When analyzing any environmental concern, journalists, commentators and policymakers tend to use the balancing theory. This theory takes environment and development as binary opposites, and argues for balance between them.
For example, in February 2009, when Langtang National Park office raised its concern over an attempt to build a road through the park, an environmental journalist wrote a column entitled Prakriti ra Bikas (Nature and Development) where he criticized the concern and argued for balance between environment and development. [break]
In another incident, when there were concerns over occupation of forest by landless people in western Tarai, an analyst dismissed the concerns. He took a position even beyond the balancing theory and argued that agriculture by landless people would be more ‘productive’ use of land than letting trees grow in a forest. I reminded him that a forest is necessary not only for the future of those landless people, but also for their current agriculture and other livelihood. The writer later called me to say I had misunderstood his argument and that he was also for the ‘balancing theory’.
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The attraction of balancing theory goes beyond journalists and commentators to development-oriented politicians. Among them is Baburam Bhattarai. He recently he posted a tweet that read “On World Environment Day, we should try to maintain a balance between ‘Development’ & ‘Environment’. One size fits all strategy won’t work!” In my opinion, a theory which takes ‘environment’ and ‘development’ to be binary opposites is flawed. We have to take environment and development in integration, because they reinforce each other.
For example, in the 1960s and 1970s, India and Nepal formulated strong policies to control population. As we remember now, attempts in these two countries yielded different perceptions about population control. In India, it faced strong opposition and required an emergency in the mid-1970s. But in Nepal, the policy was implemented more or less successfully without visible opposition. What could be the reason behind the different reception of a policy in two countries that share values and cultures? One difference related to the framing of the program stands out. In Nepal, family planning program was packaged with maternal and child health.
Remember the title of the project ‘Pariwar Niyojan tatha Matrishishu Kalyan Ayojana’ (Family Planning and Maternal-Child Welfare Project). Health service aspect was highlighted in every family planning camp. If the camp ran for five days, the first two or three days would be devoted to examining local women and children and distributing medicines, and the last two or three days dedicated to family planning. Population control was integrated with health service not just in policy but also in action. It increased acceptance of family planning and expanded access to health for many rural families.
In recent days, there are attempts to implement such integrated approaches under the title PHE (population, health and environment), providing us strong incentive for going beyond the binary thinking. In environmental studies, we study the fierce debate between bio-environmentalists or pessimists, techno-economists or optimists and political ecologists or distributionists regarding the role of population growth in environment change and poverty in developing countries. Integrated approaches resolve such theoretical boundaries and take us beyond banal ‘chicken-egg’ debates.
As implemented in Dhading, PHE project has delivered environmental protection, health and sanitation and family planning in the integrated way. Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs) not only work for forest conservation and management, but also prepare a corps of locally trained implementers such as peer educators, promoters and distributors. They work in collaboration with local female community health volunteers, health post in-charges, and other actors to expand access to biogas and improved cooking stoves, sanitation and toilets, safe drinking water, immunization and maternity health, nutritious foods, contraceptives, and family planning services.
As a result, we see environmental conservation and decline in indoor pollution, open defecation, infant and maternal mortality and birth rate in the area. Benefits are due to PHE program which is now incorporated in the CFUG’s operation plan. In Bardiya, biodiversity conservation is integrated with access to health service, family planning and economic opportunities. The integrated approach has been successful in all these examples.
Such integrated approaches also show how we can work to build resilience, a common approach in climate change policies. PHE program, for example, contributes to strengthening social and ecological resilience by enhancing local capacities (trained and aware local people, equipped service delivery mechanisms), building institutions (like CFUG, health post and service providers), increasing natural capital (such as well managed forest and clean environment), social capital (through networks, communication, health camps and institutions) and human capital (healthy people). As a result, it reduces vulnerability to natural hazards. We jump into debates about whether natural disasters are caused by human activities (building dams and roads) or natural forces (rainfall, terrain), but such binary debates do not contribute to resilience of local communities.
Building resilient communities demands integration of various development activities with environmental conservation, so that local communities’ adaptive capacity can be enhanced. Climate change is usually, but incorrectly, hyped as a specialized environmental crisis that demands unusual attention. Sometime it is framed as purely ‘technical’ or ‘environmental’ risk that makes little sense to people’s everyday lives. But in fact, strengthening resilience demands a more integrated approach that satisfies various needs of local communities, expands their choices and opportunities, makes them confident about the future, and allows them to be free from insecurities. Call it ‘development’, ‘human security’, or ‘resilience’, but think beyond binaries.
The author is a researcher of environmental
security and peace
sharad.ghimire@gmail.com
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