Challenges for Environmental Management
Status of Environmental Management at Global Level
Even in today’s world, there is wide spread phenomena of hunger and malnourishment in developing countries. There is a multiplicity of non-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial regimes. These included liberal democracies, free enterprise dictatorships, socialist states, unstable constitutional monarchies among other types of governments. There has been fair degree of corruption and favoritism. There is also a frequent regime changes and limited resources at their disposal.
These societies are very much vulnerable to outside pressures with an urge for development. Empowering a country or a local group to manage its environment is no guarantee, it will seek to do so wisely. Dictatorial environmental managements generally ignore local knowledge and adopt a top–down approach. It placed concern for nature after revenue generation through exploitation of natural resources.
Resource exploitation thus often dominated environmental management in developing countries. Environmental concern has been on a lesser side during colonial eras. During those days, there was very little pressure from NGOs, no politicization of environmentalism. There was a little public concern or media pressure on environment. Local people frequently cheated of their territory in one way or the another and their ancestral wisdom if any, was suppressed.
Growing Concern for Environmental Management
In the eighties, some newly independent developing countries abandoned or neglected to enforce environmental management measures. The reasons being more attention on social reforms and economic development issues. They view the environmental concern as a luxury that had to wait until enough economic progress had been made.
In the nineties, the cultures of developing countries experienced freedom to shape their own environmental policies from those imposed on them or some-what inherited from developed countries. The peoples of developing countries became sufficiently more aware to understand the importance of environmental management or at least, for the ideal use of available natural resources in their countries.
Dependent Scenario of Environmental Management
There are plenty of cases where insensitive environmental management has been ignored or opposed. Numerous countries have countered soil erosion by mechanically ploughing terraces and planting trees. But the costly measures have frequently failed. The locals simply let their livestock graze and kill the trees or even dig up the terraces. This is because they have no other land and on the other hand due to lack of knowledge.
Environmental managers need to ensure development is in tune with local needs, environment, and social situation and more importantly, is understood by local people. From the late nineties, the environmental management was widely supported. However, poorer nations have limited resources as well as expertise. They are often dependent upon developed countries. Pursuing ideal environmental management solutions may mean opposing outside influences. This is seldom easy.
Developing countries have now become more aware of their environmental interests, obligations, and aspirations. Thanks to NGOs and the media, they have more power to bargain with lobby of richer countries and even multinational companies. They can collectively bargain from a reasonably strong position because they hold important natural resources. Global environmental problems and opportunities involve both developing and developed countries. So, the developed countries should agree on issues with poor countries.
Environment Management Challenges
The developing countries faces the challenges, encountered for environment in richer nations. They have to face more limited funds and the need to combat poverty. They have poor infrastructure and risks that multinational companies and corrupt government will undermine efforts. Some developing countries have harsh environments, environmentally as well as politically, that pose environmental management and development problems. There is often a diversity of ethnic groups with varying needs and aspirations.
Environmental management involves making decisions. How these are made, depends on whether a technocratic or a consultative (bottom-up) model is adopted. The latter has become the usual pattern in the USA and Canada, and is increasingly being chosen in Japan and Europe, reflecting the trend towards democracy and freedom of information.
Whatever the overall approach, environmental management is, a ‘myriad of individual and collective decisions by persons, groups, and organizations’, and ‘together these decisions and interactions constitute a process – a process that in effect results in management of the environmental resources of a society’.
Of the many problems that beset environmental management, inadequate data is a common hindrance: there are still huge gaps in knowledge of the structure and function of the environment, the workings of global, regional, and local economics, and of how societies and individual humans behave. The ideal is adequate data that may be presented in real time, so that the scenario can be observed as it changes.
With improved computers, software, and the development of tools such as geographical information systems (GIS), this may one day be possible, but often all that is available today is an occasional, incomplete snapshot view (i.e. limited in time and space, which can be misleading). Decision making is often made difficult by politics; lobbying; media, public and NGOs’ attention; lack of funding and expertise.
Environmental managers are faced with two historical challenges. One, that problems may suddenly demand attention and allow little time for solution. Secondly, the desirability that planning horizons stretch further into the future than has been usual practice. Decisions are easier to make and policies more easily adjusted if there is time available. As 2 to 3°C climate change over a hundred years may not be too much of a manageable challenge, but if it happens over twenty years it would be.
Precise predictions are too difficult with stable environments, but many are often unstable and some are becoming even uncertain. Once the stability has been upset, there may be unexpected and sudden feedbacks or shifts to different states, all of which are difficult to forecast.
