Environmental Management: Principles and practice

Systems or network approaches
Systems and ecosystems approaches have been discussed in chapter 7. Systems
analysis and network approaches have been applied to environmental management
since the 1970s (Bennett, 1984; Carley et al., 1991). These can be demanding of
research, and slow to perfect, but are useful for ongoing management of particular
situations, and as a way of making sense of complexity.
Local, community, regional and sectoral environmental
management
The value of local participation was discussed in chapter 12, and environmental
management has frequently been tackled on a local, a community, or regional scale
(Kok et al., 1993; Welford, 1993). Wilson and Bryant (1997:141) argue that
Amazonian rubber-tappers, farmers, etc., could be classed as grassroots environmental
managers; they also stress that environmental management is a multi-layered process:
there may well be different tiers involved from local up to state and even international
levels, all interrelating.
Smith (1998) found in the USA that, for pollution discharge control,
decentralization did seem to improve environmental management performance, the
key factor being access to local knowledge. The social sciences offer a pool of
experience on community development aspects of natural resource management

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which the environmental manager should draw upon (Smith et al., 1994). Regional
planners have often worked closely with environmental managers.
A number of sectors have developed approaches, standards and pools of
expertise—for example, the petrochemicals, paper-pulp production, mining, oil,
cement, sewage treatment and power generation industries. Tourism is also beginning
to develop environmental management approaches and standards, e.g. for ski resorts
(Williams and Todd, 1997). This expertise can greatly assist and speed up further
environmental management in the same sector.