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Sustainability and environmental policy: Restraints and advances
Book Reviews/Ecological Economics 10 (1994) 83-88
Management
of protected
areas
Scitnce and the Management of Protected Areas. J.H.M. Willison, S. Bondrup-Nielsen, C.D. Dtysdale, T.B. Herman, N.W.P. Munro and T.L. Pollock (Editors). Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1992, 568 pp., ISBN 0-44489163-3, Dfl.345.00. This book is the edited proceedings of an international conference held in Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1991 organised by the Science and Protected Areas Association and contains over 77 contributions. The main focus of the book is on the role which science should play in the management of protected areas and the way in which scientists can interact more effectively with non-scientists, including land managers, who have an influence on such management. The contributions are organised into chapters or parts entitled (1) holistic perspectives, (2) management strategies in terrestrial and marine environments, (31 land-use planning and the selection and design of reserves, (4) putting protected area policy into action and the role of partnerships, (5) management of fauna and flora, (6) protected areas and global change research, water chemistry and data management and (7) managing tourism and other human impacts in protected areas. The dominant view adopted in relation to science at the conference appears to have been that it is natural science. Consequently, the majority of the contributions to this book have natural science as their focus, even though a major theme of the book is the interaction between the natural world and human societies and the implications of this for the management of protected areas.
Sustainability
and Environmental
Policy
Sustainability and Environmental Policy: Restraints and Advances. Frank J. Dietz, Udo E. Simonis and Jan van der Straaten (Editors). Edition Sigma, Berlin, 1992. 296 pp., ISBN 3 89404 343 1. This book contains 15 essays involving 14 authors. All deal with some aspect of the sustainable development problem, or at least with the environmental impact of economic activity. Virtually all focus on policy issues. Consistent with this, the approach is dominantly
87
There are a number of contributions which would interest social scientists. These include Dahuri’s analysis of conflicts between the presentation of Kutai National Park, East Kalimantan, Indonesia and regional economic development; the contribution of Schelhas on socio-economic and biological analysis for buffer zone establishment; the article by Payne, Rollins, Tamm and Nelson on the management of social impacts of parks and protected areas in Northern Canada and several of the contributions dealing with management of tourism in protected areas. Overall, however, there is a lack of emphasis on economics in the management of protected areas. Greater consideration of economic factors would have been a bonus. This shortcoming is particularly apparent in a contribution entitled, ‘A Park Selection Model: A Tool for Selecting New National Parks’. It is unrealistic to divorce the selection of national parks and the management of protected areas from economics or social science concerns, and a stronger partnership between natural and social sciences needs to be forged for this purpose. This book makes this clear but does not adequately forge the necessary links. Nevertheless, it will be a useful reference for all those with a special interest in the conservation and management of national areas and biota. Clem Tisdell Department of Economics The University of Queensland Brisbane, Qld, 4072 Australia
SSDI 0921-8009(93)E0092-U
economic. Only two of the essays are written by noneconomists. While the material is reasonably well organised, there is, inevitably, some repetition and duplication. There is no basic line of argument for a reviewer to either endorse or criticise. Most of the papers take sustainable development, or sustainability, as a given policy objective, rather than making a case for it. This is understandable. Less so is the absence of any systematic discussion of whether it is an operational goal for policy. Since space does not permit a review, or even an indication of the contents, of each chapter, I shall
88
Book Reoiews/ EcologicalEconomics 10 (1994) 83-88
consider five which seem to me to be linked, and which I found the most interesting. Four are linked by a concern with the actual processes by which environmental policy is developed. The short essay by Everett explicitly uses public choice theory. It reviews his predictions made for the US in 1972, and judges that they were falsified by the relative ineffectiveness of the backlash against environmental controls. The model is then revised to give greater emphasis to public information flows, and new predictions derived. Everett sees the 1990s as a period of further reductions in targeted pollutants, but does not see this as necessarily implying sustainable development, by virtue of what does, and does not, get targeted. There are three essays dealing with the policy process in the Netherlands. Dietz and van der Straaten look at sulphur emissions control, and the role of vested industrial interests in blocking the use of price incentive instruments. Kasperkovitz looks at the role of interest groups in delaying effective control of pesticide use in agriculture. In both of these essays it is judged that environmental interest groups lost out to industrial and agricultural interests. Everett’s judgement had environmental groups as successful in the US. Why the experiences in the two countries appear different is a question worthy of investigation. The essay by Dietz on nutrient control and Dutch agriculture is a good case study which separates out the influences bearing upon the setting of target standards, and upon the choice of instrument. Opschoor and van der Straaten’s essay is a plea, at a somewhat abstract level, for the use of an institutional economics approach to sustainable development.
This essay might have benefited from being longer. It contains a number of interesting ideas, but it is not really made clear, to this reviewer anyway, what distinctive policy implications would follow if such an approach were adopted. One implication might be that reform of the policy determination process is more important than the current model according to which the proper thing for economists to do is to set targets consistent with allocative efficiency (if possible) and prescribe instruments. While some of the book’s messages will be familiar to many readers of this journal, overall the book is a useful contribution to the literature on sustainable development. It is indexed, well referenced, and generally well produced. One blemish in the last regard is that something went wrong at binding, so that to finish reading the first of the essays by Simonis one has to turn back one hundred pages.
Mick Common Centre for Resource and Encironmental Studies Australian National University PO Box 4 Canberra, ACT 2601 Australia and Department of Enuironmental Economics and Environmental Management University of York Heslington York YOl SDD, UK SSDI 0921-8009(93)E0088-X
Management
of protected
areas
Scitnce and the Management of Protected Areas. J.H.M. Willison, S. Bondrup-Nielsen, C.D. Dtysdale, T.B. Herman, N.W.P. Munro and T.L. Pollock (Editors). Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1992, 568 pp., ISBN 0-44489163-3, Dfl.345.00. This book is the edited proceedings of an international conference held in Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1991 organised by the Science and Protected Areas Association and contains over 77 contributions. The main focus of the book is on the role which science should play in the management of protected areas and the way in which scientists can interact more effectively with non-scientists, including land managers, who have an influence on such management. The contributions are organised into chapters or parts entitled (1) holistic perspectives, (2) management strategies in terrestrial and marine environments, (31 land-use planning and the selection and design of reserves, (4) putting protected area policy into action and the role of partnerships, (5) management of fauna and flora, (6) protected areas and global change research, water chemistry and data management and (7) managing tourism and other human impacts in protected areas. The dominant view adopted in relation to science at the conference appears to have been that it is natural science. Consequently, the majority of the contributions to this book have natural science as their focus, even though a major theme of the book is the interaction between the natural world and human societies and the implications of this for the management of protected areas.
Sustainability
and Environmental
Policy
Sustainability and Environmental Policy: Restraints and Advances. Frank J. Dietz, Udo E. Simonis and Jan van der Straaten (Editors). Edition Sigma, Berlin, 1992. 296 pp., ISBN 3 89404 343 1. This book contains 15 essays involving 14 authors. All deal with some aspect of the sustainable development problem, or at least with the environmental impact of economic activity. Virtually all focus on policy issues. Consistent with this, the approach is dominantly
87
There are a number of contributions which would interest social scientists. These include Dahuri’s analysis of conflicts between the presentation of Kutai National Park, East Kalimantan, Indonesia and regional economic development; the contribution of Schelhas on socio-economic and biological analysis for buffer zone establishment; the article by Payne, Rollins, Tamm and Nelson on the management of social impacts of parks and protected areas in Northern Canada and several of the contributions dealing with management of tourism in protected areas. Overall, however, there is a lack of emphasis on economics in the management of protected areas. Greater consideration of economic factors would have been a bonus. This shortcoming is particularly apparent in a contribution entitled, ‘A Park Selection Model: A Tool for Selecting New National Parks’. It is unrealistic to divorce the selection of national parks and the management of protected areas from economics or social science concerns, and a stronger partnership between natural and social sciences needs to be forged for this purpose. This book makes this clear but does not adequately forge the necessary links. Nevertheless, it will be a useful reference for all those with a special interest in the conservation and management of national areas and biota. Clem Tisdell Department of Economics The University of Queensland Brisbane, Qld, 4072 Australia
SSDI 0921-8009(93)E0092-U
economic. Only two of the essays are written by noneconomists. While the material is reasonably well organised, there is, inevitably, some repetition and duplication. There is no basic line of argument for a reviewer to either endorse or criticise. Most of the papers take sustainable development, or sustainability, as a given policy objective, rather than making a case for it. This is understandable. Less so is the absence of any systematic discussion of whether it is an operational goal for policy. Since space does not permit a review, or even an indication of the contents, of each chapter, I shall
88
Book Reoiews/ EcologicalEconomics 10 (1994) 83-88
consider five which seem to me to be linked, and which I found the most interesting. Four are linked by a concern with the actual processes by which environmental policy is developed. The short essay by Everett explicitly uses public choice theory. It reviews his predictions made for the US in 1972, and judges that they were falsified by the relative ineffectiveness of the backlash against environmental controls. The model is then revised to give greater emphasis to public information flows, and new predictions derived. Everett sees the 1990s as a period of further reductions in targeted pollutants, but does not see this as necessarily implying sustainable development, by virtue of what does, and does not, get targeted. There are three essays dealing with the policy process in the Netherlands. Dietz and van der Straaten look at sulphur emissions control, and the role of vested industrial interests in blocking the use of price incentive instruments. Kasperkovitz looks at the role of interest groups in delaying effective control of pesticide use in agriculture. In both of these essays it is judged that environmental interest groups lost out to industrial and agricultural interests. Everett’s judgement had environmental groups as successful in the US. Why the experiences in the two countries appear different is a question worthy of investigation. The essay by Dietz on nutrient control and Dutch agriculture is a good case study which separates out the influences bearing upon the setting of target standards, and upon the choice of instrument. Opschoor and van der Straaten’s essay is a plea, at a somewhat abstract level, for the use of an institutional economics approach to sustainable development.
This essay might have benefited from being longer. It contains a number of interesting ideas, but it is not really made clear, to this reviewer anyway, what distinctive policy implications would follow if such an approach were adopted. One implication might be that reform of the policy determination process is more important than the current model according to which the proper thing for economists to do is to set targets consistent with allocative efficiency (if possible) and prescribe instruments. While some of the book’s messages will be familiar to many readers of this journal, overall the book is a useful contribution to the literature on sustainable development. It is indexed, well referenced, and generally well produced. One blemish in the last regard is that something went wrong at binding, so that to finish reading the first of the essays by Simonis one has to turn back one hundred pages.
Mick Common Centre for Resource and Encironmental Studies Australian National University PO Box 4 Canberra, ACT 2601 Australia and Department of Enuironmental Economics and Environmental Management University of York Heslington York YOl SDD, UK SSDI 0921-8009(93)E0088-X