Environmental Management: Principles and practice

Ecology and environmental management
One might argue that 1960s and 1970s ecologists triggered interest in environmental
management and helped establish environmentalism. While some of the
environmental activism has been more messianic than scientific, it stimulated
government and public concern for nature (Bailey, 1993). There continues to be an
input from ecology into environmental management (Troumbis, 1992; Underwood,
1995). However, this may pose difficulties: one problem is that ecologists are often
unable to make precise predictions; another is that there has been debate amongst
ecologists over sacrificing universality for utility and practicality in environmental
management (Shrader-Frechette and McCoy, 1994:294–295).
In addition to the knowledge of present conditions, reconstruction of past
conditions (palaeoecology) is valuable. Information about what happened in the
past may warn of future change and hazards, establish trends that can be
extrapolated into the future, or generate possible future scenarios. The expression
‘backcasting’ has been applied to such studies (Mitchell, 1997:99). It is also
likely that study of other planets may yield knowledge useful for managing Earth’s
environment.
A holistic approach to environmental management
The concept of holism was proposed in the 1920s by Smuts (1926). Modern holism
is often poorly defined, although it implies acceptance of the concept that the whole
is greater than the sum of the parts and the idea that modern science has unwisely
tended towards excessive reductionism, empiricism and compartmentalization
(isolation of fields of study from each other). In short, holistic research seeks to
understand the totality of problems, rather than their components. Not everyone is
happy with these trends—science has yielded much through reductionism—for

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example, Atkinson (1991a:154) warned of risks involved in adopting a wholly holistic
approach.
Many recognize a postmodern period, beginning in the early 1960s,
characterized by a collapse of ‘normality’, increasingly post-industrial activity and a
holistic worldview (Capra, 1982; Risser, 1985; Savory, 1988; Cheney, 1989; Warford
and Partow, 1989; Cosgrove, 1990:355; Kirkpatrick, 1990; Stonehouse et al., 1997).
In the last two decades some mathematicians and fundamental physicists have shifted
from approaches based on cartesian order and systematic, reductionist analysis, to
trying to understand chaotic complexity using postmodern holism that embraces
chaos theory or fractals (Lewin, 1993). A number of processes of concern to
environmental management appear to be best explained by chaos theory (which may
mean there will always be problems in predicting future outcomes accurately)
(Cartwright, 1991). The holistic approach may also prove useful because it is
increasingly difficult to maintain a separation between science and politics. Bond
(in New Scientist 30 May 1998:54) noted: ‘science without the bigger picture is
simply bad science’. (In 1998 the University of Plymouth, UK, launched an M.Sc. in
holistic science.) Holism is valuable as a support for established reductionist science
and must not be seen as a replacement.