Environmental Management: Principles and practice

participants and minimize damage to the environment (Box 12.1) (Bowander, 1987).
In this there are parallels with the role of the state. Like a state, environmental
management deals with policy, planning, legislation, and control, implementation
and management (Cooper, 1995).
Existing users
Those using an environment or resources usually evolve rights and develop
management skills. Problems arise where unwritten traditional strategies and rights
break down or get usurped, typically by incoming migrants and settlers, urban elites
or powerful commercial organizations. World-wide, the expropriation of common
resources from traditional users has become a problem (The Ecologist, 1993). The
politics of exclusion appear to be expanding—states license companies to exploit an
area or resource used by people without documented rights and they are evicted to
degrade marginal land or to settle in urban slums.

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PARTICIPANTS IN ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
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BOX 12.1 Participants in environmental management
♦ Existing users: land or resource users (males and females may make different
demands); there may well be multiple users.
♦ Groups seeking change: government (may be conflicting demands from
various ministries or policy-makers); commerce (national, MNCs/TNCs),
individuals seeking personal gain or to change the situation, international
agencies, NGOs, media, academics, ‘utopians’).
♦ Groups pressed into making changes: the poor with no option but to over-
exploit what is available without investing in improvement; refugees,
migrants, relocatees, eco-refugees (forced to move or marginalized so that
they change the environment to survive), workers in industry/mining/etc.,
who face health and safety challenges while carrying out changes.
♦ Public (may not be directly involved): may be affected as bystanders; may
wish to develop, conserve or change practices (if aware of what is
happening); expatriate or global concern.
♦ Facilitators: funding bodies, consultants, planners, workers, migrant workers
(latter two groups affected by health and safety issues), Internet exchanges
of environmental data.
♦ Controllers: government and international agencies, traditional rulers and
religions, planners, law, consumer protection bodies and NGOs (including
various green/environmentalist bodies), trade organizations, media,
concerned individuals, academics, global opinion, and the environmental
manager.
Note: for a given issue there is often more than one participant, some involved
at different points in time and with varying degrees of involvement. As time
progresses a group may become more aware of developments and/or
empowered and act more effectively. There are subtle differences between
‘involvement’ and ‘participation’: the former may imply simply telling people
what is happening or what will happen. Participation means that there is some
degree of consultation and involvement (often far short of influencing whether
a development takes place).