Geoscience Reference
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confi gurations involving state, market, and civil society. While calling for structures
of environmental governance that are democratic, accountable, and sensitive to local
livelihoods, social inequities and ecological limits, O'Riordan acknowledges that
such governance structures also carry inherent political risks: 'Governance generally,
and sustainability governance in particular, may well be replicating the existing
order of economic power, military hegemony and local elitism' (p. 241). As
O'Riordan emphasises, however, we may have little choice but to develop new
modes of sustainability governance, as continued economic growth and human
welfare surely depend on the maintenance of environmental systems and the resources
and ecological services they provide. Linking critical analyses of sustainability and
livelihoods across spatial scales, institutional contexts, and ecological systems, and
bridging the gap between research and policy remain central tasks for geographers
working in the environment and development tradition (Liverman, 2004).
Conclusion
Fundamentally, environment and development geography is focused on (i) the ways
that social groups are dependent upon nature and natural resources for their survival
and welfare; and (ii) the environmental transformations that result from resource
use and economic activity. This dialectical relationship in turn draws attention to
the apparent contradiction between environmental conservation and economic
development, which lies at the heart of environment and development geography.
In this chapter, I have examined this tension in the context of three themes central
to the environment and development tradition in geography: conservation, liveli-
hoods, and sustainability. Geographers have long been concerned with the social
and ecological implications of nature conservation. Such efforts have been integrally
linked to development policies insofar as they represent state efforts not only to
protect wild nature, but also to exert control over resources and population. More-
over, nature conservation has fi gured prominently in international development
programmes in recent decades, and has been a major focus for transnational envi-
ronmental NGOs, bilateral development agencies, and multilateral lending institu-
tions alike. Ecological and social questions are raised, however, by confl icts involving
conservation projects and the livelihood strategies of local populations, and by the
return of some conservation organisations to a 'fortress conservation' model of
protected areas management. More geographical attention is needed on the dynam-
ics of conservation efforts and their potential impacts - both positive and negative
- for rural populations.
Insofar as it focuses attention on the quotidian practices by which individuals,
households, and communities manage resources (both natural and social) necessary
for life, the concept of livelihood has long been a central organising principle for
environment and development geography. This work has highlighted the diversity
in resource use systems and environmental knowledge, as well as the strengths and
limitations of the concept of livelihood itself. Additional theoretical and empirical
work is required in order to expand the livelihood concept to urban areas and scales
beyond the local. To a considerable extent, the tensions between livelihood strate-
gies and nature conservation gave rise in the 1980s to the concept of sustainable
development, understood here as an institutional, discursive and practical attempt
to overcome the contradictions between economic production and environmental
conditions - what O'Connor (1996) calls the second contradiction of capitalism.
