Environmental Management: Principles and practice

Criticism of environmental management
With something as broad and ambitious as environmental management, criticism
is inevitable. The problem of its definition has been discussed, another frequently
voiced worry is that it is prescriptive and insufficiently analytical. It also attracts
criticism because it involves subjective judgement as well as scientific enquiry,
and is as much an art as a science.

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CHAPTER ONE
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Sometimes it is the approach to environmental management that causes
offence—some over-zealous efforts have been tantamount to ‘eco-fascism’ (Pepper,
1984: 204). Redclift (1985) warned of ‘environmental managerialism’, symptoms
of which include: the consideration of the environment after development objectives
have been set; the tendency to plunge into techniques regardless of whether they are
needed; and failing to see the wood for the trees. Too often environmental management
is pursued as a reactive, piecemeal approach, working on projects that have
environmental objectives or components designed to mitigate, rather than avoid,
environmental impacts (Schramm and Warford, 1989:8). Environmental management
must go beyond monitoring and reacting and adopt a longer term view than has been
the case with most planners and politicians. A longer term view improves the chances
of avoiding problems and, when it does not, allows time to develop contingency
plans, acquire technology, etc.
Environmental management has developed in western democracies where there
is relative freedom of access to information (e.g. in the USA through the Freedom of
Information Act; in Europe through the European Directive 82/501/EEC—Article 8
of which requires that local communities have information about any hazardous
installation) (Haefele, 1973). Now environmental management needs to be adapted
to suit different social and political conditions.