Environmental Management: Principles and practice

The value of the social sciences and environmentalism to
environmental management
The social sciences provide information for one side of the human—environment
interrelationship which environmental managers seek to understand and steer (Burch
et al., 1972). The potential inputs to environmental management from the social
sciences are:
♦
to provide information on social development needs and aspirations;
♦
to explain present and predict future human attitudes, ethics and behaviour;

---

CHAPTER EIGHT
162
♦
to study and develop ways of focusing the activities of social institutions, non-
governmental organizations, groups of consumers, etc., to achieve better
environmental management;
♦
to show the environmental manager social constraints and opportunities;
♦
to unravel the often complex and indirect social causes of environmental
problems—e.g. deforestation may have roots in social changes;
♦
the articulation and fulfilment of the shared interests of people (so far mainly
at the local, regional or national level). National governments have mainly
been reactive rather than forward-looking: social science will be needed to
clarify how people think, nations relate to each other, and institutions behave
if a more proactive approach is the goal; ? to cut through ‘technological
determinism’ so that the voice of social science can be heard (Redclift and
Benton, 1994).
Environmentalism is playing a vital role in the evolution of better environmental
ethics but some of it is radicalism of limited practical value. Adams (1990:83) warned:
‘it is necessary to move outside environmental disciplines, and outside
environmentalism, to approach the problem from political economy and not
environmental science…to the understanding of environmental aspects of
development which uses both natural science and social insights’. An example of
such an integrated approach is that applied by Blaikie (1985) to the problem of soil
erosion (see discussion of political economy— chapter 13).
The delay before social scientists began to study human—environment issues
in the 1980s might have been because there were separate academic traditions.
However, other factors may also have been at work, in particular, suspicion of
empirical research, and many concepts like environmental determinism and social
Darwinism (Chappell, 1993) (see Box 8.3). There has been a huge increase in the
interest taken by social science in the environment since the late 1970s, with a shift
from mainly enlightened activists at first to more widespread interest since 1992.
There has been some borrowing of concepts and jargon by social science, mainly
from ecology, but sometimes things become distorted when they have been borrowed.
This is common with environmentalists who do not derive their concepts by a process
of logic, but bolt on scientific justification to values they already hold.
To anyone reading the literature it soon becomes clear that there is inconsistency
and imprecision of terminology, so it may be better to try to understand the stance of
those involved. For example, some adopt an ecocentric, others an anthropocentric
viewpoint (Moghissi, 1995). Box 8.4 offers a broad subdivision of green stancea.
So far, social science seems to have been concerned more with the social impacts
of environmental problems and less with establishing the causes of the problems
(McDonagh and Prothero, 1997:21), or has examined social aspects of management.
The field of social impact assessment has established itself (chapter 6). Social science
has also contributed in a practical way to environmental management, for example,
social forestry management; agricultural development (e.g. participatory research,
advice on extension and project implementation); irrigation extension and

---

ENVIRONMENTALISM AND SOCIAL SCIENCE
163