A moving target: planning Britain's inner cities

The authors look at Britain's post‐war response to the challenge of the Inner Cities and attempts to account for this response's more obvious failings. The paper considers the challenge facing the planners and considers the nature of their response, concluding that the future of planning as a weapon in the armoury of public policy is assured.     

The environment and global security

The end of the Cold War heralded a vision of a New World Order; a new era of global security and co-operation. There was a belief that the system of collective security established in San Francisco in 1945 (at the founding of the United Nations) was finally beginning to work as conceived. As the strategic justification for a nuclear combat seemed to have evaporated, the new expectation was that international relations should now be conducted in the interest of global security.However, unfolding developments indicate that the end of the Cold War may not necessarily ensure global security. As the old order and the threat of a global nuclear holocaust collapsed, a new order has emerged with new perils, principal among these are the destruction and degradation of the environment. Since the 1970s, ecological movements and scientists have become increasingly aware that mankind is approaching limits to the burdens which it can load upon nature's capacity. This realisation led to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which took place in Stockholm in June 1972, as the first major international effort to address the threat.The Earth's Summit of June 1992, and the resultant Rio Declaration emerged as the strongest attempts yet by the international community to address the issue of global environmental protection and safety, by demanding a spirit of global partnership in conserving, protecting, and restoring the health and integrity of the Earth's ecosystem. This was in realisation of the fact that the Earth is galloping towards a crisis of uncontrollable dimension, and therefore, needs to change course.     

The country parks programme and countryside conservation in Hong Kong

Summary Urban and agricultural developments in Hong Kong are intensive and spatially concentrated in a quarter of the land, leaving a sizeable area of hilly countryside with unrestricted access, relatively empty and unspoilt. Care for this common heritage, in the past, focused on afforestation of the denuded hillslopes especially in reservoir catchments. The remaining parts, covered by grasses and shrubs, hardly received attention. The rapid population growth, urban encroachment and unplanned recreational use, threatened to engulf and ruin the countryside from the 1960s. A country parks programme was initiated belatedly in 1972, and was rapidly accomplished, so that in 1979 40 percent of the land was designated. The parks are broadly divided into high-intensity recreation, low-intensity recreation, and conservation zones. The programme has been successful in encouraging informal outdoor recreation, but has also engendered environmental problems which contradict the principal conservation goal. The overuse of sites and footpaths causes soil and vegetation damage. Hill fires, ignited by, and widely dispersed litter, left by, irresponsible and careless visitors, are additional forces of degradation. Long-term management should aim at containing these problems and plan for the anticipated changing recreational demands in the future.Dr C. Y. Jim is a lecturer in biogeography and soil science at the Department of Geography and Geology, University of Hong Kong.     

The case for an integrated programme for commodities

This article argues that much of the economic criticism of the Integrated Programme for Commodities has been based on outdated and simplistic models and that fears of ‘dirigisme’ and price raising derive from a misunderstanding of the fundamental focus of the IPC on price stabilization. Moreover, the proposed IPC would, it is argued, generate benefits significantly in exces of its costs, which themselves have often been exaggerated. The article concludes by arguing that compensatory finance should be viewed as complementary to, not competitive with, the IPC.     

The state of environment and business

“There are several Microsofts waiting to come forth in the clean energy business, and we'll all wish we'd have invested in them in the late 1990s when they were still tiny.” — John Palmisano, Enron Corporation ©2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Development aid: The moral obligation to innovation

The prominent, though not exclusive, role of basic needs strategies to attain ethically acceptable development goals raises the question of the ability of development agencies to find and employ basic needs strategies. The obligation to prevent severe human suffering leads to the obligation to employ basic needs strategies to attain basic needs goals. The history of failure by development agencies in finding and employing basic needs tools leads to a further obligation to cultivate bureaucratic environments which foster profound innovation. This requires not only new tools but also new bureaucratic behaviour. An understandable obstacle to simultaneously technological and bureaucratic innovation lies in the tension between responsible behaviour and behaviour promoting fundamental change. Since this tension is based on the unpredictability of creative change, a series of axioms and corollaries which reduce the unpredictability is given. They include: (1) an obligation to seek innovation; (2) a clear statement of basic needs goals and intent to use some basic needs tools; (3) increase in effective knowledge of the poor and their survival strategies; (4) bureaucratic learning flexibility; (5) participatory development and allied emphasis on sustainable resource technologies. The embodiment of these in the learning process approach is illustrated.     

The mining industry and the natural environment

Environmental considerations have become central to future developments in the Australian mineral industry and have affected the level of federal involvement in the industry. The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is now an important stage in the assessment of proposed mining projects. This paper examines two major federally sponsored inquiries into Australian mining projects — Fraser Island sand-mining and the Ranger uranium project — and then discusses subsequent events and future prospects.     

生态环境形势与对策

本文系作者在全国环保局长学习班讲话提纲,重点阐述我国目前面临的生态环境形势,提出科学的生态保护观点和重大生态问题对策建议,并布置今后的重点工作。     

International commodity policy: The integrated programme for commodities and the common fund

The author reviews the issues and problems which have arisen since May 1976, following the fourth meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). He concludes that prospects for agreement between the developing countries in the Group of 77 and the industrialized West are slight unless there is substantial modification of position by either side.     

The built environment — The case against conservation

Summary In considering the total range of the built environment in the U.K. a case against present attitudes to conservation is presented. Particular reference is made to urban structures. Comparisons are drawn with past conditions and the natural environment. Future dangers of such a policy are detailed.Architect and planner with considerable experience in UK and USA.     

The integrated programme for commodities: An assessment of negotiations on minerals and metals

No agreement has yet emerged from the negotiations on mineral commodities held under the Integrated Programme for Commodities (IPC), and there is little, if any, prospect for one in the near future. This article examines the reasons for this standstill and the underlying assumptions on which the IPC is based. The following points are raised: the premise that problems of individual commodities are mutually exclusive and can be dealt with in a single framework of measures is shown to be doubtful; the principle of a commodity-by-commodity approach can no longer remain unchallenged; and structural flaws in the negotiating machinery are manifest. However, results of negotiations have not been entirely negative: the need for two-tier preparatory negotiations has been accepted and a case for a permanent consultative body, perhaps covering several commodities, has been made out. Lack of substantive reciprocity, hence political discord, remains the stumbling-block.     

The right to a healthy environment

Summary The right to have clean water, pure air and wholesome food is as fundamental as the proclamations of The World Charter on Human Rights and The World Charter for Nature. Governments have an obligation to invest in the health and quality of life instead of giving subsidies to polluters. Environmental justice is a level of civilization that we will attain through respect for life and through public information.Mr Yvon Dubé is a forest engineer by training and Assistant Director General, Department of Recreation, Fish and Game, for the Province of Quebec, Canada. He is a member of the Canadian, UNESCO Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme Committee. The paper was first presented as a plenary session address to the 1985 Annual Conference of the North American Association for Environmental Education, at Chevy Chase, Maryland, Washington, DC, USA (27 September to 2 October, 1985). The paper has been translated from the original French.     

The Nepalese environment: Problems,policies and prospects

Summary The paper outlines environmental problems which are being encountered as a result of attempts to produce economic development in Nepal. Immediate actions are proposed which the author believes are required to counter further environmental degradation.Mr R. P. Chaudhary's current temporary address is c/o Komarov Botanical Institute, Popov-2. Leningrad, 197022, USSR.     

人居环境与生态理念

绿化建设是利用生态的想法(Ecological thinking)来创造人们的生活及工作空间。这样创造出来的健康而舒适的空间,不但不增加投资,实际上更能节能及减少运行费用,并改善空间用户的生产效率。所以在人居环境中引入"生态理念"是势在必行的。生态住宅生态设计是人居环境建设的关键。生态设计意识与住宅生态学已成为各国房产业、建筑业广泛关注的重点。