Environmental Management: Principles and practice

Recommended reading
Journals which publish articles on environmental management of waste and
pollution
Ambio
Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology
Atmospheric Environment
Biogeochemistry
Environment and Planning (C)
Environmental Monitoring and Assessment
Environmental Pollution
Environmental Science and Technology
Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry
Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta
International Journal of Environment and Pollution
Journal of Cleaner Production
Journal of Environmental Quality
Journal of Environmental Management
Journal of the Water Pollution Control Federation Science
Land Degradation & Development
Science of the Total Environment
Waste Management
Water Air and Soil Pollution
World Wastes

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235
C h a p t e r 1 2
Participants in
environmental
management
♦ Existing users
236
♦ Groups seeking change
239
♦ Groups with little control
239
♦ The public
244
♦ Facilitators
245
♦ Controllers
246
♦ NGOs
247
♦ Recommended reading
248

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236
This chapter explores the groups involved in environmental management.
Adams (1990) identified two groups involved in environment and
development: ‘the blind’ and ‘the dumb’. The ‘dumb’ may include people or
governments who are uninformed of the implications of development, or are unable
adequately to voice their views and affect change. The ‘blind’ may include
consultants, scientists, economists, bankers, those bent on riches or blinkered by
concern for sovereignty, religion, or national security. The ‘dumb’ are often
marginalized people, victims of disaster or unrest, underclasses, or simply those
without enough influence or power to realize what the ‘blind’ are doing and to
lobby them to act when change is needed. The environmental manager has to try to
disseminate information to the ‘dumb’, and possibly protect or empower them
and, if need be, inform and control the ‘blind’.
Modern development has focused on yield increase, often for the benefit of
individuals or special-interest groups. It is only in the last few decades that
appropriateness, sustainability, equity, participation and security have also started to
become goals. Traditional resource users often seek sustainability, equity and security,
and much can often be learnt from them. Before the 1970s only a minority of
development agencies asked whether a proposal was ‘appropriate’, or made any
effort to seek indigenous knowledge, or involve local people in decision making and
management.
In any given environmental management situation there are likely to be a number
of different perspectives, and hence various possible responses. The environmental
manager has to grasp the sum total of perspectives and try to avoid conflicts between