Q-7 Highlight the significance of people’s participation in

Environment Management at various levels.

Answer:
● Environmental management can learn a lot from ordinary people, both past
and present.
● Effective environmental management is seen as that which deals with
people at the local or community level. Adoption of community/participatory
approaches should not be automatic; the benefits and contribution to
environmental goals must be assessed carefully.

Participants in environmental management

● Existing users: Land or resource users (males and females may make
different demands); there may well be multiple users.
● Groups seeking change: Government (may be conflicting demands
from various ministries or policy makers); commerce (national,
MNCs/TNCs), individuals seeking personal gain or to change the
situation, international agencies, NGOs, media, academics, ‘utopians’).
● Groups pressed into making changes: The poor with no option but to over-
exploit what is available without investing in improvement; refugees,
migrants, relocatees, eco-refugees (forced to move or marginalised so that
they change the environment to survive), workers in industry, mining and so
on, who face health and safety challenges while carrying out changes.
● Public (may not be directly involved): May be affected as bystanders;
may wish to develop, conserve or change practices (if aware of what is
happening); expatriate or global concern.
● Facilitators: Funding bodies, consultants, planners, workers, migrant
workers (latter two groups affected by health and safety issues),
Internet exchanges of environmental data.
● Controllers: Government and international agencies, traditional rulers and
religions, planners, law, consumer protection bodies and NGOs (including
various green/environmentalist bodies), trade organisations, media,
concerned individuals, academics, global opinion, and the environmental
manager.

Public
The public usually consists of more than one group of stakeholders who may have
different, perhaps conflicting, views and goals. Powerful groups tend to dominate and
weaker people get marginalised, so the environmental manager has to establish the needs
of all groups and try to ensure that none are ignored, yet if possible work with the
influential. So far, mainly in developed countries, there has been legislation since the
1970s to ensure planning and development are more transparent. The environmental
manager checks to see that public disclosure rules are followed, and, if needed, publishes
impact assessment statements, environmental audit reports and so on.
Participatory environmental management
Good environmental management is seen to be that which deals effectively and sensitively with
people at the local or community level. This is not simply finding ways to control stakeholders;
environmental managers need to gather local knowledge, understand feelings, in order to learn,
alter practices and inspire people. Local knowledge is often crucial for resolving environmental
disputes. Participation is limited if there is not adequate access to information and transparency
in decision making. One route is the Deliberative Inclusionary Process, which seeks to help
people shape environmental policy. Another approach is co-investment, whereby locals make
efforts to improve environmental care, such as soil and water conservation works, and an aid
agency or government provides help in the form of funds, materials, machinery, or whatever is
not locally available. Environmental damage may be caused by insecurity of tenure or a weak
legal claim to traditional resource use. These problems can discourage sustainable development
because people will not invest in the future if they are unsure of benefiting. These problems also
make it easier for government, business or private bodies to expropriate land and other
resources. In such cases, simply providing better tenure and documentation may resolve
problems.

Sustainable development strategies need to be designed to fit local conditions and to be

co-ordinated to ensure that one locality or stakeholder group does not conflict with another.
Better still, different regions and stakeholder groups should seek to develop integrative and
mutually supportive strategies – ‘dovetailing’ waste from one activity to become a raw
material for another. Environmental management should act as medi-ator and catalyst to
develop collaborative approaches. In this, public support can be crucial.

Why the public should be involved in environmental

management
● The public may be able to provide advice that would be missed otherwise.
● Open planning and management should be more accountable and more
careful.
● Fears and opposition to management may be reduced if people are informed.
● If people identify with management they may well support it.
● It reduces risk of a communication gulf between ‘experts’ and ‘locals’.
Note: The public is often a mixture of different groups: local people of differing age,
sex and so on; regional, national or global groups.
‘Involved’ may mean minimal information; adequate information; active input to
management before and during development; or involvement after management decisions.

For example, it is pointless promoting tree planting if people later fail to take care
of the growing saplings. Environmental problems are often a sum total of individuals’
actions, so each person may have to change their attitudes to ensure a solution.
Working with local people can inform environmental managers of threats, limits and
opportunities they may otherwise have missed.
Participatory approaches to data gathering, problem solving and development
implementation have been progressed by a diversity of social sciences, agricultural
extension agencies, public administration and development bodies, and NGOs, and have
been adopted for environmental management. Since the 1980s it has become common to
involve community members in participatory monitoring and evaluation of projects or
 programmes (community monitoring and evaluation or participatory monitoring and
evaluation). The aim is to establish what stakeholders want (and even children may be
consulted), need, do, and could adopt. There are potentially a number of benefits:

● The community is involved and can learn.

● It reduces the need for expensive experts.
● It reduces costs.
● It can engender support.
● There are opportunities to tap community creativity and traditional
knowledge.

There is no single standard procedure for community/participatory monitoring and

evaluation. Using a multidisciplinary team is important. For consultations, it is better
to hold a number of small sessions than a few large ones. Typical methods include
focus groups, group discussions, observation, and asking locals to draw maps or
diagrams.
It is important that methods and objectives are clearly explained to the people. Those
consulted should be carefully selected and the data cautiously interpreted. Assessors
must also be prepared for various viewpoints from a community – not all will support
proposals. In addition, it is desirable to assess impacts upon neighbouring communities
and to gather information on social capital. Social capital helps determine how
vulnerable, resilient and innovative a group is. Ideally there should be an assessment
to determine whether social capital is strong or in decline.