Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
that national governments are the most guilty because of policies for
development of remote regions without any care for conservation. Geopolitics is
seen as a major interest in Brazil and all the Amazonian countries, in their
programmes for deforestation and settlement of the rainforest.
There is a contrasting argument that states that capitalism and external,
colonial or neocolonial powers are the main culprits (Redclift 1987, Gligo 1993).
Because outsiders (the colonizers of empire in the past, or the multinational
corporations of today) are not interested in conservation but exploitation, they
destroy nature. They also have broken down traditional societies which had a
good understanding of the environment. People have been replaced by machines,
land which was communally owned has been expropriated by new landowners,
and the most experienced people have migrated to the cities. This has left rural
people with only remnants of indigenous knowledge, and often with insufficient
land resources to be able to conserve them, instead being forced to exploit their
own soil to the maximum.
Both these arguments are reasonable and worth discussing in the LDCS. They
also imply different kinds of solution. If national governments are to blame, the
political solution is through the advent of democracy with a strong voice for
those interested in maintaining the environment. If external forces are to blame,
governments might seek to close themselves off from the exterior, or at least to
control more closely the actions of foreign firms. Decentralization and the
implementation of local and regional plans are also supported by the realization
of special environmental problems. One of the most widely accepted conclusions
of the Development from Below ideas was that people local to any one region
are those most concerned with their environment, and are more aware of any
deleterious effects of current management.
Positive and normative approaches
There has commonly been no clear division between development accounts that
state what has been happening in the real world and what should happen: what
the jargon of economics distinguishes as 'positive' versus 'normative' approaches.
For example, while a writer such as François Perroux wrote on growth poles as a
matter of positive economics, later interpretations of his work were
largely normative, in terms of policy. Because of this mixture, it is impossible to
treat the subject now in a broad review without referring to both sides. However,
an effort will be made in subsequent pages to separate clearly between normative
and positive aspects.
Normative aspects come to the fore when we consider regional planning and
policies. Plans for regions and for nations take a view of what is desirable and
how society should achieve the desirable goal. Just as there are disagreements as
to the nature of the development process, there are a variety of stated goals and
policies which might achieve these goals.
