental ethics=extreme preservationist,
anti-growth.
