Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
protecting and developing the livelihoods of those people who depend on
it. By focusing on approaches to environmental management in semi-arid
Tanzania, this chapter has illustrated how environmental policy discourses
are dei ned by the ecological and social paradigms that underpin them.
These dif erent social and ecological paradigms have fundamental
implications in terms of resulting management approaches. In semi-arid
Tanzania, and East Africa more generally, there could not be a greater
dif erence between policy responses than between the traditional 'people
versus environment' policy discourse, which implies a need for de-stocking
and the exclusion of people from the land, and the 'people and environ-
ment' policy discourse that implies a need to engage indigenous knowledge
through community participation in environmental management.
In the past there has been a tendency for environmental managers to
focus solely on ecological theories or paradigms when formulating policy
approaches. This chapter has highlighted the fact that these ecological
paradigms are often accompanied by underlying social paradigms. If
environmental management is to be successful in achieving sustainable
development, including poverty reduction, it is therefore essential that
environmental managers are properly aware of the ecological and social
paradigms that dei ne their thinking and that underpin the policy dis-
courses and accompanying management responses that they support.
In the absence of such rel exive, critical self-awareness, environmental
managers are exposed to the danger of making decisions based on hidden
assumptions that may or may not rel ect the myriad of subjective ecologi-
cal and social realities that shape the ecosystem dynamics that they seek
to manage (Ockwell, 2008; Ockwell and Rydin, Chapter 6, this volume).
Such unrel exive decision-making is unlikely to be able to rise to the chal-
lenge of achieving development that ensures a sustainable future for both
the environment and the people whose livelihoods depend on it.
Note
1.
Maji is Kiswahili for water. During the conl ict water was distributed that was believed
to protect the drinkers from German weapons. Unfortunately, the water did not work
and many lost their lives as a result.
References
Anand, P. (2003), 'Economic analysis and environmental responses', in A. Blowers and
S. Hinchlif e (eds),
Environmental Responses
, Milton Keynes: Open University and
Chichester: John Wiley and Sons Ltd.
Anderson, D. and R. Grove (1987), 'The scramble for Eden: Past, present and future in
African conservation', in D. Anderson and R. Grove (eds),
Conservation in Africa: People,
Policies and Practice
, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-12.
Armitage, D.R. (1996), 'Environmental management and policy in a dryland ecozone: The
Eyasi-Yaeda basin, Tanzania',
Ambio
,
25
(6), 396-402.
