The Future of the Environment

David Pitt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781317950066
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

A major concern of this book is how ordinary people might come to manage their own environment more effectively. A valuable resource for students of environmental studies, it considers how this might be facilitated by more appropriate technology, assistance and communications.

Reviewed by the International Journal of Environmental Studies, it has`... something of interest and information in every chapter of this book and I urge all readers to look at it carefully, for its combination of the examination of general principles and down-to-earth data and problems is one of the best for years'.

1

PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST

R. Chambers

Population, Resources, Environment and Development (PRED)

Words used define thought, structure analysis, and influence conclusions. So ‘Population’, ‘Resources’, ‘Environment’ and ‘Development’ go with ways of thinking which point towards certain conclusions. The thesis of this note is that normal analysis which starts with these words leads all too easily to misleading prescription; that normal professional thinking about PRED has been part of the problem; that people, so often treated as a residual, should on the contrary be the starting point; and that both ethically and practically, putting the priorities of poor people first can achieve not only their objectives but also those of professionals and policy makers concerned with PRED.

Let us start with earlier normal ways of thinking. Population thinking started with numbers of people and how these were changing. This led to alarm at rates of population increase and at pressures on resources. The normal prescription was family planning to limit population growth. Resources thinking started with physical resources such as land, water, minerals, trees, fish and so on and how these were being exploited. This led to alarm at unsustainable exploitation. The normal prescription was controls, rehabilitation and better management. Environment thinking started with trends in physical conditions where they were changing for the worse, especially pollution, resource degradation, and loss of ecological diversity. The normal prescription was conservation. Development thinking started with economic potentials and activities, and how they could be exploited and promoted. Normal prescriptions were to maximise rates of return and economic growth.

H.L. Mencken once remarked that ‘For every problem there is a solution that is simple, direct and wrong’. This applies here. The simple direct solutions which tried to solve problems of population growth directly by family planning, of resource depletion directly by controls, of environmental degradation directly by conservation, and of development directly by growth, all had some validity but all neglected linkages, were unsubtle, and generally did not work well. All these simple direct solutions here shared the weakness of starting with physical problems rather than people, and with the concerns and values of the rich rather than those of the poor. In the light of experience, though, all have been modified to take account of the poorer in society, including the rural poor in the Third World. So population planners recognise the rationality of the large family for the poor, and see that the elimination of poverty must usually precede the adoption of family limitation. Those who start with resources and the environment recognise that poor people are often behaving rationally, and sometimes rationally in desperation, in exploiting resources and the environment in ways which are not sustainable. And development thinkers now pay much attention to questions of political economy, of who gains and who loses in processes of economic growth or decline. All the same, for all of them, the rural poor come late in processes of analysis; they are often ‘last’, a residual, something for the final paragraphs (see for example even the Brundtland Commission’s otherwise admirable remarks on empowering vulnerable groups, pp 114–116). Sometimes, though, the poor, the remote and women are only terminal footnotes. They are not the starting point.

There are ethical reasons for putting them first. For many, that is enough in itself. But in addition, the argument of this paper is that there are also overwhelming practical reasons for putting them first, from the point of view of population, resources, environment and development.

The Context

The context of the inter-relationships between population, resources, environment and development is well understood and not controversial. Let me outline, therefore, an overview with which most would agree. The context is the rural Third World, mainly but not only in the tropics. Three major processes are occurring. These are population growth; ‘core’ (urban, industrial, rich) invasions of rural environments; and responses by the rural poor.

(1) Population growth

Though population is not growing everywhere in the Third World (see for example Kampuchea, Uganda, and perhaps Afghanistan) it is the norm. In most Third World regions and countries, population has grown fast and is projected to continue to rise sharply. Table 1.1 gives World Bank figures which estimate that in the 16 years from 1984 to 2000, populations will have grown by 37 per cent in low and middle income countries as a whole, by 43 per cent if China is excluded, and by 64 per cent if Sub-Saharan Africa is taken on its own. (These figures to the best of my knowledge antedate AIDS holocaust scenarios which now make projections less secure, given many unknowns. A large-scale AIDS pandemic might not halt population growth, but could devastate pastoralism, agriculture, and welfare of the young through the removal of active adults. However, most of the arguments which follow would still hold.)

Table 1.1 Estimated population growth in low and middle-income countries 1984–2000 (millions)

	1984	2000	Percentage increase in 16 years
Sub-Saharan Africa	406	665	64
India	749	994	33
China	1,029	1,245	21
Other low-income	328	476	45
Other middle-income	1,040	1,427	37
Totals	3,810	5,224	37
Totals without China	2,781	3,979	43

Source: World Development Report 1986:228

(2) ‘Core’ invasions and pressures

The second process is ‘core’ invasions of rural environments. The term ‘core invasions’ is used as shorthand for extensions into rural areas of power, ownership and exploitation of central, urban institutions and individuals which include governments, commercial interests, and professionals who are variously wealthy, urban and powerful, and including the richer world of the North. ‘Core’ also reflects the bias of language and thought which makes urban areas the centre, from which other areas where the rural poor live, are ‘remote’. The term ‘invasion’ is not meant to imply that the processes are necessarily bad; it is descriptive not normative. These core invasions take many forms. They include; the extension of infrastructure and services into rural areas; the government and commercial appropriation and exploitation of resources such as forests, ranching lands and fisheries; the acquisition of pastoralists’ herds and smallholder lands. Core invasions have mixed effects, both generating and destroying livelihoods, creating conditions for population growth, and exercising pressures on the environment.

(3) Responses by the rural poor

The third process is responses of poor rural people to population growth and core invasions. Patterns vary and exceptions will be many. A useful framework for discussion is a distinction between green revolution agriculture, in areas which are generally fertile, irrigated or otherwise well watered, uniform and flat, and resource-poor agriculture in areas generally less fertile, rainfed, diverse and undulating. The discussion which follows refers mainly to resource-poor conditions, which are typical of most of Sub-Saharan Africa and the hinterlands of Asia and Latin America. In such areas, as populations grow and common property resources are appropriated, agriculture becomes more intensive, and for a time at least, less sustainable as fallows shorten and/or livestock become more numerous. Core invasions and pressures, appropriations and exclusions by government and by the urban and rural rich, declining biological productivity, and rising human populations drive many of the poorer people to migrate. This they do either seasonally or permanently, some to towns, some to areas of green revolution agriculture, and some to forests, savannahs, steep slopes, flood-prone flatlands and other vulnerable or marginal areas. In these areas they may adopt sustainable forms of cultivation and pastoralism, but more often cannot, hindered as they are by insecure tenure, lack of appropriate technology and poverty.

These three processes are linked in many ways, and are not sustainable. An indication of the acuteness of the crisis that can be foreseen is the misery and pressure on services implied by projections for urban growth. The Brundtland Commission estimates (WCED 1987:16) that the Third World urban population will rise from 1 billion today to one and three-quarter billion by the end of the century. Much of this increase will stem from rural to urban migration. Many millions of others will seek livelihoods in fragile environments. The policy question is then how many millions more people can be enabled to find adequate, secure, decent and sustainable livelihoods in rural areas. Sometimes, as in Indonesia, there is potential for transmigration. More generally the challenge is to see how many more people can gain such livelihoods where they are already, without having to migrate to towns or other rural areas where they so often suffer and aggravate already bad conditions for others.

Sustainable Livelihood Security

Sustainable livelihood security is an integrating concept here. The Report of the Advisory Panel on Food Security, Agriculture, Forestry and Environment to the World Commission on Environment and Development gave this meaning to the term:

Livelihood is defined as adequate stocks and flows of food and cash to meet basic needs. Security refers to secure ownership of, or access to, resources and income-earning activities, including reserves and assets to offset risk, ease shocks and meet contingencies. Sustainable refers to the maintenance or enhancement of resource productivity on a long-term basis. A household may be enabled to gain sustainable livelihood security in many ways – through ownership of land, livestock or trees; rights to grazing, fishing, hunting or gathering; through stable employment with adequate remuneration; or through varied repertoires of activities.

(Food 2000:3)

Sustainable livelihood security integrates population, resources, environment and development in four respects; stabilising population; reducing migration; fending off core exploitation; and achieving long-term sustainable resource management.

(i) Stabilising population Only when livelihoods are secure, when children are likely to survive, and when assets can be passed on to children, does it make sense for households to limit family size (see e.g. WCED 1987:106). Family planning follows, rather than precedes, sustainable livelihoods.

(ii) Reducing migration Poor people rarely like to migrate. The suffering of migrants, whether rural (as recounted by Jan Breman (1985) a social anthropologist who accompanied rural migrants in Gujarat) or urban (as Dominique Lapierre’s carefully researched ‘novel’ City of Joy testifies for Calcutta), is often appalling and migrants further impoverish the poor in the areas to which they move by competing for resources, services and work. When people have secure control over resources they have strong incentives to manage them so that they do not have to migrate.

(iii) Fending off core exploitation Those with secure ownership of assets, or secure rights and access to them, are often able to survive bad times without permanent impoverishment. They are better placed to resist exploitation, indebtedness, or the loss of productive assets through distress sale. It is where people are legally, politically and physically weak, and lack secure legal rights to resources, that they are most vulnerable. Fending off core exploitation or appropriation can mean that they and their children can stay where they are, and not join the ranks of those who have to migrate in desperation.

(iv) Taking the long view in resource management Core interests tend to take a short-term view of resource exploitation. Conservationist rhetoric should not be allowed to mislead here. Governments have generally protected forests less well than communities. Corrupt politicians, forest officials and contractors are not universal, but still rather common, and have grown fat by felling, not protecting, forests. For its part, normal project appraisal by seeking to maximise the internal rate of return also takes a short-term view, as do commercial interests concerned with profits.

In contrast, poor people with secure ownership of land, trees, livestock and other resources, where confident that they can retain the benefits of good husbandry and pass them on to their children,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Putting People First
• 2. Ethics
• 3. Education
• 4. Rare Animals and Poor People
• 5. Beyond Pretty Trees and Tigers in India
• 6. Protected Areas
• 7. The Green Movement
• 8. Future Directions for Environmental Policy
• 9. The Ecological Imperative
• 10. Conservation Strategies and Basic Needs
• List of Contributors
• Index