CHAPTER 1
MANAGING
HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT
INTERACTIONS
Only within the moment of time represented by the
present century has one species – Man –
acquired significant power to alter the nature of
his world
Rachel Carson
(author: Silent Spring)
At some point we must draw a line across the
ground of our home and our being, drive a spear
into the land, and say to the bulldozers,
earthmovers, and corporations,
“this far and no farther”
Edward Abby
(center figure, “Earth First”)
From the time of Man as a species, we have been
dependent on the components (resources) and
feedback processes (cycles) of the natural environment
With the passage of time, society and the nature of
natural resources / natural forces has changed
--- ex: “Man is unique”
… Judeo-Christian Tradition
… teleology
… cosmologic civilizations
“Man is not unique”
… Eastern Religious Tradition
[controls but is part of]
“Man is control”
… Australian Aboriginal Tradition / Aztec
Myth
… Man’s attitudes to environment
….. intentional modification
“Man is control”, cont
… to be feared – to – we can ultimately
control
..… wilderness vs. development
….. Frederick Jackson Turner
… attitudes to conservation of natural
resources (next)
“resources are unlimited” – to – “stewardship principle”
- Pioneer Ethic
- Democracy in Action
- Something’s Being Done, or Nothing Can be Done
- Science as a Demi-God
- Environment as Catastrophe
- Stewardship Principle
As society advanced, populations altered – often
separated themselves – their relationship to nature and
the physical environment
(1) religion – teleology
(2) natural forces
prediction
modification
control
(3) conservation
Paradoxically, as societies / cultures have become more
advanced, not only do humans remain dependent on their
natural environments, but their dependence has become
greater … and conflicts have grown
ECONOMY
Property Conflict
SOCIAL
Resource Conflict
Development Conflict
ENVIRONMENT
We are consummately adaptable, able to switch from
one resource base… to another as each is exploited or
used up. Like other successful species we have learned
to adapt ourselves to new environments. But, unlike
other animals, we made a jump from being successful
to being a run away success.
C. Tickell
Geographical Journal, 1993
Managing society-environment relationships have been
both continual and evolutionary
--- how society / culture does so is dependent on
technology
ingenuity
geopolitics
economics
values
norms
… all of which are variable across time and
between societies
… therefore, man-environment relationships vary
across time and space
In a related observation, humans have an amazing ability
to deny responsibility for causing environmental
problems
As a species, we have been creating environmental
change for at least 10,000 yrs
ex: Mesopotamian soil salination
Mediterranean basin deforestation and erosion
Mayan loss of soil fertility
(see all in Historical Perspectives on Sustainable Development)
- Present environmental problems differ from those of
our ancestors mainly in magnitude and speed at which
they arise
- Nature of our problems are remarkably similar;
involving the attainment of living space from which we
can grow crops and extract natural and mineral
resources
-
-
“Conflicts” and disruptive environmental changes should not
be viewed as restrictions or limits on our development, but as
presenting opportunities and challenges for managers of the
environment, for politicians and for the society to evolve
At this point the author turns to the themes of the text/course:
1. Defining concepts of management
2. Values and perspectives of management
3. Emerging approaches to environmental management
Without the presence of humans, environmental
problems would not exist as there would be no
one to experience the impact of the problem
G. Jones (2004)
What is Environmental Management?
Environmental Management – “… the means of
controlling or guiding human-environment
interactions(*) to protect and enhance human health
and welfare and environmental quality(**)”
(*) people, place and resources, each acting in feedback
relationships with the others to define “use”
(**) Each “use” carries with it opportunity costs both
monetary and conceptual
What is Environmental Management?, cont
This type of management can be thought of as two
types of planning:
(1) comprehensive planning – general coordination of diverse
activities
(2) functional planning – targeted; usually confined to one
major topic or use
What is Environmental Management?, cont
Management involves controlling the interaction of
people and the environment and seeks to involve itself
in the interaction of people and institutions. (p. 4)
--- it melds science, technology, politics and sociology
--- it creates a grey zone between concepts of
“management” and “assessment”
--- inevitably gives rise to clashes between ecocentric
development and technocentric development
What is Environmental Management?, cont
These interactions can affect human welfare and the
environment in four ways:
(1) environment poses certain natural hazards to
human society and man accentuates these hazards
(2) society-generated pollution impacts human
health through the environment
(3) society exploits economically important natural
resources at unsustainable rates
(4) pollution and overuse undermine productive
natural systems and ecosystems
What is Environmental Management?, cont
Both perspectives argue a positive feedback loop
Consumption (Economic)
Prosperity
Resource Use
Government,
Research,
Regulation,
Management
What is Environmental Management?, cont
If we created a hypothetical continuum of attitude to
development / management it might look like:
Pessimistic ---------------------------------------------Optimistic
ecocentric----ecojustice-----social justice----technocentric
What is Environmental Management?, cont
Nevertheless, management seeks to:
(1) stimulate the health and welfare of Man
(2) create and maintain conditions under which Man & nature
can exist in productive harmony
(3) utilize a systematic interdisciplinary approach which will
insure integrated use of natural & social sciences and the
environmental design arts in planning and decision
making
(4) assure safe, healthful, productive & aesthetically pleasing
surroundings
What is Environmental Management?, cont
management seeks to:
(5) attain the widest range of beneficial uses of the
environment without degradation, risk to health or
safety, or other undesirable or unintended
consequences
(6) preserve important historical, cultural & natural aspects of
our national heritage
(7) achieve a balance between population & resource use to
permit high standards of living & sharing of life amenities
An independent observation on resource management
“More than once it has shortened itself thirty miles in a
single jump! These cutoffs have has curious effects:
they have thrown several river towns out into the rural
districts and built up sand bars and forests in front of
them. The town of Delta used to be three miles below
Vicksburg… Delta is now two miles above Vicksburg”
An independent observation on resource management,
cont
“A cutoff plays havoc with boundary lines and
jurisdictions; for instance, a man living in the state of
Mississippi today, a cutoff occurs tonight, and
tomorrow the man finds himself and his land over on
the other side of the river, within and subject to the
laws of the State of Louisiana! Such a thing,
happening in the upper river in the old times, could
have transferred a slave from Missouri to Illinois and
make a free man of him. (M. Twain, Life on the Mississippi, 1904)
Participants and Roles in Environmental
Management
- What forces drive management… who is responsible,
who is running things?
I. The Market
like it or not, most of the decisions we make
(personal or otherwise) are driven by economics
--- supply / demand
--- consuming public
Participants and Roles in Environmental
Management, cont
- What forces drive management… who is responsible, who is
running things?, cont
II. The Government and the Regulator
we cannot actually run the environment as a “free
market” operation… too many intangibles
--- govt and its agents are assigned oversight
responsibilities pro bono publico
--- govt and its agents at all levels exercise
“police powers”
… having multiple levels and agencies policing
frequently conflicts
Participants and Roles in Environmental
Management, cont
- What forces drive management… who is responsible,
who is running things?, cont
II. The Government and the Regulator, cont
environmental management can be a conflicting
oversight assignment … ex: growth managementgrowth is necessary, how do you know how to manage it?
Participants and Roles in Environmental
Management, cont
- What forces drive management… who is responsible, who is
running things?, cont
II. The Government and the Regulator, cont
(1) legislation - NEPA; Clean Air / Water
Act; Endangered Species Act; etc
(2) enforcement – EPA; BLM; U.S. Forest
Service; etc
(3) policy – “multiple use”; BMP; “coercive vs
cooperative”; concept of “attractive
nuisance”
Participants and Roles in Environmental
Management, cont
- What forces drive management… who is responsible,
who is running things?, cont
III. Public Interest or Advocacy Groups
(text calls “Civil Society”)
--- NGOs; environmental groups; citizens
organizations; land trusts; private
landowners
… they participate and pressure or act as
spokesmen for individuals / groups
that cannot otherwise be heard
Environmental Management: A Reflection of Social
Culture, Values and Ethics
-
Environmental management defines a society’s cultural
landscape - variable intra-culturally, spatially and temporally
[it says a lot about the culture and its continued evolution… Fig 1.1
summarizes “the Players” and the “landscape” linkages]
-
Author says that it is important to understand culture and
values for two reasons:
(1) society’s approach to managing the environment is usually
a reflection of values, culture and norms
(2) the need to understand and integrate these values into
planning and decision making to make management
effective
-
Author tells us that society’s values are its “ethics”
--- American environmental ethics date from such as:
George Catlin – [“George Catlin’s Obsession”, Smithsonian, 12/02]
George Perkins Marsh – [interesting quote next]
H.D. Thoreau
John Wesley Powell
John Muir
Aldo Leopold
Rachel Carson
The Congress of Governors
“animal and vegetable life is too complicated a problem for
for human intelligence to solve and we can never know
how wide a circle of disturbance we produce in the
harmonies of nature when we throw the smallest pebble
into the ocean of organic life”
G.P. Marsh
-
What emerges are a number of identifiable personal
perspectives on environmental issues:
(1) radical
(2) emotional
(3) religious
(4) feminist
(5) political
(6) scientific
(7) vested interest
(8) utilitarian
T. Beatley (1994) Ethical Land Use: Principles of Policy
and Planning, writes that natural objects have three
types of value (Text , p. 7):
(1) instrumental value (anthropocentric) what can be
done with an object
(2) intrinsic value (anthropocentric) appreciation of an
object; aesthetic value; perceptual value
(3) inherent value (non-anthropocentric) value by its
existence
Visions of Paradise: Contemporary Perspectives
on Managing the Environment
-
What is the “American” perspective on managing the
environment?
--- the author (circa 1970s) offered five points-of-view
on environmental issues
(1) the Optimist
(2) the Concerned Optimist
(3) the Hopeful Pessimist
(4) the Pessimist
(5) the the Self-Absorbed
Color Coded Environmental Perspectives?
Interesting: It seems that we can also color code our
environmental perspectives (see Sidebar 1.1, p. 8-9))
(1) Blues – free market thinkers
(2) Reds – various forms of socialism
(3) Greens – define world in terms of ecosystems
(4) Whites – not necessarily in opposition to the
others; optimistic in attitude, believes in the good
intention of the population if not their
technologies; free market an uneven playing field
Historical Paradigms of Environmental
Management and the Evolution Toward
Sustainability
Paradigm
Colby, in Ecological Economics (1991), offers five paradigms of
evolving environmental management… based on ethics, politics,
economics, policy, technology and methodological direction
(Table 1.1)
(1) frontier economics (FE) – Man-centered; premise of limitless
resources; “frontier ethics”; the writings of Frederick
Jackson Turner
(2) environmental protection (EP) – text calls characteristic of
1970s U.S. policy; stewardship Principle; Business as usual,
plus a treatment plant; Command and Control Regulation
Colby, Ecological Economics. cont
(3) resource management (RM) – more characteristic of the
1980s; recognizes long-term sustainability as constraint to
economic growth; seeks to modify traditional accounting
by incorporating full-cost pricing of economic procedures
(4) ecodevelopment (ED) – still in development, not fully
formulated; an ecocentric perspective to resource use and
economic development
(5) deep ecology (DE) – back to nature “bio-centric” view;
reverence for all forms of nature and the natural
environment even versus development; eco-justice
Colby, Ecological Economics. cont
- In one way or another each of these perspectives is
present on the Earth to varying degrees
- Text quotes Colby on two points that I do not
subscribe to:
(1) that all these points can about as a result of the conflict
between FE and DE
(2) that FE and DE as perspectives have both existed since
the mid-1980s
Toward Sustainable Development
-
Author notes that Colby’s ecodevelopment is very
similar to sustainable development as it has been
defined (p. 12):
“… paths of economic, social, environmental, and political
progress that aim to meet the needs of today without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
needs”
… and a close parallel to the definition of conservation that I used in
graduate school… maximum utilization with minimum negative impact
-
-
The author talks about sustainability as the
integration of five E’s”:
Economy Environment
Equity (social)
Engagement
Eternity
Additionally, for real sustainability to be achieved:
(1)
(2)
Must move from short-term to long-term thinking
[proactive-not-reactive]
Have pluralistic participation in planning process
[no environmental racism / economic racism]
ECONOMY
Property Conflict Resource Conflict
SOCIAL
Development Conflict
ENVIRONMENT
* Given current perspective / conflict areas, there is some question how
sustainable development can be created / carried out *
From Conservation to the Ecological Way
Text: we have not achieved sustainable development or a
eco-development mind set, but planning has made
shifts over time in that direction
I do not necessarily subscribe to the section’s perspective
on our progress / lack of progress on sustainability –
but his “waves” of environmental management
“progress” are workable
[and have frequently been applied to the conservation
movement]
Wave I - ? “the conservation movement”?; 19th C.
- emergence of environmental / resource philosophies;
G. P. MarshH. D. Thoreau
J. Muir
G. Pinchot
A. Leopold
- government resource attention:
acts of Congress federal / state conservation
agencies
- citizen conservation movement
Wave II – focus on public and environmental health and
protection of commonly held resources
--- product of 20th C. public health movement and
identification of relationships of environmental
conditions and human health
--- characterized by:
Rachel Carson Garrett Hardin NEPA
EPA
CEQ
EIS
continued growth grassroots movements
Wave III – characterized as the “ecological way”;
continued extension of Waves I & II;
seeks greater integration of human habitation and use
of resources with the long-term protection of natural
systems;
seeks proactive partnership building
Multiple Use concept
EIS requirements
Nature Conservancy
land trusts / wills