In the last 45 to 50 years, disciplinary based interpretations of environmental discourse20 have developed. These interpretations have narrowed problems within the theory of that discipline hence environmental challenges have been viewed and approached through a growing and detailed mosaic of discourses.21 However, in the case of BRs and other environmental issues, it is not sufficient to utilise a single approach, but rather input from a multiplicity of perspectives is needed. The variety of environmental perspectives and discourses that developed between 1960 and the 1980s gradually altered the development of the WNBR, and enabled it to diversify for application to social-ecological challenges in both developed and developing countries.
The 1960s was a period of significant societal change. A need for recognising and understanding the relationship between industrialisation and the biophysical environment became an issue of debate and political concern. Degradation and destruction of natural environments at a global scale were increasingly evident, however remained national, rather than international, concerns. Managing human impacts on the environment at national scales hardly figured as a concept in politics and policy-making in any country until the 1960s (Dryzek 1997). Other issues such as pollution and resource shortages were more common in political agendas, but not identified under a unifying term.
20 Hay (2002) suggests that the names of some environmental discourse including environmentalism and ecologism are highly contested, but of little matter. One reason is that those people central to the movements use the words interchangeably, as a language for common meaning. The other reason is due to the oscillating nature of the discourse of the environment, where commentators have yet to define the boundaries of key terms (environment, for example). For this discussion, environmentalism constitutes an activism in support of, and in alliance with, environmental politics, governance, policy, philosophy, ethics, economics and science.
21 Dryzek (1997) suggests that complex situations engender multiple perspectives. Hence the abundance of terms and perspectives on environmental problems that have accompanied the development and diversification of environmental concern is of little surprise. Several works prior to 1960 are of note however, as they created a platform for some later discourses. These include but are not limited to works during 1948- 1949 of Fairfield Osborn (Our Plundered Planet), William Vogt (Road to Survival) and Aldo Leopold (A Sand County Almanac). However in a post-World War era, these works were indeed relevant to their age but before their time in terms of political and social identification.
62 Modern issues of population, natural resources, and production were conceptually segregated, until Rachel Carson’s seminal work.22
A distinct junction between nature and humanity was apparent for much of the 1960s. The concept of limits to earth’s capacity highlighted the consequences of ignoring finite limits including misery, starvation and death resulting from unconstrained human procreation and consumption (Dryzek 1997). In 1968 Garret Hardin published his influential essay entitled The Tragedy of the Commons (Hardin 1968) which quickly became a central analytical part of scientific engagement with environmental problems. His work was disseminated in Science and employed a generalist’s scope toward environmental problems, all approached from a relatively lay-perspective. As a result, his work was seminal when the widespread perception of environmental crisis arose for the first time throughout the developed world.
Through Hardin and others, a strong message was conveyed throughout developed nations that there was scientific importance in the natural environment, indicating a relatively fragile homeostasis where human interference was not commensurate with ecosystem health. However, at this time conservation was still considered a minority issue, as the impact of human populations on natural systems was approached as a largely scientific question. Conservation was considered a secondary priority (Martin 1988). But for Hardin, conservation was a central concern, and his critique detailed how the rational self-interested actions of individuals led to devastating collective consequences. Hardin recognised the necessity of natural resource utilisation alongside the limited capacity to utilise those resources indefinitely.
During this decade the notion of a coordinated international scientific environmental effort was spawned, directed at monitoring and research of ecological systems, with the aim of systematically cataloguing, and scientifically understanding, ecological systems. The spokespersons for the environment during this period were primarily scientists, particularly natural scientists. The kudos of sciences was indicative of the period of post-World War II when science was perceived as a source of panacea. Situated comfortably in the ‘modern era’, science, bureaucracy and technological expertise served as an orienting framework for cultural order and meaning (Campbell and Fainstein 2003). An unequal foundation was established where scientists with little political expertise were providing data and prognoses on a continuum from doom saying the future of human-kind to anthropocentric utilitarianism (Hay 2002).
As Hay suggests, some believed that ‘politicised by the perceived urgency of the environmental crisis, the early proponents of the burgeoning environmental movement assumed that they simply needed to demonstrate the validity of their analyses, after which governments would take the required action to rectify matters’ (Hay 2002: 173). The worldwide growth of protected areas driven by
22
Carson was preceeded by a long history of nature sympathisers such as Porphyry, Baruch Spinoza, Thomas Malthus, Charles Darwin, Henry David Thoreau, George Perkins Marsh, Aldo Leopold, Murray Bookchin, Edward O. Wilson and many others. As influential and pedagogic as these individuals’ arguments have proven for the discourses in environmentalism, the intention of this chapter however is to focus on the main currents of thought that arose close to, and along with the development of the BR ideal.
63 national governments and the establishment of an international coordinating program for conservation and science are testaments to this assumption.23 Countries such as Canada and Australia had recognised since the 1850s the importance of protected scenic places for the public. Many other countries including South Africa, the United States and New Zealand similarly established numerous protected areas.