Risk-taking and environmental perception

This paper investigates the relationship between pupils' environmental perception (in terms of preservation and utilisation of nature) and personality (in terms of risk-taking). 713 secondary school pupils in Switzerland were investigated. Environmental perception was assessed via three factors: Preservation, Utilisation of Nature and Consideration for Conservation. Risk-taking was evaluated via six factors: Positive Risking, Ambivalence, Thrill in Gambling, Ineffective Control, Effective Control, and Anger Reaction. Analysis of the correlation matrix between Risk-taking and Environmental perception revealed three profiles (types): the high scorer on Preservation is the controlled and cautious gambler. The Utiliser (anthropocentric) profile is essentially a mirror image of the first: the Utiliser does not enjoy unpredictable risks, reacts with anger when risks fail and has little control over his/her own risk-taking behaviour. The Consideration for Conservation (ecocentric) profile assumes a position between these two profiles.     

Some pitfalls of ‘manstream’ environmental theory and practice

Summary Radical environmentalists consider the environmental crisis to be ultimately one of culture and character. However, in analyses and strategies for social transformation, non-feminist greens have generally accepted the Patriarchal conception of human motivation, which is based on a rational, impersonal (read Masculine) model of Man. Thus, it is implicitly assumed that the motivations underlying the environmental crisis are greed or self-interest (deemed rational motives in Western Patriarchal culture). Owing to this male-centred perspective on human nature, green strategies have ultimately relied on an appeal to reason. This, at least, has failed relative to the accelerating pace of environmental destruction.It is argued that a focus on the abuse of power leads to a more useful analysis of the causes of human oppression and environmental exploitation. The abuse of power can be understood as an attempt to overcompensate for unmet emotional needs (e. f. for love, recognition, and a sense of belonging) through an excessive drive for gratification in other dimensions of life. In Patriarchal thought, emotional needs are largely denied, being non-rational and non-masculine, and hence have also been largely ignored in social policy. This realisation suggests new strategies.Dr Janis Birkeland was an attorney, architect and planner San Francisco, USA, and now teaches at the Department of Architecture, University of Tasmania. A more extensive discussion of these points can be found in Birkeland (1993a).     

Desertification Control and Management of Land Degradation in the Thar Desert of India

India has 2.34 million km² of hot desert called Thar located in the north-western part of Rajasthan between latitudes 23°3 and 30°12 North and longitudes 63°30 and 70°18 East. The Indian desert is spreading annually over 12000 ha of productive land degrading it and slowly advancing towards the national capital New Delhi at the rate of 0.5 km per year. The Indian desert is characterised by huge shifting sand dunes; high wind speed; scarce rainfall; and intense solar radiation. Tremendous efforts have been made since the 1960s to arrest desertification and for ecological restoration of the Thar desert. An Ambitious afforestation programme including stabilisation of shifting sand dunes and creation of micro-climates through tree-screens and shelter-belt plantation was launched by the forest department of Rajasthan. A huge canal, 649 km long was also introduced to the Thar desert for ecological restoration.     

Arsenic levels in the marine ecosystem off the Kuwait coast, Arabian Gulf

Arsenic levels in seawater, microplankton (diatoms and dinoflagellates), shrimp (Penaeus semisulcatus), mollusc (Cerithium scabridum) and five types of fish (Maid, Nakroor, Nuwaiby, Suboor and Sheim) in five sampling stations (I–V) off the Kuwait coast were determined during the years 1995 to 1999. The maximum mean concentration of arsenic was observed in the order; the five fish (0.50–0.78 g g^–1)> mollusc (0.26 g g^–1)> shrimp (0.23 g g^–1)> particulate matter (0.03 g g^–1)> water and phytoplankton (0.02 g g^–1) from all the sites of the Kuwait coast. Station II possessed the maximum arsenic levels. In comparison with the arsenic levels in other parts of the globe, low arsenic levels were observed in most of the marine organisms off the Kuwait Coast. However, an increasing trend in arsenic concentrations was anticipated due to rapid local industrialization and on account of recent spills of arsenic compounds.     

Biosphere reserves in Germany: A contribution to support sustainable development

Summary Biosphere reserves are protected areas of representative environments internationally recognised for their value for conservation and for their ability to provide the scientific knowledge, skills and human values to support sustainable development. Biosphere reserves — as a part of the UNESCO programme Man and the Biosphere (MAB) — make up a world-wide network sharing research information on ecosystem conservation, management and development. They include strictly protected core-areas — representative examples of natural or minimally disturbed ecosystems. Core areas are surrounded by buffer zones in which research, environmental education and training and recreation can take place. Buffer zones are, in turn, surrounded by transition areas, large open areas where the aim is to ensure rational development of the natural resources of the region. At present, twelve biosphere reserves are designated in Germany, covering in all an area of 11,589 km². The role of biosphere reserves to support sustainable development in Germany and Europe is discussed.Karl-Heinz Erdmann is a geographer and Deputy Secretary General at the Secretariat of the German National Committee for the UNESCO Programme on Man and Biosphere (MAB), Federal Agency for Nature Conservation. He is also a Committee Member of the Society for Man and Environment (GMU).     

The challenge of sustainable tourism

The paradigm of sustainable tourism is discussed in terms of analysing what it actually means. Certain questions are raised and these include the means of its measurement, the question of intergenerational impacts and how these may be assessed, the determination of what exactly is meant by environment, the aspect of tourism as an industry and, with specific reference to tourism in the developing world, the potential for neocolonialism. It is argued that, although sustainable tourism may be a worthwhile goal, inherent problems in the definition and measurement of its success make it an elusive if not academic target. The challenge of sustainable tourism is to see it in a broader context as but one tool of development and to ensure that it is examined in the context of the local community as well as a global perspective.     

Towards a new system of environmental governance

Summary Planning, the visible hand of government, is the resource allocation sphere that has the potential to prevent destructive conflict over resources, by creating a long term, rational, ethics-based and participatory decision-making process. Other public decision-making systems (the market, legal and political arenas), by their very nature, cannot adequately protect the environment or ensure sustainable development. However, as presently conceived, Planning⁺ cannot do so either. Reform has been impeded by an ideological bias which defines Planning as diametrically opposed to the market, such that creative alternatives to the two systems of social choice have not been developed.To address this problem, a new tri-partite structure of environmental governance is proposed. Based on an ecofeminist paradigm, it is primarily designed to constrain the potential for the abuse of power, and allow society to address environmental (ethical) as well as social (distributional) and economic (efficiency) issues. In a sense, it rationalises the social decision-making system by re-aligning rights, wants and needs with the appropriate decision-making forum (representative democracy, the market and Planning respectively). The model exposes the need to redesign all these institutions so that they better correspond to their logical functions within the resource allocation system. However, this paper focuses on the Planning system itself.Janis Birkeland was an attorney, architect and planner in San Francisco, USA. She now teaches at the Department of Architecture, University of Tasmania. This article is drawn from a longer 1990 paper Myths and Realities of Planning and Resource Allocation (Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania), which was presented at the Socialist Scholars' Conference, Melbourne, 18th July, 1991.     

Sewage as a resource: a case study of afforestation using sewage irrigation in Jaipur,Rajasthan, India

Summary Human beings use huge quantities of water every day for drinking, cleaning and various cultural functions and dispose of it as wastewater within sewage. With increase in population, the magnitude of this waste is multiplying enormously and beyond the recycling capacity of local ecosystems to become a major health and environmental hazard. Re-use of wastewater for afforestation purposes in the form of sewage silviculture combines the dual benefit of water conservation with environmental sanitation. Such experiments are being carried out at the World Forest Arboretum in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. Biological treatment of the sewage before application, to improve its irrigational quality, to remove harmful chemicals and to prevent the risk of these passing into the human food chain is being undertaken. The aquatic weeds Lemna and Eichhornia are being used to purify the wastewater. The technique is both economically viable and ecologically sustainable.Dr Rajiv K. Sinha is assistant professor in Human Ecology at the University of Rajasthan.     

Interpreting countryside recreation: The urban - rural dichotomy

Summary Noting a paucity of sociological research investigating countryside recreation from an experiential perspective, this paper reports on a study aimed at exploring the meaning of such terms as the countryside, rural and natural as they are understood by the person-in-the-street. A typification of countryside recreation is constructed which suggests that individuals have an essentially simple understanding of the environment in this context which centres upon an urban-rural dichotomy. The urban setting is generally associated with negative experiences while the rural setting is regarded more positively. These attitudes suggest that the countryside represents a form of refuge from many stresses commonly associated with modern, urban lifestyles. An implication of this conclusion is that attempts to educate people into recognizing the links between their everyday behaviour and the degradation of the countryside will be met with considerable resistance since this would entail them in reconstruing their relationship with the environment.     

Economic, social, and environmental sustainability in development theory and urban planning practice

In ten years, more than half the world's population will be living in cities. The United Nations (UN) has stated that this will threaten cities with social conflict, environmental degradation and the collapse of basic services. The economic, social, and environmental planning practices of societies embodying urban sustainability have been proposed as antidotes to these negative urban trends. Urban sustainability is a doctrine with diverse origins. The author believes that the alternative models of cultural development in Curitiba, Brazil, Kerala, India, and Nayarit, Mexico embody the integration and interlinkage of economic, social, and environmental sustainability. Curitiba has become a more livable city by building an efficient intra-urban bus system, expanding urban green space, and meeting the basic needs of the urban poor. Kerala has attained social harmony by emphasizing equitable resource distribution rather than consumption, by restraining reproduction, and by attacking divisions of race, caste, religion, and gender. Nayarit has sought to balance development with the environment by framing a nature-friendly development plan that protects natural systems from urban development and that involves the public in the development process. A detailed examination of these alternative cultural development models reveals a myriad of possible means by which economic, social, and environmental sustainability might be advanced in practice. The author concludes that while these examples from the developing world cannot be directly translated to cities in the developed world, they do indicate in a general sense the imaginative policies that any society must foster if it is to achieve urban sustainability.     

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.     

Ethics and the Genetic Engineering of Food Animals

Biotechnology applied to traditional foodanimals raises ethical issues in three distinctcategories. First are a series of issues that arise inthe transformation of pigs, sheep, cattle and otherdomesticated farm animals for purposes that deviatesubstantially from food production, including forxenotransplantation or production of pharmaceuticals.Ethical analysis of these issues must draw upon theresources of medical ethics; categorizing them asagricultural biotechnologies is misleading. The secondseries of issues relate to animal welfare. Althoughone can stipulate a number of different philosophicalfoundations for the ethical assessment of welfare,most either converge on Bernard Rollins principle ofwelfare conservation (Rollin, 1995), or devolve intodebates over the ethical significance of animaltelos or species integrity. The principle of welfareconservation prohibits disfunctional geneticengineering of food animals, but would permit alteringanimals biological functions, especially when (as inmaking animals less susceptable to pain or suffering)do so improves an individual animals well being.Objections to precisely this last form of geneticengineering stress telos or species integrity asconstraints on modification of animals, and thisrepresents the third class of ethical issues. Most whohave formulated such arguments have failed to developcoherent positions, but the notion of species being,derived from the 19th century German tradition,presents a promising way to analyze the basis forresisting the transformation of animal natures.     

The search for the sustainable city in 20th century urban planning

Summary A new city has emerged in the 1990s, designed to achieve urban sustainability. The notion of sustainable urban form has its roots in the Garden City movement at the turn of the century. The garden cities of the 1900s and the ecological cities of the 1970s were proposed as alternatives to the pathology of modern urban form. Just as cities provide a place for humans to live, so they destroy ecosystems and become unfit habitats for the human spirit. The city must be made more vital, humane, efficient, beautiful, self-sufficient, and natural through a return to a more compact form, its impact on the environment must be decreased. These themes have re-emerged in the sustainable cities of the 1990s, advanced on behalf of future generations and planetary ecology. The sustainable city is a compact city. Calthorpe's Transit-Oriented Developments (1989) are hailed as sustainable because their walkable streets free residents from reliance on automobiles and their high density preserves surrounding wildlife habitat. The European Commission (EC) rests a sustainable future for Europe (1990) on the twin pillars of urban compactness and urban regeneration. Nash (1991) believes that sustainable global urbanization would consist of 1.5 billion humans living in 500 compact cities. He calls his vision Island Civilisation. The sustainable city is also a city of regenerative processes. Girardet (1990; 1992) thinks it has a circular metabolism, as distinguished from the linear metabolism of contemporary cities. McDonough (adviser to President Clinton on sustainable development) theorizes inThe Hannover Principles (1992) that in order to make civilization sustainable, urban form will have to be based on the principles of nature, which makes no waste, maximizes biodiversity and is sustained by the sun. The urban form designed by McDonald (1993), conceptualized with ideas from chaos theory, contemplates a sustainable city within a sustainable watershed and a form holistic, diverse, fractal and evolutionary. Lyle (1994) believes that the sustainable cities of the next century will be based on the green infrastructure of regenerative systems. The commonality linking these landmarks of sustainable urbanization is the ideal of bringing the city into a vital symbiosis with nature. The sustainable city is a green or living city. The search for the sustainable city in the 20th century has not been Utopian buttopian, a quest to create a form of city suited to optimal development of the Earth island.Andrew D. Basiago, an American lawyer and city planner, was a scholar in land economy at Cambridge. He is currently writing a book on solar cities.     

Uncertainties associated with the assessment of vegetation

The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) attempts to portray the current character of a given ecosystem. This provides a Baseline against which future possible changes can be assessed. Ecosystems, however, are dynamic and in a constant state of change. Consequently, data representing a single year reflect conditions only for that year and can be misleading if compared against any other year. In addition to this temporal variation, considerable spacial variation exists in species composition and cover. Ample sampling is required to compensate for this heterogeneity. Variation, or background noise, can be minimized by the use of similarity indexes and sampling over a period of at least two years.     

Attitudes Toward Wilderness Study Areas: A Survey of Six Southeastern Utah Counties

Southeastern Utah is a region of world-renowned red-rock sandstone formations, large tracts of federal public land, rural communities centered on agriculture and extractive industries, and is often at the epicenter of environmental protection efforts in the western United States. Environmental groups have proposed formal Wilderness designations for much of the regions public land—proposals that have been actively fought by rural community leaders who do not want large areas locked-up from traditional livelihood and recreational uses. The debate over wilderness designation in the region has been characterized in the media as one that is particularly contentious and polarizing. A survey of southeastern Utah residents was conducted in order to better understand this conflict. The survey focused on attitudes toward wilderness designation and management. We found that residents of southeastern Utah have negative attitudes towards the designation and management of Wilderness Study Areas. We propose that these attitudes should be carefully considered and engaged in future policy and management decisions. We suggest that negative opinions expressed by residents of southeastern Utah are not directed primarily at the concept of environmental protection but rather at the strong perception that these programs and initiatives have been carried out in a heavy-handed manner and dominated by outside influences that have overwhelmed local voices.     

Vegetarianism,morality, and science revisited

Professor Kathryn George's Use and Abuse Revisited does not contain an accurate assessment of my On Vegetarianism, Morality, and Science: A Counter Reply. I show that she has misrepresented my moral and empirical argumentation.     

Environmental management in the UK: The way ahead for business

Summary Increasingly stringent environmental lesislation and a growing consciousness of environmental issues within the community are spurring companies into adopting environmental improvement programmes. Enhanced environmental management not only ensures compliance with legislation but has other benefits, including reduced energy and waste disposal costs, improved public image, acess to green markets and lower insurance premiums. BS7750 and the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme now offer businesses the opportunity to establish a systematic and accredited environmental management system which will serve as a yardstick of environmental quality.     

Culture,ethics, and the environment — Towards the New Synthesis

Summary This largely philosophical article argues that we need to examine the roots of our cultural worldview if we are to understand the causes of our global crises and current obstacles to desirable change. Calls for a new ethic are likely to be ineffectual in the absence of a challenge to the damaging dichotomy between fact and value that characterises our culture. However, the dominant worldview is under increasingly strong challege from organic systems thinking which has far-reaching implications, and which suggests that Western culture's dominant assumptions are not in accord with reality. If our culture, and individuals in it, are able to become more balanced, decisive desirable change could take place in society. This balance will involve the proper reintegration of ethical dimensions into thinking, based upon the recognition of the importance of the integrity of human communities and natural systems. This constitutes an emergent worldview and coherent philsophical framework to which many groups are already giving expression. It is imperative that this cultural change is understood and supported as it represents genuine hope for the future.After a teaching career in England and Canada, Stephen Sterling joined, as Assistant Director, the United Kingdom Council for Environmental Education (CEE). He was involved in writing the Education Report forThe Conservation and Development Programme for the UK, and has acted in an advisory capacity on a number of national and international documents on environmental education and environmental ethics. He has edited the CEE's journalReview of Environmental Education Developments for six years. The views expressed in this article are his own.     

Environmental knowing and action

Environmental knowing includes the very many bodies of formal theory which have some relevance to the environment, as well as the knowing which comes from experience in the environment. This knowing can be seen as informing action both conceptually and instrumentally. This paper presents a multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach which can inter-relate these many knowings in a way which is relevant to and contingent on definition of particular environmental problems. This problem-focused approach involves application of a set of questions which are implied by a taxonomy of ignorance. The paper shows how the approach can inter-relate knowings as diverse as Taoism and energy-efficiency standards, with the purpose of informating environmental action.     

Nuclear crisis relocation: Issues for a host community-the case of Greenfield,Massachusetts, USA

US civil defense planning for nuclear attack since 1974 has emphasized the doctrine of crisis relocation. Under this doctrine, some 150 million people would evacuate from urban areas and other probable targets to rural host communities. The population of the latter would stay put to assist the relocatees. Local communities would be responsible for the welfare of up to ten times their normal population for an indefinite period of time.This study examined certain implications of crisis relocation for the town of Greenfield, Massachusetts, USA, a typical host community. Various assumptions were articulated regarding the timing of events, the season of year, weather, and social behavior. Assumptions were favorable to the success of crisis relocation. Nevertheless, Greenfield would face impossible burdens in attempting to provide fallout protection, water, food, medical care, and civil order. Additional pressures would arise from adjoining communities which are functionally dependent upon Greenfield for normal goods and services, but which would receive their own allotment of relocatees. Crisis relocation is not taken seriously in Greenfield and virtually no preparations have been made to implement it.