Lecture 1.

Regularities, principles and problems of environmental management,

legal aspects of management of environmental management

What is environmental management?

Environmental management is not easy to define. As Barrow (2005) has acknowledged, it
can refer to a goal or vision, to attempts to steer a process, to the application of a set of tools, to a
philosophical exercise seeking to establish new perspectives towards the environment and human
societies, and to much more besides. Environmental managers are a diverse group of people
including academics, policy-makers, non-governmental organization (NGO) workers, company
employees, civil servants and a wide range of individuals or groups who make decisions about
the use of natural resources (such as fishers, farmers and pastoralists). Indeed, environmental
management involves all people to some extent because all human activities ultimately have
some sort of environmental impact. However, some individuals are more directly involved with
resource use, and some special interest groups are particularly concerned with resource
exploitation and with issues related to pollution. Environmental management therefore involves
many stakeholders and requires a multidisciplinary perspective. It involves many spatial scales,
ranging from the local to the global. It also involves many, diverse goals, including the desires to
control the direction and pace of development, to optimise resource use, to minimize
environmental degradation and to avoid environmental disaster. Environmental management
may be practised by individuals and groups holding conflicting - and even directly opposing -
views, as may be the case when environmental managers employed by large multinational
corporations come into conflict with environmental managers representing voluntary
organisations.
Environmental resource management is the management of the interaction and impact of
human societies on the environment. It is not, as the phrase might suggest, the management of
the environment itself. Environmental resources management aims to ensure that ecosystem
services are protected and maintained for future human generations, and also
maintain ecosystem integrity through considering ethical, economic, and scientific (ecological)
variables. Environmental resource management tries to identify factors affected by conflicts that
rise between meeting needs and protecting resources. It is thus linked to environmental
protection, sustainability and integrated landscape management.
A focus on decision-making. In general, however, environmental management is
concerned with the understanding of the structure and function of the earth system, as well as of
the ways in which humans relate to their environment. Environmental management is therefore
concerned with the description and monitoring of environmental changes, with predicting future
changes and with attempts to maximise human benefit and to minimise environmental
degradation due to human activities. Yet, characteristically, environmental management is about
decision-making - and it is especially concerned with the process of decision-making in relation
to the use of natural resources, the pollution of habitats and the modification of ecosystems.
Fundamentally, then, environmental management is a political activity because those decisions -
about resources, pollution and ecosystems - are never neutral or objective; on the contrary, they
are value laden and they reflect the exercise of power by particular groups over others.
Moreover, in general, it is naïve to conceive of environmental management as being about
simply 'the management of the environment' in the sense of humans manipulating and
controlling the components and processes of the earth system. Of course, humans do exert such
influences on the earth system; but it is a fallacy to think that humans 'manage', for instance,
populations of humpback whales. Instead, it is more accurate to suggest that humans may be able
to make some progress towards managing human impacts on humpback whales. Ultimately,
then, environmental management is more concerned with the management of human activities
and their impacts than with the management of the natural environment per se.
Influencing the course of development. Nevertheless, some types of activity are
common to environmental managers. Environmental managers attempt deliberately to steer the
process of development in order to take advantage of opportunities; they attempt to ensure that
critical environmental limits are not exceeded; they work to reduce and mitigate environmental
issues; and they are concerned with increasing the adaptability and resilience of human societies
in the face of environmental change, variability, unpredictability and hazards. From this point of
view, environmental management may be defined as the system that anticipates and avoids, or
solves, environmental and resource conservation issues. From another point of view,
environmental management may be defined as a process concerned with human-environment
interactions which seeks to identify:
-whatare environmentally desirable out comes;
-what are the physical, economic, social, cultural, political and technological constraints
to achieving those outcomes;
-what are the most feasible options for achieving those outcomes.
Indeed, in many parts of the world (and arguably worldwide), environmental
management is intimately linked with pressing issues of justice and even of survival. A further
definition might suggest that environmental management is concerned with meeting and
improving provision for human needs and demands on a sustainable basis with minimal damage
to natural habitats and ecosystems. Thus the concept of environmental management is closely
related to another important (and problematic) concept: that of sustainable development.
Useful Environmental Law Terms
Abatement: The process of reducing the quantity, intensity, or saturation of a pollutant or
other harmful substance by way of treatment.
Acidification: Reducing the pH rating of a substance making it more acidic in nature, for
example, increased carbon emissions lead to the oceans absorbing more of it, increasing
acidification and damaging ecology such as coral bleaching.
Active ingredient: Also used in medicine, the “active ingredient” in
a chemical compound is the one that has the intended effect. In medicinal use, it's the substance
that attacks the bacteria/virus/tumor. In pesticide use, it's the substance that kills or repels pests.
Air emissions: Any gas emitted into the atmosphere from industrial or commercial
activity. Typically used in conjunction with “greenhouse gas” but some emissions are not GHGs.
Biodegradable: Used to describe substances and the ability of microorganisms (bacteria,
algae) to break it down.
Biodiversity: The range of species in an ecology, examining population numbers of each
species, number of species, the balance between predator and prey, and the food chain.
Biomass: The sum total of vegetation in a given ecological area.
Brownfields site: Land that has been developed in the past but is now underused or
disused (3). In some cases, they are risky due to potential contamination that may require
investigation and treatment before construction or to simply protect the local environment.
Catalyst: A chemical compound that alters another to render it inert, less harmful, or less
intense without removing some of its parts - usually adding to it.
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs): A group of inert chemical used in many industrial and
everyday processes such as our refrigerators that are not broken down at lower atmospheric
levels and rise to the upper levels, destroying ozone.
Climate change: The process by which the climate changes due to “forcings”. These can
be natural events or, as is the case at present, the result of industrial age actions in increasing
greenhouse gases and reducing carbon sinks.
Commercial Waste: Any waste material produced as a byproduct of commercial or
industrial activity.
Conservation: The preservation or restoration of a natural environment for the social,
ecological, or even economical benefit. For example, a program of river conservation will
increase biodiversity while making the surrounding environment and people who live there
healthier.
 Decontamination: The removal of toxic or other harmful substances from an
environment. The substance may be harmful to wildlife, people, biodiversity or the overall
ecology.
Drainage: The process of removing excess moisture from land - typically wetlands or
saturated agricultural land.
Dredging: The removal of silt, mud, or other sold material from the bed of a body of
water. Too much of this material can cause flooding.
Emission: Any pollutant discharged into the atmosphere that will contribute to overall
chemical change as it will not be broken down or otherwise removed.
Endangered species: Any species whose numbers and diversity is so low that they are at
danger of becoming extinct.

Question of lecture 1 for students

1. What is environmental management?

2. Regularities of environmental management
3. Principles and problems of environmental management
4. Environmental resource management
5. Minimal damage to natural habitats and ecosystems