Evolution of Environmental Management
The distribution of world incomes and wealth is uneven. A quite large portion of world population is still fighting with hunger. Despite gross inequalities in the distribution of world income and considerable poverty in many countries, economic development must be taken as an achievement.
However, this achievement has come at a price. Among them is the social price, that in the form of people got enslaved, exploited, and even killed. It has been enormous and the third world countries paid much and suffered a lot. This is the environmental price.
Environmental management in the initial decades, especially starting in seventies was mainly technocratic and problem solving. The practical support was centered around the problems. The professionals used to provide the practical support to the state officials for the problems being faced in developed countries. Limited attention was given to the social issues. The state administration took the issues of environment, on behalf of citizens.
It evolved different sectors like industries, mining, agriculture, wildlife management, pollution control and so on. Initially, the implementation process was principally a top to down in approach, which enforces the environmental policies by coercion, penalties, fines, and closure for breaches of glut of legal regulations.
However, since the dawn of twenty first century, environmental management shifted from force to accept public accountability and consultation. It abandoned the element of coercion in favor of education, reward, and appreciation. Once, technical knowledge and professional skills that were thought enough to manage environmental aspects, now turned to the ethics, quality standards, codes of conduct and transparency.
Disciplines for Environmental Studies
The social science disciplines as well as the environmental sciences have an extensive tradition of exploring the human–environment relationship. This discovered the degree to which manner and in which culture and environment determine human fortunes.
Initially, in the formative years of late nineties, it was seen by some as a better way than environmental determinism to study how human societies and cultures adapt through subsistence patterns to a given environment. Interest in cultural scientific study declined, and attention shifted to historical study and political study.
Political study seeks to understand relationships between society and environment, or more specifically the power relationships, valuable for those wishing to understand and control environmental stakeholders. They argued that it could help integrate environmental management and agricultural development.
In present times, the political approach is quite often applied by environmental managers. It consists to identify the politically placed ideas which influence how people relate to their environment. Some thinkers view of famines, arguing that various cultures had better survive natural disasters before colonial intervention. Others have applied political ecology to assessing why people cause environmental damage.
A recent development has been to research in liberation ecology exploration of the human and environment relationship. This implies social theory to offer political and economic explanations for many of the global environmental problems, often presenting the environment as an area of struggle.
Overall, now the environmental management has become more participatory and much more integrative. Modern environmental management inclines toward more encouragement and support. Enforcement element slipped to back foot. Participation and empowerment are encouraged at the bottom. The element of command and control shifted toward continuous improvement and environmental properties.
Now environmental management is evolving to suit new situations. Environmental concern and environmental management are becoming more influential. Once, where environmental management was authoritarian and centralized, now the trend has been toward decentralization. This is termed as community-oriented approach.
Supply and Use of Natural Resources
From the times immemorial, nature was treated as an infinite supply of resources to be used by humans, and an unlimited bowl for wastes. Managing the environment was irrelevant because it was not covered under economics subject. Technology was for improving human welfare and successfully stretching resources. This all was to improve crop yields, energy supply and so on. The attitude to pollution was usually to clean up later, only if forced to, or simply disperse it and forget it. Even today some developing countries still fall under this category.
Then came the era of dark-green philosophy. Dark green philosophy is a radical environmentalist ideology focusing on protecting the natural world and the spiritual connection between humans and nature. It aims for harmony between humans and nature. It opposes to some extent the use of technology and voices to develop new ethics and development outlooks.
Stepping Towards Environmental Impact assessments (EIAs)
When the economic outlook start weakened and pollution and biodiversity-loss problems became ostensible, the necessity was felt to make trade-offs between development and environmental protection. Tools like environmental impact assessment (EIA) were developed. Remedial measures were promoted to counter environmental damage. Various environmental agencies were created, but more often with poor co-ordination between them.
The era of resource management came into being. The environmentalists started thinking that development would sooner or later will surpass natural boundaries and cause disaster. Then the strategies were developed to counter the threat.
It is a fact that the political economies and practical concerns of environmental management in developing countries are quite different from those in developed countries. Initially environmental protection was seen to delay and hinder development. And the concern for the environment was no longer greeted with open hostility even during eighties.
Then the need to restructure society and economics to ensure that development should work with, not against, Nature. The emphasis was on qualitative development rather than economic growth alone and for awareness of the need for sustainability.
Resultantly, today environmental management is more proactive and demands longer-term management of adaptability and resilience. One of the key roles of environmental management is to watch for and warn about critical environmental and socio-economic beginnings. Monitoring and proactive impact assessment can be costly so environmental managers must select strategies that produce adequate information without exceeding their budget.
