Monitoring and enforcement for management of industrial wastes: case study for Thailand

Summary This paper seeks to set the appropriate standards for monitoring and enforcement for the management of industrial wastes and effluents in developing countries. It applies these environmental protection measures to the proposed Samutprakam Province improvement programme in Thailand.Dr Harvey F. Ludwig is a regular contributor toThe Environmentalist (see, for instance, Ludwig, 1990; Ludwig and Browder, 1992). He is Chairman of Seatec International Consulting Engineers where Sow Kim Leng is a consulting engineer. Wanida Srichai is based at the World Environment Center, Thailand Office, Bangkok, Thailand.     

Appropriate water supply and sanitation technology for developing countries in tropical monsoon climates

Summary In the past, the water supply and sewage services for the urban regions of developing countries have been provided, in the main, only for the more affluent areas of these cities. This paper, dealing especially with those countries with tropical monsoon climates, advocates the construction of more comprehensive systems.Experience drawn from a wide range of projects and a review of the relevant literature provokes the authors to emphasise the need for suitable manuals of appropriate technology for use in these developing countries. These manuals should provide a full set of environmental guidelines for the design of water supply and sewage/sanitation systems for use in these countries.Dr Harvey F. Ludwig is Chairman and Greg Browder is Environmental Engineer for SEATEC International Consulting Engineers, Bangkok, Thailand.     

Moving toward economic-cum-environmental sustainability in Asian developing countries

Summary Environmental degradation in the Asian Pacific area developing countries continues and has probably increased since the Stockholm Conference of 1972. The causes for this continued environmental degradation in Asia are analyzed. The paper assesses the actions of the International Assistance Agencies in providing support for the Asian developing countries since Stockholm. The Asian Development Bank project on Economic Policies for Sustained Development is described, and advocated as an important first step in a strategy moving towards economic-cum-environmental sustainability. Drastic changes and bold initiatives are suggested and required to establish true sustainable development for the developing countries.Dr Harvey F. Ludwig is Chairman of SEATEC International Consulting Engineers. He is a regular contributor to this journal.     

Environmental problem-solving and land-use management: A proposed structure for Australia

A three-tiered structure of land-use and environmental management is here proposed for Australia. The structure is based on the idea that environment means the environment of people, and that environmental problems arise when a change in the interaction between people and their environment leads to conflicts about the use of land and resources. The heterogeneity of society means that a range of human aspirations and value systems must be satisfied by environmental managers. Existing methods of environmental management fail to achieve these objectives, due to inadequate perception of environmental problems by decision-makers, and the inability of currently available impact assessment techniques to resolve human conflicts associated with the use of land and resources. The main work of planning and managing land use and the environment would be carried out by regional authorities, supported by federal and state policy. Examples are given of moves towards regional administration in England and Wales, Western Australia, Australia and New Zealand. Community participation in the decision-making process is essential and can be achieved by electoral representation to the authoritative bodies and through procedures that ensure informed public comment on planning proposals.     

Educating the South Pacific about the environment

Summary Environmental education is currently fashionable. However, some educators are viewing it with suspicion as a trendy subject which will disrupt their carefully planned syllabii which are geared largely towards the passing of examinations. In the South Pacific there have been a number of attempts to increase people's awareness of their surroundings and to build up a respect for what is loosely termed our physical environment. These programmes have included, increasing the amount of environmental examples in a range of primary and secondary school subjects, formal courses in environmental planning at the tertiary level, and conservation messages through the media.Dr Jenny Bryant is a Lecturer in Geography at the University of the South Pacific, and recently Secretary, now Acting Chairperson, of the South Pacific Action Committee for Human Ecology and the Environment (SPACHEE).     

A course in Environmental Planning and Management

Summary This paper describes a 13-weeks, third-year course in Environmental Planning and Management developed and taught by the authors. Initiated in 1969, the course consists of a mix of lectures, seminars, workshop/laboratory sessions and field-based projects. The objectives of the course are for students: to become aware of the need for, and the complexities of, environmental management; to be able to criticise constructively work done by environmental agencies and consultants, managers and decision makers; and to learn and apply some of the methods and techniques used in environmental management.Topics covered by the current syllabus are: concepts of resource and environment; constitutional aspects; international law and the environment; Australian and Canadian environmental legislation and agencies; human manipulation of ecosystems; energy subsidies; modification of biogeochemical cycles; population dynamics and cropping; fisheries; national parks and reserves—policies in different countries; international heritage areas; environmental assessment (including impact assessment, land evaluation, land capability and land suitability assessment); and regional, integrated land-use and environmental planning and management. Techniques taught include: field surveys and interviewing; laboratory analysis of selected water quality, sediment and soil parameters including nutrient concentrations, heavy metal and pesticide residues; and for some students, applications of geographic information systems (GIS) technology following preceding GIS courses.A major problem is selecting the most appropriate mix between the social and natural sciences—appropriate, first in terms of students' heterogeneous skills and backgrounds, and second, in terms of understanding the causes of environmental problems and issues, and devising practicable solutions.     

Environmental functions as a unifying concept for ecology and economics

Summary In spite of the increased awareness about many environmental problems, degradation and pollution of the natural environment by human actions still continue on a large scale. Some of the main reasons for man's continued abuse of the natural environment are the short-term nature of the economic planning process, which largely ignores the negative long-term effects of economic production on the environment (e.g. pollution), and the fact that the pricing system mainly concentrates on man-made goods and services while considering most natural resources to be free goods.This paper argues that environmental functions (i.e. natural goods are services) are at least as important to human welfare as man-made goods and services and should, therefore, be included in economic accounting procedures. To this end, it is suggested to replace the term natural resources by the concept of environmental functions and, efforts should be undertaken to increase our understanding of the ecological and socio-economic benefits of environmental functions to human society. Only when ecological principles become an integral part of economic planning and political decision-making is there a chance of achieving a happy global village based on harmony between man and nature.Rudolf S. de Groot is an environmental consultant and a Ph.D candidate in environmental planning and management in the Nature Conservation Department of the Agricultural University Wageningen. As a member of the IUCN Commission on Environmental Planning he is involved in the activities of the European Committee for National Conservation Strategies, to implement, monitor and update National and European Conservation Strategies.     

The future of environment and business development in south-east Asia: the situation in Thailand on economic-cum-environmental development

Summary Over the past two decades, since initial establishment of Thailand's National Environment Board by the original National Environmental Quality Act of 1975 (NEQA/75), many lessons have been learned on the complex problems of establishing a meaningful national environmental program in the country. Based on these lessons, a new act was promulgated in 1992 (NEQA/92), which furnishes very substantial powers and financing for planning and implementing such a program. The result has been a marked upgrading and acceleration of the program, but with the realization that the principal problem now is scarcity of the many needed technical skills in the government's Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, which serves as the Working Arm for the National Environment Board. One of the approaches now being explored is how to make effective use of the private sector to supplement and complement the government's resources.Thailand's goal, from the point of view of the Ministry of Science, technology and Environment, is the continuing sustainable development of Thailand. This means planning and implementing economiccum-environmental development projects, where the investment pays good dividends in both financial earnings and in environmental protection. This will not be easy, because the projects must be suited to the political, cultural, and social as well as the economic realities of Thailand. The common mistake in developing countries of trying to emulate practices developed and utilized in the affluent industrialized countries must be avoided. It is realized that pioneering studies and research, to obtain the planning and design guidelines which will fit the current national development situation, must be undertaken here in Thailand.Mr Kasem Snidvongs is Permanent Secretary to the Ministry. The article is based on his speech to an International Environmental Forum held in Bangkok in January 1996.     

Planning for global environmental change in Bangkok's informal settlements

Government agencies in cities across Asia recognise that municipalities must take steps to adapt to projected climate changes if people and places are to be kept above water. This paper focuses on planning for climate change in Bangkok because it ranks among the top 10 port cities vulnerable to climate change related flooding. It is also understood that the most devastating impacts of climate change will be suffered by the city's most vulnerable residents: the poor. Not only do impoverished people occupy physically vulnerable space, such as riverbanks, but they are also the least equipped to recover from the disruption of their livelihoods.

Several scholars have identified “institutional traps” that prevent the Thai government from successfully aiding poor and marginalised flood victims in the past. These include poor coordination, lack of monitoring and evaluation, rigidity, crisis management and elite capture. Lebel, Manuta, and Garden (2011, 56) Lebel, L., J.B. Manuta, and P. Garden. 2011. “Institutional Traps and Vulnerability to Changes in Climate and Flood Regimes in Thailand.” Regional Environmental Change 11 (1): 45–58.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] pose the crucial question: “How have individuals – from local community leaders through to national level politicians and bureaucrats – successfully influenced policy and programmes to avoid institutional traps and improve adaptive capacities to climate change?”

In this paper, we begin to address this question through examining emergent methods of “community based adaptation” and reviewing case studies of adaptation action from other vulnerable communities in the Global South. These lessons – such as overcoming institutional rigidity and avoiding elite capture – are important for Bangkok and other cities in the Global South that face many different challenges by global environmental change.     

Environmental accounting: Neo-classical framework or alternative?

Summary Traditional environmental accounting framework is based on a neo-classical economic theory that treats environmental assets and liabilities as if their contribution to economic acitivity were similar to that of conventional, marketed assets and liabilities. The environment is viewed as a producer of outputs consumed by other productive economic sectors. It is proposed in this article that the environment is not only a producer of outputs, but also an output itself. The environment requires not only its protection, but importantly its continual improvement. Under this framework environmental accounting as a discipline is split into two categories: corporate environmental accounting and social environmental accounting. Two information streams exist under this framework: products-oriented information and environment-oriented information.Dr Simon S. Gao is a Senior Lecturer in the Accounting and Finance Division of the Business School at Staffordshire University. He obtained a BA in Economics in 1993, and an MA in Accounting and Finance, in 1987, both from Shaanxi Institute of Finance and Economics, China. He was recently awarded a PhD from Faculty of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands). His research intersts include among others, environmental accounting and reporting, environmental cost and risk analysis, and environmental asset management. He has published papers widely on accounting and finance issues.     

Air pollution in California: Manufacturing vs. services

Relative to manufacturing, service activities are often considered by planners and officials to generate considerably less environmental pollution. This hypothesis is tested by means of an examination of the economic linkages of both manufacturing and service activities and of the resulting direct and indirect emissions of five air pollutants per dollar of output in the California statewide air basin and in four regional basins within the state. Overall acceptance or rejection of the hypothesis depends in part on the particular pollutant and air basin considered but, most importantly, on the judgement as to what activities are to be considered as service activities.This paper is based on research sponsored by the California Air Resources Board under Agreement A7-143-30.     

Subject indicators to present the nature and limit of environmental studies in US graduate schools

Summary The purpose of this paper is to examine subjects to show the nature and limit of interdisciplinary communication in existing environmental programmes in US graduate schools. Ultimately, this analysis may provide more effective communication with the general public. Following comparative historical reviews of both the sciences and the human activity for environmental protection, and a content analysis of empirical documents used by the public, a mushroom computer model has been produced. This model is based on organizational behaviour theory and contains the following 15 subjects which were originally introduced before the lack of communication resulting from curriculum failure in the 19th century: philosophy, politics, economics, architecture, sociology, biology, medicine, agriculture, ecology, public health, mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, statistics. The subjects should foster effective communication with the general public, leading to more effective environmental protection.Dr Hong S. Kim is at the Environmental Studies Program, California State University, Fullerton, USA. He received a PhD from the Administration and Management Program at Walden University, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. His numerous papers are focused on environmental pollution analysis, environmental impact assessment, environmental management, and environmental law. He has written a book entitledEnvironmentology which is forthcoming.Dr James P. Dixon is the Chairperson of Health Services at Walden University, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55401, USA. He was recently Professor of the Department of Policy and Administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. He was also past President of Antioch College (1959–1975). His many publications are concentrated in the areas of organizational development, public health and preventive medicine, and administration of human service organizations.     

Relationships between development and disease

Summary The close links which exist between poverty, disease and development are surveyed, particularly with reference to the situation in Africa. Poverty may impede the correct use of the land which can in turn lead to malnutrition and a higher incidence of disease. A population in poor health cannot effectively improve its own economic condition or make full use of aid. Poor health may be due to a colonial heritage of unsatisfactory land use, inappropriate transfer of technology, short-sighted administration, or other causes. Not all development brings improvement in health, for instance, inadequate urban planning can induce health problems.The wealthy and secure nations of the world will realise that they cannot possibly remain either wealthy or secure if they continue to close their eyes to the pestilence of poverty that covers the whole southern half of the globe. They will act, if only to preserve their own immunity from infection.(McNamara, 1968)Paul Milligan, is a Research Assistant in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Salford. He has an active interest in the computer analysis of environmental data and has worked on material relating to the control of river blindness in the Volta Basin of West Africa and in a wider African context on attempts to control sleeping sickness.Dr Michael Pugh Thomas, is Deputy Director of the Environmental Institute at the University of Salford. He is actively involved in environmental education and he is the current Chairman of the Institution of Environmental Sciences. His research has been concerned with the environmental impact of economic development and has related to estuarine ecology and the ecological effects of attempts to control insect vector bourne diseases.     

Urban estuarine systems under stress: Environmental issues facing Louisiana's Lake pontchartrain

Summary Lake Pontchartrain is part of a brackish coastal estuarine system which serves as an important economic and recreational resource for the New Orleans region. Seafood extraction, shell dredging and leisure time activities are the major uses occurring on Lake Pontchartrain. In the past several decades, man has severely altered this system through urbanization, industrial activity, levée construction and subsequent destruction of wetlands surrounding the lake. There is a growing awareness of the environmental crisis facing Lake Pontchartrain, advanced by recent fish kills, detection of toxic chemicals, curtailment of recreational opportunities and the report of dead zones in the lake. This study summarizes a series of international environmental management techniques and examines the utilization of a regional structure for water resources management in the Lake Pontchartrain Basin.Dr. Fritz Wagner is Director and Professor of the School of Urban and Regional Studies at the University of New Orleans and David Hart was a Research Assistant in the same school, and is now employed in a local engineering and planning company.     

The rise and fall of new knowledge interests in the Dutch environmental movement

Summary Since the late 1960s concern about the pollution of our physical environment has grown into a social and political issue. In this process of increasing awareness, environmental activists have played a catalysing role in most Western countries. Moreover the environmentalists formulated an alternative set of ideas and strategies concerning the production and use of knowledge. These new knowledge interests were organised around three dimensions: cosmology, technology, and the organisation of knowledge production. On the basis of a case-study of Dutch environmentalism this paper tries to demonstrate how the articulation of these new knowledge interests of international scope actually occurred in the particular Dutch national setting. The analysis shows that many of the ideas brought forward in the course of time by Dutch environmentalists have been imported from abroad, especially from the United States, Great Britain and West Germany. However, the specific ways in which Dutch environmentalists have defined the content of their own knowledge interests have depended very much on the particularities of the political culture and socio-economic climate of the Netherlands, as well as the internal dynamics within the various environmental groups themselves.Dr Jacqueline Cramer was until very recently a member of staff in the Department of Science Dynamics at the University of Amsterdam. She has now moved to the TNO Centre for Technology and Policy Studies, P.O. Box 541, 7300 AM, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands. This paper forms part of a comparative study of the development of environmentalism in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands carried out in association with Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison of the University of Lund, Sweden.)     

The readability of federal land management plans

Regulations to implement the National Environmental Policy Act state that environmental impact statements shall be written in plain language. Federal land management agencies operate under this guideline when they prepare plans for their lands. We examined 23 agency plans, using the Flesch Reading Ease Scale, to determine if they met this criterion. The scores show that the plans are written for people with three to six years of college education, far beyond the reading ability of the average person. The results suggest that the plans may limit or bias who participates in agency planning. National policy on the readability of the plans needs to be clarified, and agencies need to evaluate, and defend or revise, their writing programs.     

Economic growth,national income and the blocked choices for the environment

Summary This paper explains why the identification of the increase of national income (or GNP) with economic growth, increase in welfare and economic success is theoretically wrong. This incorrect use of terms strengthens the one-sided orientation of economic policy on the growth of production, often at the expense of the environment. Two examples are given of how this course of affairs is blocking the social choices regarding a fundamental solution of the environmental problem. An overview is given of the possibilities of correcting the Gross National Product (GNP) figures for environmental losses. None of these are perfect, since shadow prices for environmental functions directly comparable with the market prices of goods produced can be construed only in exceptional cases. The conclusion is that the only way to arrive at national income figures corrected for environmental losses is to supplement the corrections for expenditures on preventive, restoratory and compensatory measures (defensive expenditures) with the estimated expenditures on measures required to meet physical standards, based on health and a sustainable economic development.Dr Roefie Hueting is Head of the Department of Environment Statistics at the Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics and a Visiting Fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Society (IIUG). He is a previous contributor toThe Environmentalist (1985, pp.253–262). Dr Christian Leipert is a staff member at IIUG.     

Federalism and environmental politics: An Australian overview

Summary This overview paper examines past Australian conservation controversies and experiences to identify prospective means of ameliorating environmental conflict in the future. Since all community disputes should be resolved by means of political and administrative actions, emphasis is placed on federalism and intergovernmental relations, and measures are suggested which might improve environmental policy and practices in the future.Dr Bruce W. Davis is currently Head of the Department of Political Science, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, and member of the Council of the University of Tasmania. He possesses qualifications and professional experience in engineering, economics and administration. He has numerous publications within the fields of public sector planning and natural resources management, and acts in an advisory and consulting capacity to State and Federal agencies involved in national parks administration, heritage conservation and land-use planning.In addition to University commitments, Dr Davis holds the following appointments: Commissioner, Australian Heritage Commission; Member, Australian National Commission for UNESCO, Man and Biosphere Program; Trustee, World Wildlife Fund Australia; Councillor, Australian Conservation Foundation; and Consultant to IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.     

Educating for our environment: an Australian experience

This paper examines how some of the principles of environmental education have been taken up in environmental strategies and activities in Victoria, Australia. The focus is upon the efforts of the State Government-funded Victorian Environmental Education Council (VEEC) to encourage the development of environmental education in sectors and organizations outside the formal education sector and not usually associated with either the environment or education. The relative success of initiatives fostered in marginalized community sectors and in the private industry sector are discussed. Following the abolition of the VEEC (late 1993) with a change of government, questions are raised about the sustainability of environmental reform agendas in the public political domain. In view of the fragility of sympathetic political environments, it is argued, that for environmentally sustainable development a broader commitment to social justice and social change must be fundamental to environmental education principles and processes to both include all sections of the community and, also, to actually change who makes decisions and how and where they are made.Jeannie Rea lectures in environmental policy and polities at Victoria University of Technology, Victoria, Australia. She was the Trades Hall Council representative on the Victorian Environmental Education Council and worked with others, on a publication chronieling exemplary environmental education projects in Victoria.     

Environmental regulation of exploration and mining operations in Asian countries

This paper offers a new perspective on the environmental laws in Asian nations affecting the exploration, mining, and reclamation activities of the mineral resource industry: the perspective of the senior government officials in those countries, whose job is to enforce these new environmental laws. The article presents the results of a 1998 survey of national environmental officials in Asia conducted by the Colorado School of Mines and the Metal Mining Agency of Japan. Officials in 10 diverse countries—Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Mongolia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam—responded to a detailed questionnaire covering applicable laws, agencies, protected areas, covered mineral activities, financial assurance, environmental impact assessment, public involvement, environmental standards, permit and reclamation requirements.
The survey confirms that Asian nations are part of the global trend towards national government regulatory structures that balance mineral development objectives with environmental considerations. The survey also shows developing regulatory systems (some embryonic, some more mature) utilizing a combination of mining and environmental acts, and often an 'insider' perspective of the national officials administering the laws. While that perspective is not without its biases (not least the rigor of enforcement), it may nevertheless be of use in company planning. The emerging regulatory picture contradicts the conventional notion that it is the 'lower' level of regulation in Asia that is attracting foreign direct investment in mining.