Impact Assessment and Sustainable Resource Management

L.Graham Smith, L Graham Smith

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138424180
• eBook ISBN: 9781317900108
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

Firmly places impact assessment in the broader context of environmental planning, developing a much-needed integrative approach. The topics covered include: decision making and dispute resolution; the role of environmental law; public policy, administration and publication participation; the nature of planning; impact assessment methodology; the application of impact assessment to frontier developments; linear facilities and waste mana

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CHAPTER 1

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The need for redefinition

Introduction

Impact assessment needs to be redefined. Despite two decades of evolution and a myriad of techniques, present practice appears unable to help in preventing environmental disasters such as the Exxon Valdez oil-tanker spill off Alaska, or poor resource management such as the wholesale removal of tropical rain forest in the Amazon or the demise of species such as the giant panda in China. These problems do not arise out of ignorance. They have not occurred because developments were unplanned, nor their impacts unforeseen. Rather, they are the results of a flawed conceptualization of impact assessment and its role in environmental planning and resource management.

Too often, impact assessment has been viewed as a hurdle in the path of resource development, or as the means by which development proposals can be justified and environmental objections appeased. Environmental protection has been viewed as a desirable but distinctly secondary objective within resource management. Moreover, environmental planning has often been viewed as an entity independent of human activity. The development, extraction and exploitation of the resource base have taken precedence over the assurance of long-term environmental sustainability. The goal of sustainable resource management is to redress this imbalance.

This book develops the concept of impact assessment as a process for resource management and environmental planning that provides for the achievement of the goal of sustainability. In this first chapter, the basic tenets of sustainability are examined. Sustainable resource management requires an approach to decision making that is integrative, adaptive and interactive. In view of these requirements, the chapter outlines traditional approaches to decision making in resource management and the factors that led to the emergence of impact assessment. It is argued that impact assessment in its present form has not realized its full potential and that the need exists for impact assessment to be redefined.

Sustainability

The concept of sustainability originated with the 1980 World Conservation Strategy of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). The IUCN advanced sustainability as a strategic approach to the integration of conservation and development consistent with the objectives of:

● ecosystem maintenance

● the preservation of genetic diversity,

● sustainable utilization of resources.

This served as the antecedent to further promotion of the concept of sustainable development by the World Commission on Environment and Development, established in 1983 by the United Nations to formulate ‘a global agenda for change’. The Commission was headed by Gro Harlem Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway, and published its final report, Our Common Future, in 1987.

Sustainable development was defined in a general manner by the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987: 43) as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. The key aspects of sustainable development relate to an understanding of:

● environment: as not just the biophysical, natural domain but also the socio-political, human components that constitute a global environment for which there is an interdependent, world ecology

● development: as not just an economic activity but as a process of qualitative and equitable growth

● society: as an interdependent, world community reliant upon a single biosphere wherein global economic growth cannot succeed with an uneven distribution of wealth

● linkages: among poverty, inequality and environmental degradation.

The central idea is that development can occur only if and when there is recognition of the need to sustain and expand the environmental resource base. The associated corollary is that ‘economic growth, in and of itself, is insufficient for the purposes of development’ (Shearman, 1990: 6).

There is a substantial and growing literature on the topic of sustainability (e.g. Clark and Munn, 1986; Brown et al, 1987; Jacobs and Munro, 1987; Redclift, 1987; Rees, 1988; Turner, 1988a; Archibugi and Nijkamp, 1989; Daly, 1990; Dovers, 1990; Pearce and Turner, 1990; Shearman, 1990; Rees, 1990a). Much of this literature has been concerned with the meaning and application of sustainability within the field of environmental economics and the distinctions between ‘sustainability’, ‘sustainable development’, ‘sustainable utilization’ and ‘sustainable growth’. In general, there seems to be little disagreement that sustainability arguments stress the need for environmental protection and continuing economic growth to be viewed as mutually compatible rather than conflicting objectives (Turner, 1988b: 5). The area of confusion appears to be in providing a precise definition of what sustainability will involve in practice, particularly from an economic standpoint. O’Riordan (1988: 30) has suggested that sustainability in the purest sense involves ‘embracing ethical norms pertaining to the survival of living matter, to the rights of future generations and to institutions responsible for ensuring that such rights are fully taken into account in policies and actions’. In contrast, sustainable utilization and sustainable growth are more ‘manageable and politically acceptable’ manifestations of the sustainability concept.

Citing a need for a more explicit definition of sustainable development, Brown et al (1987) expressed a concern that sustainability was evolving into a ‘transcendent term’, subject to frequent but imprecise usage. In contrast, Shearman (1990: 1) presented a compelling argument based on the premise that ‘it is not sustainability that requires definition or clarification, but rather its implications for any given context to which it is applied’. Shearman maintained that sustainability is used as a modifier as in sustainable development, sustainable growth, sustainable ecosystems, etc. and that it is more important to understand the implicative meaning of sustainability within the context that it is used. Thus, rather than attempting to develop precise definitions of sustainability, Shearman (1990: 3) advocated using sustainability as a concept and focusing debate on the issues implied by sustainability rather than the issue of sustainability.

As a concept, sustainability implies that there is an inherent contradiction in the pursuit of the basic goal of development through a reliance upon approaches to economic growth that may instead actually result in human suffering (Shearman, 1990; Redclift, 1987; Sen, 1984). For many, growth is synonymous with increasing wealth. However, as Daly (1990: 5) has surmised: ‘What is in dispute is whether growth, at the current margin, is really making us wealthier. As growth in the physical dimensions of the human economy pushes beyond the optimal scale relative to the biosphere it in fact makes us poorer. Growth, like anything else, can cost more than it is worth at the margin.’

Sustainability is a response to the growing recognition that several, seemingly endemic, global problems can no longer be divorced from a consideration of a threatened future. Present patterns of resource distribution, gross national product (GNP), industrial power, trade and transnational corporations all act to reinforce an uneven distribution of development (Pirages, 1989). This imbalance is mirrored by the prevailing pattern of world inequality indicated by measures of poverty, debt, starvation and out-migration (Kidron and Segal, 1984). These realities all reinforce a dominant North–South pattern that characterizes what Frank (1966) termed the ‘development of under-development’ (Jones, 1983; Independent Commission on International Development Issues, 1980; Pirages, 1978; Wallerstein, 1979).

The concern is not simply one of short-term development and prosperity versus poverty, but involves deeper issues of distribution and allocation relative to the future (Pirages, 1989). Moreover, because all communities and societies must share the same earth with each other whatever their differences and inequalities, the threats posed by environmental stress, uncontrolled growth and environmental impacts in different parts of the globe are threats that affect the future of the whole globe.

Poverty can generate a misuse of resources. Immediate survival often promotes an emphasis upon exploitation and excessive consumption of the local resource base that, in the longer term, only serves to build external dependencies. Environmental stress leaves areas more prone to natural disasters, exacerbates heavy reliance upon resource exports, and intensifies dependency on world markets (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987: 67–89; Jacobs and Munro, 1987).

Modern technology has permitted an era of unprecedented growth. Indeed, since 1950 there has been an explosion in world population, urbanization, industrialization and economies. Unfortunately, there has been a parallel increase in famine and pollution. For many, there is now a sense of technology beyond human control:

Humanity is … entering an era of chronic, large-scale, and extremely complex syndromes of interdependence between the global economy and the world environment. Relative to earlier generations of problems, these emerging syndromes are characterized by profound scientific ignorance, enormous decision costs, and time and space scales that transcend those of most institutions. (Clark, 1986: 5)

The resulting environmental impacts potentially are irreparable. Examples include the greenhouse effect, ozone depletion, acid rain, global climate change, marine pollution, toxic wastes, desertification and the loss of forests. Not only do these activities result in environmental impacts in the form of species eradication, habitat loss and the reduction of ecological diversity and resiliency, but they also contribute to world economic crises, inflation, debt and starvation (Clark and Munn, 1986; Rees, 1990b).

Whereas these various concerns are significant individually, the tendency is for them to occur in combination. It is clear that:

● Environmental stresses are linked, making individual, ad hoc problem solving insufficient.

● Stress and the pattern of development are linked, which means that global gaps and inequalities are continuing to grow.

● Environmental and economic problems are a function of social and political factors, rendering purely technical solutions to environmental problems inadequate.

● These systemic factors operate both within and between nations, such that unilateral solutions are not likely to be effective.

In a lucid and succinct manner, the Brundtland Report summarized this situation and called for a reconsideration of future decision making based on a balanced attention to environment, development and society: ‘In essence, sustainable development is a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are all in harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations’ (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987: 46).

Sustainability is best viewed as a concept. It is a value-based concern that requires ‘the moral choice of accepting intergenerational equity as an overriding ethic’ (Dovers, 1990: 299). To achieve that ethic, a sustainable future would display several key attributes (Fig. 1.1). Sustainability is ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Themes in Resource Management
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Chapter 1 The need for redefinition
• Chapter 2 Impact assessment methods and methodology
• Chapter 3 Institutional arrangements for impact assessment
• Chapter 4 Public policy and interest representation
• Chapter 5 Planning and the role of impact assessment
• Chapter 6 Impact assessment redefined
• Chapter 7 Frontier developments
• Chapter 8 Linear facilities
• Chapter 9 Waste management
• Chapter 10 Implications for sustainable resource management
• Bibliography
• Index