Introduction
Challenges to achieving sustainable communities and societies in the Asia Pacific are daunting. As Cribb (Chap. 3, this volume) shows, human actions and interests guide environmental policies rather than scientific understanding. When politicians continue to support and subsidize the coal and oil industries in defiance of scientific data showing that use of fossil fuels for energy generation is the most significant factor contributing to increasing greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, their decisions arise from self-interest, not cerebral comprehension of the risk to future quality of life in human societies posed by such policies. The politics of the environment are strongly associated with conflicting interests. The chapters in this volume put these conflicting interests under the spotlight; they examine the multitude of ways how quality of life in human societies is subject to exploitation, degradation and impoverishment of the spiritual and material well-being and the ways how human beings seek to challenge, adapt and overcome the societal limitations arising from continued exploitation of the environmental envelope.
Challenges are multi-scalarâlocal, national and global. When local authorities turn a blind eye to loggers desecrating old-growth forests, they undermine national level legislation which may have taken years of negotiations with vested political, economic, business and societal interests to put in place. Without the forests, land degradation, soil erosion, floods and landslides imperil the quality of life on earth. Several chapters in this volume (Chaps. 6, 10, 12, 14 and 16) tease out the interlocking societal consequences of short-sighted policies and failure to give priority to the preservation of the environment. While legal frameworks abound (Myint Thu Myaing, Chap. 17), their implementation is often hoisted on the petard of political self-interest.
On the other hand, global level frameworks seek to achieve a balance between the economic exploitation of the worldâs resources and environmental conservation. They attempt to develop a policy arena where conflicting interests can be reconciled. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2015â2030 adopted by UN member countries on 25 September 20151 (successors to the Millennium Development Goals 2000â2015) are the latest in a series of multilateral platforms which prioritize protection of the earthâs life-support systems, poverty alleviation and human resource development, all nested within an integrated environmental and social framework which aims to improve the quality of life on earth. The SDGs are perceived to be mutually reinforcing. Political governance is at the heart of their aspirations; it conditions how and whether the goals will be achieved and implemented.
The SDGs, centered on thriving lives and livelihoods; sustainable food and water security; universally accessible clean energy which does not contribute to greenhouse gas emissions; healthy and productive ecosystems; and democratic governance for sustainable societies, highlight the principle that advances in human well-being must be achieved in tandem with protection of the earthâs life-support systems. That is, the security of the people and the security of the planet are interchangeable; one cannot be at the expense of the other. They set the bar high; they entail equitable distribution of societal resources; achievement of gender equity in access to political, economic and societal opportunities; and legal frameworks which support and uphold human rights as the fundamental platform on which sustainable societies need to be based.
Interrogating the Population, Development, Environment Nexus
The conflicting dynamics underlying these principles are playing out among the regional economies and societies of Asia and the Pacific. Conceptualized as policies which seek to achieve a balance between economic development and protection of the earthâs environmental envelopes on land, in the oceans and in the atmosphere, the 17 SDGs are the latest emanation of the global vision embodied in the 1987 Brundtland Report, Our Common Future. Arising from the work of the World Commission on Environment and Development, it sets the scene for the 1992 Earth Summit, the Agenda 21 and Rio Declaration and co-relative Commission on Sustainable Development. Its frequently cited definition of âsustainable development,â as âdevelopment that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,â has become the benchmark by which inter-generational equity is to be measured in public policies which allegedly try to balance the need for economic policies which address poverty alleviation, the number one SDG, with the need for environmental protection, the heart of almost all the other SDGs. The great insight of the 2015â2030 SDG agenda is that it portrays the necessary integration of the two key aspects rather than their dichotomous identities.
Environmental protection is essential to poverty alleviation, and poverty alleviation cannot be achieved without sound legal and policy frameworks for, and implementation of, environmental protection in all its aspects. When mangrove forests which deflect the ferocity of a storm surge or even tsunami are cut down by poor farmers for fuel for their wood stoves or for heating, this series of actions is a measure of dire poverty, lack of human resource development, lack of infrastructure and frequently poor health governance as the smoke from the wood fires contributes to the high incidence of lung disease and pneumonia.
As Henri Sitorus (Chap. 11, this volume) has shown, environmental protection itself is a dynamic concept which requires pro-active engagement with the power centers of policy-making through citizen and community activism, or what he has identified as âenvironmental citizenshipâ; those impacted by governmental policies which adversely affect their livelihoods take action to confront the damaging long-term consequences of such policies. In the case of North Sumatra and Lampung provinces, the sites of Dr. Sitorusâs research, both agricultural and marine livelihoods, are damaged and often destroyed entirely by poorly conceived environmental policies which disempower the rural poor. Developing this theme, Jamie Pittock (Chap. 5, this volume) examines the adverse impact on the food security of agricultural communities along Asiaâs major river systems arising from similarly ill-conceived water policies where hydro-power generation is prioritized for state benefit.
The nexus between empowerment of the rural and urban poor and environmental governance is also the focus of chapters by Prior and his colleagues (Chap. 7), Khin Mar Wai and her co-authors: Myint Thida, Nilar Aung and Tin Tin Mar. Taking a comparative perspective which embraces Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and Myanmar, Prior has elected to examine the intersec...