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| 1 A Passionate Dialogue: Community and Sustainable Development Diane Warburton |
The role of community in sustainable development has caused excitement and confusion in almost equal measure amongst practitioners and policy makers over recent years, and particularly since the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio in 1992, when world leaders signed up to Agenda 21 as the agenda for the twenty-first century, confirming that sustainable development requires community participation in practice as well as principle.
Sustainable development was defined in the Brundtland Report:
āHumanity has the ability to make development sustainable ā to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needsā. (WCED 1987, p8)
In spite of āenvironmentā not being mentioned at all in this definition, it has been the environmental implications that have received most attention, not least because of the origins of sustainable development, following on from the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment and the World Conservation Strategy in 1980.
The priority given to the environment in sustainable development has always been a matter for debate. Indeed, the Brundtland Commissionās report specifically says:
āWhen the terms of reference of our Commission were originally being discussed in 1982, there were those who wanted its considerations to be limited to āenvironmental issuesā only. This would have been a grave mistake ā¦the āenvironmentā is where we all live; and ādevelopmentā is what we all do in attempting to improve our lot within that abode. The two are inseparableā. (WCED 1987, pxi)
However, although the environment is only one aspect of sustainable development, it must be recognised that without the involvement of environmentalists, and the environmental movement, in debating and promoting sustainable development, even though it often caused them great difficulty, it is unlikely that the concept would have retained its centrality to policy.
The concept of community is equally contested. Beyond the notion that community is a āgood thingā, and imparts a warm glow to policies, there seems little consensus about what it actually means, let alone what it means for sustainable development. This book addresses these problems positively. It is designed to open up the debate; to provide a few shafts of light to illuminate some of the issues; and to examine some of the values and assumptions that lie behind those issues.
The importance, and relevance, of the role of community in sustainable development is reflected in the eminence of the contributors to this volume, but it will be apparent to all that this is far from a universal view. Some environmentalists will still argue that priority should be given to the search for the scientific evidence which will win the technical argument, or the professional solution which will solve the problem. To others, sustainable development is just the next stage in the battle for environmental issues to be taken seriously in public policy and commercial strategies. These approaches can, and must, continue, but something else is now needed.
Challenges are being made to the conventional scientific discourse with the emergence of the concept of a ācivic scienceā which recognises that science must become an increasingly interactive process between lay and expert people, reconnecting science and its cultural context, and argues that science must increasingly be linked to empowerment and activism and involve transfers of respect and power (OāRiordan, Chapter 6 this volume). Alongside these new ways of thinking about science itself, conventional professional approaches are increasingly challenged by arguments for more participatory approaches which devolve power to the poor and explicitly encourage professionals to make changes to their personal, professional and institutional values and practices (Chambers, Chapter 7 this volume).
These pressures for change continue a well-established recognition that sustainable development requires not just new solutions but new methods. The Brundtland Report, which introduced the concept of sustainable development to a world well versed in environmental catastrophe, states:
āThe time has come to break out of past patterns. Attempts to maintain social and ecological stability through old approaches to development and environmental protection will increase instability. Security must be sought through changeā. (WCED 1987, p309)
The concept of sustainable development is itself a critique ā not only of earlier forms of development and its social and environmental consequences, but also of the way development has been undertaken in the past. The concept of sustainable development brings these ideas together and presents a fundamentally challenging shift in global politics creating, for the first time, an ethic which encompasses a challenge to the inevitability of poverty and inequality, which recognises not only the need for economic development to meet human need but also the imperative to halt environmental destruction, and which involves maximum community participation, empowerment and local activism.
As old political ideas are being discarded, sustainable development offers a new political ethic, presented in all the guises of international agreements, national strategies and local plans. However much critics argue that the agreements in Rio lacked substance, and that achievements since Rio have been less than we hoped, the acceptance of the principle of sustainable development by world leaders succeeded, as the Brundtland Report had originally hoped, in āelevating sustainable development to a global ethicā (WCED 1987), in theory at least. Then, no one quite knew what it meant or what would happen next. We are only now beginning to understand its profound implications and to take up its challenges. The formal recognition of the importance of community participation and empowerment, in creating and implementing the changes that are required in a sustainable world, allows us to build on a movement supporting community-driven environmental action that has gained strength and knowledge slowly over the past 20 years. This movement has now reached a level of maturity which allows it to begin to move from the evangelical to the reflexive, and to ask some hard questions. This book is one contribution to that reflexivity.
The aim of this collection is to contribute to a critique of the role of community in sustainable development, but a critique in the sense of a positive, sympathetic analysis on which we can build, not a negative criticism. At its most ambitious, the hope is that this book will support a spirit of radical doubt:
āRadical doubt is a process ā¦ of liberation ā¦ a widening of awareness, of imaginative, creative visions of our possibilities and optionsā. (Fromm in Illich 1973, p10)
Sustainable development requires not just new techniques but new ways of thinking about social, economic and environmental goals and how to achieve them. It is also, clearly, not going to happen overnight. In Chapter 6 OāRiordan describes the process of change as the āsustainability transitionā, and shows how economic performance, environmental stewardship and increased localism, empowerment and self-reliance, must be integrated to provide ways forward to sustainable development: an approach which requires not only the clarification of underlying values and principles, but also new ways of developing and articulating those values.
The field represented in this book is not a clearly bounded one. It brings together specialists in participation, in planning, in community education, in development studies, in environmentalism, in politics and political theory as well as in social action. There are differences in approach, in analysis and in the identification of ways forward. Many of the contributors have strong and differing views, and the purpose of this book is to support open debate with provocative and informed contributions, rather than to attempt to present a consensus.
The contributors do, however, share a commitment to investigating the potential for greater grassroots action for sustainable development. This introduction to their contributions will do just three things:
1) look at the current context for an increasing role for community participation in sustainable development;
2) offer a brief overview of the links between community action and the environment; and
3) raise some of the key issues and questions we aimed to address in this collection, particularly the links between poverty, community, capacity building and sustainability.
The Context
To begin to take stock of the current position of community-driven sustainable development requires a recognition that it is still a minority interest. The rhetoric of community participation has been rehearsed many times, but it remains the exception rather than the norm on the ground. Realism about current and past achievements is vital if progress is to be made in ensuring that community approaches are accepted as an essential element of sustainable development, recognised as being as necessary as government action and scientific research. It is especially important to bring together the rhetoric and the reality of community-driven sustainable development now as there seem to be real opportunities for community and grassroots action to become part of the mainstream.
It is worth recalling exactly what was important in Agenda 21, the agenda from Rio for the twenty-first century. The very first paragraph reads:
āHumanity stands at a defining moment in history. We are confronted with a perpetuation of disparities between and within nations, a worsening of poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and the continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being. However, integration of environment and development concerns and greater attention to them will lead to the fulfilment of basic needs, improved living standards for all, better protected and managed ecosystems and a safer more prosperous future. No one nation can achieve this on its own; but together we can ā in a global partnership for sustainable developmentā. (Agenda 21, paragraph 1.1)
It is hard to remain unmoved by this sort of rhetoric, but its inspirational impact is dampened somewhat by the deeply daunting scale of the action that is needed to tackle global problems of this complexity. However, the Brundtland Commission argued that the first step in the pursuit of sustainable development is āa political system that secures effective citizen participation in decision makingā (WCED 1987, 65). They recognised that:
āThe law alone cannot enforce the common interest. It principally needs community knowledge and support, which entails greater public participation in the decisions which affect the environment. This is best secured by decentralising the management of resources upon which local communities depend, and giving these communities an effective say over the use of the resources. It will also require promoting citizensā initiatives, empowering peopleās organisations, and strengthening local democracyā. (WCED 1987, p63)
Figure 1.1 Agenda 21 and community participation
Agenda 21, itself contains extensive reference to community participation and empowerment, including much emphasis on capacity building (see Figure 1.1).
These priorities have since been incorporated into European and UK environmental policy. The European Commissionās Fifth Environmental Action Programme, called Towards Sustainability, recognised the importance of participation:
āThe strategy for achieving sustainable development can be really successful only if the general public can be persuaded that there is no alternative to the action proposed. Therefore the public must be informed about the issue and means for protecting the environment and, crucially, involved in the processā. (CEC 1992, p7)
The UK governmentās first strategy for sustainable development, developed in response to Rio and Agenda 21, echoed this commitment (HMSO 1994a), and the first UK Biodiversity Action Plan spelt out that āthe conservation of biodiversity requires the care and attention of individuals and communities, as well as Government processesā (HMSO 1994b, p94).
The UK Biodiversity Action Plan goes on to argue that
āBiodiversity is ultimately lost or conserved at the local level. Government policies create the incentives that facilitate or constrain local action ā¦In addition to the role of public bodies and landowners the attitudes and actions of local communities have an important part to play in supporting these strategies [ie to conserve and enhance biodiversity]ā. (HMSO 1994b, p111)
To this end, the Plan recognises that:
āTo exercise appropriate environmental care local people need motivation, education and training ā¦ In this context it (capacity building) can be defined as the process through which people and organisations develop the skills necessary to manage their environment and development in a sustainable mannerā. It stresses that āthe starting point for promoting biodiversity is the resident community, calling on others for assistance according to the circumstancesā. (HMSO 1994b, p111)
The commitment to community participation in sustainable development is continued through to local government. The first guidance notes on Local Agenda 21 (LA21), produced by the Local Government Management Board for local authorities, were on Community Participation in Local Agenda 21 (Bishop 1994).
The approaches of local government, through LA21s, have produced some impressive innovation in community participation including bottom-up neighbourhood-based LA21s (including several programmes supported by WWF-UK; see Webster, Chapter 10 this volume), working groups, forums, visioning and āfuture searchā exercises, community audits and other mapping exercises, work with schools and young people, state of the environment reports, environmental networks and round tables (Church 1995). These, and many other participatory initiatives, build on the experience of a few innovators who have fought to make links between environmental issues and community action over recent years.
Links between Community and Environmental Action
Some individuals and organisations have been examining the potential for the community approach to environmental action for more than 20 years with some success. In the 1970s, the practical links between community participation and environmental action tended to be either in relation to formal participation in town and country planning (following the Skeffington Report in 1969), or associated with conservation volunteers.
At the same time, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, community development and community work were being developed through the establishment of the Community Development Projects (CDPs), Community Projects Foundation (later to become the Community Development Foundation), and the growth of rural community councils and councils for voluntary service throughout England, and community councils in Scotland. These developments were based on both an increasingly sophisticated critique of traditional voluntary service, and a political belief in the potential for community development at neighbourhood level to create social change and tackle poverty and inequality. Method...
