This course examines the concept of sustainable development, the evidence for environmental sensitivities cross-nationally, and the nature of grassroots groups in developing countries. Sustainable development is examined as a recent concept in international development literature, including critiques. An example of a sustainable society is proposed. The concept is applied to fisheries policy. Is support for environmentally-sustainable policy global, or primarily focused in "postmaterialist" (wealthy) countries? How does one make cross-national comparisons? Grass roots groups working for sustainable development and other "environmental" goals are examined to understand their local conditions, their functioning, and debates as to what they are and how they may operate most effectively.

This course will be taught in an intensive format, with two three-hour sessions per week for two and a half weeks.

Topics and Readings

Articles must be read prior to listed class period.
key: € Texts, or articles in course reader available from Copy Maven
§ Handouts, ® Textbooks, and/or on reserve at Morris Library

1. (11 March) Sustainable development ala Brundtland

® World Commission on Environment and Development, 1986, Our Common Future. Oxford and New York: Oxford Univ Press. Readings: Front matter (Terminology, Foreword, Overview), Chapters 1, 2, 6, 10, 12, Annexes 1 and 2. [The most widely-cited definition of "sustainable development".] (Text at student bookstore, also on reserve.)

2. (13 March) Concepts underlying sustainability

Primary productivity

€ D. Pauly & V. Christensen, 1995, "Primary production required to sustain global fisheries" Nature Vol 374 (16 March 1995), pp 255-257. [Primary production required to sustain reported human fishery exploitation, including bycatch, is estimated at 8% of aquatic primary production, and 24% to 35% in upwellings and continental shelves.]

€ Peter M. Vitousek, Paul R. Erlich, Anne H. Erlich, Pamela A. Matson, 1986, Human appropriate of the products of photosynthesis." BioScience 36(6):368-373. [Calculates human appropriation of primary productivity on land as well as in the oceans. (Note that Vitousek et al's 2.2% was corrected by Pauly & Christensen.) Present human populations "co-opt" 31% - 38% of net primary productivity on land.]

Interdependencies

€ Paine, R.T. 1966, "Food web complexity and species diversity." The American Naturalist 100(910): 65-75. [A classic study: effects of removing a predator from a tidal ecosystem.]

€ Peter Warshall, 1996, "Lessons from Biosphere 2" Whole Earth Review 89 (Spring 1996): 22-27. [Do we know enough to produce a simple, yet sustainable ecosystem? Lessons from the largest totally enclosed ecosystem ever constructed, sealed off for 2 years. 50 tons of oxygen disappeared, CO2 soared, high CO2 in the ocean formed carbonic acid which began dissolving the coral reef, all seven frog species died, etc., etc.]

€ Kenneth Arrow, Bert Bolin, et al, 1995 "Economic Growth, Carrying Capacity and the Environment" Science Vol 268 (28 April 1995): 520-521.

Common property management
€ Hardin, G., 1968, "The tragedy of the commons" Science 162: 1234-1238. [Famous essay using a common grazing area as a parable. If each maximizes his individual take, the common resource will be destroyed.]

€ Berkes, F., D. Feeney, B J McCay, and James M. Acheson. 1989. "The Benefits of the Commons" Nature 340: 91-93. [Traditional resource management.]

€Ludwig, D, R. Hilborm and C. Walters, 1993. "Uncertainty, resource exploitation and conservation: Lessons from history" Science 260: 17, 36.

Two examples of sustainable societies

€ Christopher Flavin, 1990, Last Road to Shangri-La" World Watch, July-August 1990, pp 18 - 26. [ The author argues that Bhutan is developing deliberately and slowly in an attempt to create a sustainable society.]

€ Roy Rappaport, "Flow of Energy in an Agricultural Society" (from Scientific American Reader) [A society which has been exploiting the its local environment sustainably for over a millennium.]

3. (18 March) Critiques of sustainable development; fisheries examples

§ Herman Daly, 1990, "Sustainable Growth: An impossibility theorem" Development -- A Journal of the Society for International Development , Vol 1990, Nos. 3/4: 45-47. [If sustainable development means "sustainable growth," as many imply, it is impossible.]

€ Michael Redclift, 1994, "Sustainable development: Economics and the environment" pp 17-34 In Strategies for Sustainable Development: Local Agenda for the Southern Hemisphere, M. Redclift and Colin Sage (Eds), John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester, West Sussex. [Sustainability is drawn from biology. The concept is clarified and critiqued, and related to economics, postmodern theory, etc. Dense but rich reading.]

€ Wolfgang Sachs, 1993, "Global Ecology and the Shadow of 'Development'". in Global Ecology: A New Arena of Political Conflict, pp3 - 21 Wolfgang Sachs (ed), London and New Jersey: Zed Books.

€ John H. Bodley, 1975, "The Price of Progress", in Victims of Progress. pp 150 164, Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/Cummings

Fisheries examples:
€ A. Charlotte de Fontaubert, David R. Downes and Tundi S. Agardy, 1996, Biodiversity in the Seas: Implementing the Convention on Biological Diversity in Marine and Coastal Habitats. IUCN Environmental Policy and Law paper no. 32. International Union for Conservation of Nature (Washington, DC.). [Read sections on Fisheries and Mariculture: p iv &18-32; FAO estimates that 2/3 of marine fisheries are being tapped at or over capacity (non-sustainably). The Convention on Biological Diversity applies to fisheries and mariculture operations.]

® A. McEvoy, 1988, Preface, Chapter 1, Chapters 8 - 11 and Appendix A (pp xi xii, 3-16,187-264) in The Fisherman's Problem: Ecology and Law in the California Fisheries, 1850-1980. Cambridge Univ Press: New York, NY. (On Reserve in Morris Library.)

4. (20 March) Cross-national comparisons of Citizen Environmentalism

€ Steven R. Brechin and Willett Kempton, 1994, "Global Environmentalism: A Challenge to the Postmaterialism Thesis?" Social Science Quarterly 75(2): 245 269. [Challenges the common claim that people in developing countries lack environmental values, arguing that environmentalism is a global phenomenon. Proposes five possible explanations for environmentalism in poor countries.]

€ Kidd and Lee, 1997, Postmaterial Values and the Environment: A Critique and Reappraisal. To appear in Social Science Quarterly , March 1997

€ Steven R. Brechin and Willett Kempton, 1996, "Beyond postmaterialist values: National versus individual explanations of global environmentalism." To appear in Social Science Quarterly , March 1997

€ Riley Dunlap and Angela Mertig, 1997, "Global Environmental concern: An Anomaly for post-materialism" To appear in Social Science Quarterly , March 1997.

§ Richard Rose, "What is lesson-drawing?" Journal of Public Policy 11(1): 3-30.

5. (24 March) NGOs in Resource Management

€ Ramachandra Guha, 1989, The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya. Berkeley: University of California Press. Read Preface, pp xi-xv,and Chap 7, "Chipko: Social History of an 'Environmental' Movement" pp 152-184. [Indigenous roots, development, and environmental philosophies of India's Chipko movement.]

€Haripriya Rangan, 1993, "Romancing the Environment" pp 155-181 in John Friedmann and Haripriya Rangan, In Defense of Livelihood: Comparative Studies on Environmental Action. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press and United National Research Institute for Social Development. [A skeptical view of the Chipko movement.]

§? NGOs and the UNCED process

file: mast866-006-Syl.wp, revised 22 March 1997 (name change 9 Mar 2000)