Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Northern environmentalists focus on “green” issues such as biodiversity
and land conservation, at the expense of “brown” issues such as water
pollution and land degradation (Guha and Martinez-Alier 1997; Taylor
et al. 1993). The brown issues are akin to environmental justice concerns,
because they are focused on protecting local residents' health and liveli-
hoods. Guha (1999) argues that “while Northern greens have been
deeply attentive to the rights of victimized or endangered animal and
plant species, Southern greens have generally been more alert to the
rights of the less fortunate members of their own species.”
Anthropologists and environmental sociologists have shown how dif-
ferent conceptions of “environment” have generated these confl icts
between groups in the global North and the global South.
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Some have
suggested that environmentalists (conservationists in particular) from
the global North are “ecoimperialists,” who have ignored the needs of
indigenous people in favor of protecting the environment (Guha and
Martinez-Alier 1997). Power relations play out in the construction of
what is and is not an environmental problem and consequently whether
or not it is addressed. For instance, are “global” problems such as ozone
depletion more pressing than “local” problems such as water contamina-
tion? Donors have the capacity to impose their interpretations and inter-
ests through the distribution of aid.
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At Rio in 1992, the buzz was around the concept of “sustainable
development”—integrating environmental concerns with social and
economic justice. Despite the conceptual attention given to social and
economic concerns, at UNCED, agreements focused on protecting forests
and biodiversity in the global South with little attention to justice.
Leaders from the global South considered that focus hypocritical since
the nations of the global North had already depleted those environmental
resources in the name of their own economic development. At the UN's
2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, new topics emerged:
clean water and sanitation, sustainable energy, sustainable agriculture,
health, and still, biodiversity. In ten years, it appeared that the South's
agenda had made it to the UN. Headlines from the conference reported
on calls for increased environmental aid for the environment. The con-
ventional wisdom was and is that transnational cooperation and aid are
critical to improving the environment. Case studies bear this out (Keck
and Sikkink 1998; Lewis 2000; Rothman and Oliver 1999; Wapner
1996). However, which aspects of the environment are prioritized?
Funding for environmental projects, an environmental “good,” has
been unevenly distributed beyond borders. It is distributed unevenly
