DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

Development Studies

Development Studies

First Section:

'Environment Development' Long Critical Response

Introduction

The environment development is an attempt to integrate economic development policy-making and environmental considerations. It encompasses an acknowledgment that millions of people worldwide still live in poverty; that there is continued unequal access to the resources needed for a decent livelihood; and that there is a need for economic growth and that many human activities, including the quest for survival, put a strain on the environment. Since the early 1970s, environment development has gradually gained momentum as an organizing concept for debates and policies on economic development and environmental conservation. It has found its way into the language of international bodies, and agreements addressing environment development, policies, and legislation of many countries, subfield or related individual courses of study in academic institutions, and academic journal titles or focus areas, as well as becoming a convenient way to link disparate groups in the development-environment nexus (Cornwall, 2007).

Like many other concepts within the development discourse (e.g., development, sustainability, participation), the environment development concept is both loaded and slippery, allowing for multiple interpretations among its users. Perhaps owing in part to the ambivalent implications of the root words that make it up, the concept of environment development conveys both optimism and a warning. It is optimistic in the sense that it conveys an idea that there can be positive links between economic growth and environmental conservation as long as enabling policies are in place. The concept also carries a warning that the natural resource base is not infinite and that if misguided policies are pursued, economic growth through industrialization and overexploitation or misuse of natural resources could lead to environmental disasters that can negatively interfere with life as we know it today. This section critically discuss the concept of sustainable development, environment development also has been viewed as an oxymoron in that there is an implicit goal of economic growth, but it is to be achieved while remaining within given ecological parameters (Scoones, 2007).

Discussion

Institutional Origins of Environment Development

Unlike some of the most popular development discourse buzzwords, such as the development, community, gender, and participation, environment development has a fairly clear institutional genealogy. This is in the form of commissions, reports, international seminars, conferences, and agreements over the past four decades. (Scoones, 2007) The United Nations (UN) and the World Bank can be singled out as the two institutions that have influenced global thinking about this concept through their sponsorship of activities where it has received significant attention. Some of these key institutional foundations of environment development are discussed below.

UN Conference on the Human Environment

The UN Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm in June 1972, can be considered like having laid the foundation for the linkages between environment development debates and policies on an international stage. First proposed by Sweden, which was concerned about acid rain and industrial pollution, the Stockholm conference's main focus was to forge international cooperation for and on the environment. It is in fact, considered as the occasion ...