Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
s report on environmental planning.
15
The
second explores more generally how spatial planning might contribute
to the realisation of sustainable development, and thereby of improved
environmental protection, by providing fora in which different sectors
can visualise the impacts of their activities and coordinate them with a
view to identifying patterns of development that balance economic,
social and environmental concerns.
16
My proposals share some common ground with arguments made in
the relevant literatures concerning how planning
Environmental Pollution
'
s role in environmen-
tal protection might be strengthened, and with the visions of environ-
mental and spatial planning systems advanced in them. They also depart
from them in two important respects. First, some commentators on
environmentalplanninghavecalledforthepositiveidenti
'
cation of
environmental limits as an essential
rst step if economic growth is to be
kept within sustainable bounds.
17
It is argued that discovering where
critical capacities to accommodate development arise in nature or
establishing stocks of habitats and levels of biodiversity that must be
preserved to maintain ecological functionality would provide objective
justi
cation for resisting demands for resources and arguments founded
on economic or social need. The in
uence of this focus on identifying
what is environmentally important remains apparent in academic
15
The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution,
.
16
Literature on spatial planning that I refer to in this chapter includes: Haughton and
Counsell,
'
Environmental Planning
'
'
Regions, Spatial Strategies
'
;Haughtonetal.,
'
The New Spatial Planning
'
;
V. Nadin,
'
The Emergence of the Spatial Planning Approach in England
'
(2007) 22
Planning, Practice and Research,43
-
62; Tewdwr-Jones, Gallent and Morphet,
'
An
.
17
The efcacy of this approach for constraining economic growth is analysed
(although not necessarily supported) in the following: S. Owens,
Anatomy of Spatial Planning
'
Land, Limits and
Sustainability: A Conceptual Framework and some Dilemmas for the Planning
System
'
'
(1994) 19 Transactions of
the Institute of British Geographers, 445
-
7;
R. Cowell and S. Owens,
in A. Blowers and
B. Evans (eds) Town Planning into the 21st Century (London: Routledge, 1997),
pp. 16
'
Sustainability: The New Challenge
'
Stretching the Limits: Environmental Compensation, Habitat
Creation and Sustainable Development
-
21; R. Cowell,
'
'
(1997) 22 Transactions of the Institute of
British Geographers, 297; Y. Rydin,
Land Use Planning and Environmental
Capacity: Reassessing the use of Regulatory Policy Tools to Achieve Sustainable
Development
'
'
(1998) 41 Journal of Environmental Planning and Management,
749
-
51; Owens and Cowell,
'
Land and Limits
'
, 1st edn, pp. 30
-
3; Haughton and
Counsell,
'
Regions, Spatial Strategies
'
, pp. 80
-
1; A. C. Flournoy,
'
Protecting a Natural
Resource Legacy While Promoting Resilience: Can It Be Done?
'
(2009) 87 Nebraska
Law Review, 1008; Ross,
'
Modern Interpretations
'
,45
-
7.
