Environmental Policies (Routledge Revivals)

An International Review

Chris Park, Chris C. Park

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134670697
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Environment & Energy Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The importance of the effective management of the natural environment has become vital over the past few decades. In different countries, varying policies are implemented by governments to manage the environment, both to foster growth and reduce pollution and destruction. Employing a broad country-based approach, this edited collection, first published in 1986, surveys the growth, nature and effectiveness of the environmental management policies implemented by governments around the world. The overarching argument is that a coherent international approach is needed to deal with the problems surrounding environmental sustainability. This title will be of great value to students of the natural environment, sustainability and resource management.

Chapter One

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES IN PERSPECTIVE

Chris Park

INTRODUCTION

Recent years have witnessed mounting concern over the state of the environment. This has embraced a variety of environmental changes such as pollution, depletion of natural resources, declining environmental quality, and extinction of species. Growing awareness of these critical changes has encouraged the introduction of more sustainable patterns of activity at all scales from the local to the global.

In the chapters which follow, authors review the environmental problems and evaluate the policies designed to tackle them in a selection of countries and at a range of scales. The book offers an insight into the scale, nature and possible causes of the contemporary environmental problems in the chosen countries (chapters 2, 3 and 5 to 8), and a perspective on how the national decision-makers view them and seek to solve them.

Inevitably many themes (in terms of both problems and solutions) recur from country to country, and this highlights the need for exchange of ideas and dialogue between environmental decision-makers in individual countries. It also provides a context for recent international (chapter 4) and global (chapter 9) environmental initiatives.

The aim of this chapter is to review the need for national environmental policies, and to provide a background against which the policies of individual countries might be set.

ENVIRONMENT — UNITY AND FUNCTION

‘Environment’ is taken to refer to the sum total of the biological, chemical and physical status and character of the natural world. It is the fabric of the biosphere, and as such it embraces both living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic) features, along with the processes, cycles and interrelationships which influence these.

The biosphere is a sensitive, open system and changes in one part of the system can be transferred — through space and time — to other parts of the system (e.g. most pollutants are extremely mobile through natural environmental cycles and flows). The integrity and survival of the whole system is more important than the preservation of component parts.

The environment has traditionally been seen as a public good, available in almost unlimited supply, and free for use (generally without restrictions) by all who desire to use it. It is an exploitable asset, to be carefully allocated among competing users. The environment offers both natural resources (which have some tangible, practical value — such as minerals and water) and non-utilitarian resources (which do not — such as landscape and wilderness). It has three main functions (Siebert et al, 1980):

(a) it serves as a public consumption good (e.g. air and landscape),

(b) it provides basic inputs for production processes (e.g. raw materials) and

(c) it is used as a receptor of wastes (e.g. air and water pollutants).

Cottrell (1978, p.7) notes that:

the natural environment has been largely ignored in conventional accounts of economic processes, and the earth has been commonly regarded as a free reservoir and bottomless rubbish dump.

Environmental management is required beause of the wide range of demands being made on all parts of the environmental system. Many of these demands are not compatible with others, and some of them lead to serious, long term and at times irreversible changes in the environment. The paradox is highlighted by O'Riordan (1971, p.176):

the environment is to be all things to all men. It is to be life supporting, it is to be useful and it is to be beautiful.

The challenge of environmental decision-makers is to introduce policies which make it possible to realise all three goals simultaneously. The ultimate objective behind such management is the long term survival of humanity. As Ward and Dubos (1971) conclude:

the depletion of natural resources is … one of the chief reasons of uncertainty concerning the continued ability of the earth to support human civilisations.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL PREDICAMENT

The environmental problems faced by individual countries are components of a global problem, often referred to as the ‘Environmental Crisis’. The use of the term crisis is not without purpose, because it is designed to highlight the critical nature of the present problem. A crisis can be defined as ‘…a crucial stage or turning point… an unstable period…a sudden change, for better or worse…’ (Collins English Dictionary, 1979).

Black (1970) maintains that the term ‘crisis’ implies some sudden decisive change, which is perhaps not fully representative of the gradual, incremental development of many contemporary environmental problems. Berry (1972) also stresses that many such problems are chronic and pervasive, rather than acute. It might be more correct to refer to the recent problems as elements of an ‘Environmental Predicament’ rather than a crisis.

There is accumulating evidence, particularly since the 1960s, that many forms of human activity are having long-term and wide-ranging impacts on the environment (see Table 1.1). For example, the World Conservation Strategy (Allen, 1980) singles out for particular attention the problems of soil erosion, desertification, loss of cropland, pollution, deforestation, ecosystem degradation and destruction and extinction of species and varieties.

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TABLE 1.1 Some negative environmental changes observed during the 1970s

	ATMOSPHERE
*	slow rise in carbon dioxide levels (due to use of fossil fuels and forest clearance)
*	acid rain established as product of long distance transport of sulphur oxides and nitrogen oxides (burning of fossil fuels)
*	uncertainty about depletion of ozone (supersonic transport, release of chlorofluorocarbons)
*	increasing stratospheric particulates
	MARINE ENVIRONMENT
*	localised contamination of some areas — rising mercury levels, increasedse wage, wash out of agricultural chemicals, oils, metals
*	high input along some rivers of pollutants — such as iron, manganese, copper, zinc, lead, tin, antimony
*	increased exploitation of sea bed mineral resources (especially oil)
*	wide distribution of organochlorine pesticides and PCBs, with some evidence of declining levels of DDT and PCB
	INLAND WATERS
*	increased pollution of some water bodies, from nutrient enrichment (eutrophication)and acidification (acid rain)
*	deteriorating state(pollution)of many underground aquifers
*	rising concern over environmental impacts of large man-made lakes
	LITHOSPHERE
*	increased annual production of almost all non-metallic minerals
*	moderate increases in production of most metals
	TERRESTRIAL BIOTA
*	growing concern over declining soil stability and fertility
*	growing concern over loss of species and populations of plants and animals
*	clearance of tropical rain forest — in the order of 11 million ha per year; faster in Africa than in Asia and Latin America

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TABLE 1.1 (continued)

*	increasing desertification — in tropical deciduous forests, savannas, grasslands, steppes and areas with Mediterranean climate
*	concern over impacts of, acid rain on temperate evergreen and broadleaf deciduous forests
*	increased threat to Arctic tundra (search for oil and gas)
	AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY
*	widespread food shortages — over 450 million people chronically hungry or malnourished during the decade
*	increasing production requires new land for cultivation (land intake)
*	transformation of agricultural land to other uses — world wide estimates to be between 50 and 70,000 sq.km per annum
*	widespread soil degradation — erosion, salinization, alkalinization, chemical degradation
*	salinization in arid and semi-arid areas
*	desertification — in the order of 60,000 sq.km of land destroyed or impaired per annum; affecting 600–700 million people
*	concern about side effects of agricultural chemicals on the environment — over 54 million tons of nitrogenous fertiliser used per annum. Pollution of surface and ground waters, threat to aquatic life, adverse effects on animals, fish, birds
	POPULATION
*	world population in 1980 = 4,400 million, an increase of 700 million since 1970
*	annual rate of population increase (1975–80) = 1.72 percent. This represents an additional 1 million people every 5 days
*	moderation of population growth — but growth continues in many countries faster than public services (e.g. education, health care, sanitation, transportation) can be provided
*	large migration streams of humans between countries

Source: summarised from Holdgate, Kassas and White (1982)

Some human impacts (such as the deliberate conservation of species) are beneficial to both man and environment. However, many (such as the felling of the tropical rain forest) , benefit man in the short term at the expense of long term environmental stability and sustainability. The Global 2000 Report to the President of the United States (1980) concluded that:

if present trends continue, the world in 2000 will be more crowded, more polluted, less stable ecologically, and more vulnerable to disruption than the world we live in now. Serious stresses involving population, resources and environment are clearly visible ahead…

The Historic Dimension

Environment...