UNIT – IV

ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY

IV.C Community participation and environment management
INTEGRATED ENVIRONMENT MANAGEMENT
The traditional approach to the management of the development process did not consider the natural
environment in any significant way. The deliberations on sustainable development in various
international fora and conferences recently were compelled to deal with questions of the North-South
divide and hierarchy. Wide-ranging differences persist due to a variety of issues like causes for global
environmental degradation to the mechanisms of arresting ecological crises. While some perceive
underdevelopment of Third World countries itself as a major cause of environmental damage, many
advocates from these countries argue that the very process of development along the lines of industrial
progress has been instrumental in unleashing a global ecological crisis. Third World spokespersons in
international environmental negotiations demand that industrialised countries of the North should
subsidise efforts of replacing environmentally polluting industries of the South. Responsibilities for
global environmental crises like ozone layer depletion, green house effect, etc. are still contentious
issues between the North and the South. A critical international ecological perspective demands not
only an urge to create newer and wider international environmental regimes to tackle specific problems
but also a commitment to transformatory politics which addresses global unequal power relation. The
challenges to the nation-state system emanating from various quarters provide an ambivalent realm of
perspectives from an ecological angle. Environmental activists and theoreticians conventionally argued
that since the State is an embodiment of coercive power and an instrument of accumulation of
resources, it has to be replaced by local self-governing entities and ecologically sustainable
communities. The accelerated onslaught of globalisation forces on local and national lives of people and
their environment pose new challenges to the development of a contemporary critical ecological
perspective.

the process of environmental impact assessment (EIA) was developed in an attempt to

provide environmental information to advise development decisions. As much to the state for
In the changing global context, local communities find it extremely difficult to References stop the
plundering of their natural resource endowments by transnational corporations and agencies. Ecology
movements, while realising their own weakness due to their dissipated nature and the changing
character of the nation-state are faced with the task of critically rethinking the linkage between micro-
politics of movements and macro-politics of the nation-state and international affairs. Reinventing civil
society and the state in new democratic ways is being proposed as the inevitable alternative route.

The International perspective on ecology and sustainable development envisages transformatory

politics challenging the existing processes of accumulation and hierarchies of power from local to global
realms. This politics of transformation envisions sustainability of nature and resources through the
development of struggles to challenge forces, which exploit humans and nature. Such a perspective
looks for meaningful and organic democratic local-global linkages with a bottom-up approach.
COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION
Different conceptions and debates on environment-development connections by
conservationists, developmentalists, women activists, tribals and other
marginalized groups reveals that each one has a different position or emphasis on
issues such as conservation, subsistence needs of the poor, particularly women;
economic growth models and sustainability of critical resources, threats to eco-
systems and issues of equity and distribution of costs and benefits in the
management of natural resources. The focus on the environment development
connection has reframed the issues of control and management of natural
resources as it reflects the demands of the global economy which are pitted
against the peoples’ claim to traditional rights and their livelihood. As political and
economic battles intensify, livelihood interests and commercial interests are
locked in never ending contradictions and may not be easily reconciled.
Over the years, various approaches for natural resource management have been
outlined — both formal and informal arrangements — to support participatory
processes on the grounds of efficiency, involving local people and building a
partnership between the state and the community through appropriate
institutional arrangements. Within the agenda of decentralised management of
natural resources, one can identify several institutional arrangements such as self-
initiated user groups, formal community groups established through government
initiatives (Joint Forest Management or Watershed Management) and institutions
Community management of local resources or a decentralised strategy has assumed importance as it is
expected to protect livelihoods and lead to a more sustainable management of resources. Another
argument often made in defence of community management of natural resources relates to the
indigenous/women’s knowledge systems, which are embedded in a particular community or context.
Shiva argues “Third World women tribal and peasants act as intellectual gene pools of ecological
categories of thought and action”.

Women’s responses to environmental issues are mediated by their livelihood systems,

division of labour and unequal access to productive resources, and knowledge and
information. Local NGO’s have tried to build alternatives for the management of the local
resource base and link issues of gender equity to issues of social justice, poverty and
indigenous people’s rights. The arguments for social justice and local people’s rights are
based on the premise that local communities have a greater stake in the sustainable use of
resources and are better positioned to respond and adapt to specific social and ecological
conditions and incorporate local interest and preference. They are also conversant with the
local ecological practices and processes and can manage the resources through traditional
forms of access and management. During the last two decades, natural resource
management and bio-diversity conservation have emerged as major priorities within
countries and among donor agencies. People-oriented rhetoric and community-based natural
resource management have become part of a strategy for bringing nations into line with