Environmental Management: Principles and practice

Environmental science and environmental management
What can environmental science offer environmental management? ‘Science’,
noted O’Riordan (1995:7), ‘involves theory building, theory testing and
normative evaluation.’ De Groot (1992:8) felt it was better to talk of
environmental sciences, because there were many fields: hydrology, geology,
climatology, ecology, etc. When environmental management makes use of
science there are two broad approaches: (1) multidisciplinary—which involves
a communication between various fields of science but without much of a
breakdown of discipline boundaries; (2) inter-disciplinary—the various fields
of science are closely linked in an overall, coherent way. The interdisciplinary
approach is widely advocated as a cure for the fragmentation of science (what
some would see as unwelcome compartmentalization), but of the two it is much
the more difficult to achieve (De Groot, 1992:32). Environmental science often
h a s t o b e p r o b l e m - o r i e n t e d , a n d t h i s m a y h e l p p r o m o t e e ff e c t ive
interdisciplinary study.
Environment can be defined as the sum total of the conditions within which
organisms live. It is the result of interaction between non-living (abiotic) —physical
and chemical—and living (biotic) components. Interest in the struggle of organisms,
including people with one another and biota with their surroundings, was stimulated
by the publication of The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859)
by-Charles Darwin.

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SCIENCE
129
Ecologists, who study relationships between organisms and between organisms
and environment, sometimes use ‘natural environment’ to indicate a situation where
there has been little human interference and ‘modified environment’ where there has
been significant modification or ‘development’ by people (see Figure 7.1).
Increasingly, environmental management deals with environments that have been
modified to varying degree, often considerably. Many organisms alter the
environment: the change may be slow or rapid, localized or global.
At the roots of many of the world’s environmental problems lie unsound
concepts of development and modernization (Riddell, 1981; Adams, 1990). In the
1990s many people realize that there are growing problems caused by human activities
and threats from nature; some argue there is a crisis—a point at which appropriate
action must be taken to avoid disaster. Humans have the potential to recognize and to
respond consciously to opportunities and to threats—natural or anthropogenic,
perhaps to avoid or mitigate them. Whether humanity will successfully exploit that
potential remains to be seen, but if there is a will to do so, environmental management
offers the best means. For environmental management to develop strategies to avoid
or mitigate problems and exploit opportunities effectively it must be much more
than applied science, it requires understanding of human—environment interactions
(Figure 7.2).
There has been huge growth of interest in environmental science since the
1960s, and today there are stronger links with social studies and politics.
FIGURE 7.1 Cape Disappointment, South Georgia. A relatively simple flora and fauna,
which, with the exception of larger marine mammals, has been relatively little disturbed by
humans, and so offers opportunities for ecosystem studies

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CHAPTER SEVEN
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Environmentalism, a generic term for a range of moral codes directed at achieving
better environmental management (see chapter 8), is widely used. It must be stressed
that this is not a science, and while many environmentalists listen to scientific
reason, others take little heed or oppose established science. Environmental
management must work through science, often with environmentalists, and, if need
be, control the errors that environmentalism is prone to. Some scientists are
concerned by the tendency of certain environmentalists to present their activities
as ‘science’, fearing this will degrade scientific rigour and truth. Environmental
science must be done well and must withstand misapplication, the lobbying of
special interest groups, and demands of policy makers; yet it has to be practised in
a real world with time and funding constraints and demands for quick answers that
may be difficult to come by.
Things are not especially promising; Carl Sagan (1997:28) lamented the
‘dumbing down’ of the USA and the ‘decay of substantive content’ in its enormously
influential media; for many people in the west, science is unimportant, mistrusted,
or mixed up with pseudoscience and superstition. Environmental management must
ensure that people and decision makers recognize and escape from the ‘politics of
polarized perception’.