Forces Shaping Environmental and Natural Resource Administration

Since the first edition of this book, several major changes have occurred in environmental administration. First, there is now a greater emphasis on the interconnectedness of elements within ecosystems. Management of environmental problems is taking on an ecosystem perspective in the United States. The leading land management agencies now use an Ecosystem management approach that incorporates ecological considerations while acknowledging human needs. Since ecosystems do not recognize political boundaries, management strategies must be employed that involve cooperation across jurisdictional lines, as well as between the private and public sector. For example, a watershed management approach has been adopted by federal agencies for water quality management that emphasizes cooperation across jurisdictions.

A second change is a greater emphasis on economic incentives and flexibility in pollution control. The high cost and inflexibility of the traditional "command and control" regulatory approach have yielded to a growth in regulatory incentives and innovative management approaches that increase flexibility in implementation. For example, trading programs have been established in air pollution control for sulfur dioxide emissions and in water pollution control for nutrient loads. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reinvented environmental management with a greater emphasis on flexibility and cooperation with state and local governments through its Common Sense Initiative, Project XL, Brownfields, and Community-Based Environmental Protection (CBEP) initiatives.

A third major change appears to be a devolution of responsibility from the federal government to the states. In some areas of environmental protection, the states have been more innovative than the federal government. In other areas, the states claim that the inflexibility of federal regulations impedes their creativity. Collectively, the states have assumed greater responsibility for environmental protection and clearly dominate in the areas of waste management, groundwater protection, and coastal zone management. The states acknowledge the federal government's role in establishment of national standards for pollution control but demand greater flexibility in their implementation.

Environmental and Natural Resource Administration

Environmental administration constitutes all activities taken by government (local, national, or international) to protect or enhance the quality of the environment in the public interest. It involves numerous governmental departments, agencies, and independent units with environmental and natural resource programs and concerns at virtually every level of government. In the United States, numerous federal departments and agencies are involved in the implementation of environmental policies. Some are charged with the administration of more than 650 million acres of public land, which is about one-third of the nation's total geographical area. A totally comprehensive public policy for environmental administration does not exist in the United States nor any other country.

The administration of environmental programs, just like any other public program, is a human process where individuals and groups interact and work toward achieving certain collective and organizational objectives or values. Politics and public administration are intertwined in the struggle for power to affect governmental policies. Every policy decision in the public sector is a product of individual or group judgment through the political process. Regardless of their areas of responsibility or clientele, public organizations and personnel must operate in a highly political environment influenced by regionally or nationally dominant cultures.

The public administrator must pay particular attention to those pressures that he or she can best control while minimizing the negative effects of those that cannot be controlled or moderated significantly. The purpose of this book is not to prescribe any specific environmental administration theory. The position taken by Peter Savage–specifically with regard to comparative administration and public administration–in general remains true today: "[P]aradigmatic orthodoxy of any kind is unlikely to take root short of force." Nevertheless, this book provides a guide for natural resource decisionmakers. The theme of the book is that environmental and natural resource managers should act continually on behalf of the environmental public interest. They, more than any other public administrators, must guard against public decisions that support short-term economic gain at the cost of substantial and potentially irreversible environmental losses in the long run. Throughout the book, the role of values in decisionmaking is emphasized. Values enter into all decisions, and the quality of the environment will be determined extensively by the degree to which environmental values are taken into consideration in decisions made throughout the public sector. Among the most important influences affecting environmental and natural resource administrators are (1) Ecological complexities, (2) a Crisis Orientation, (3) the environmental public interest, (4) concern for future generations, (5) the intangible nature of many environmental values, and (6) the values and value judgments of agency personnel.

These considerations influence the feasible decision space of the public administrator. The world of the public official is not the neat, clearly defined world that many people perceive; rather, it lacks any specific shape and tends to be amorphous. The ill-defined world of the public administrator can be modified by particular forces, some of which he or she may be able to influence. Therefore, some influences may have greater or lesser impact than others, depending on the time and place of interaction with the administrator as well as his or her own administrative capabilities.

Ecological complexities

Ecology is the study of the relationships among all living things and the physical environment. The ecological concept of interrelations provides a central theme for environmental administration. Management of a specific natural resource at a given time and place involves a complex of interrelations that has the capacity to influence the environment in the present or the future. For example, the management of water resources cannot occur without affecting other natural resources. Since the environment includes all living and nonliving features, other environmental sciences like hydrology, phycology, geology, and limnology play key roles in environmental administration.

Many resource agencies assert that they use ecological approaches in management activities. In reality, this orientation may be confined to superficial treatment and short-range planning. When serious decisions are to be made through political and administrative processes, traditional values of agencies and their influential clientele groups usually become dominant. This means that the student of ecology must also be aware of how complex social and political values are incorporated into actual decisionmaking.

Crisis orientation

Many leaders express deep concern over potentially irreversible forms of environmental degradation that could engender additional negative consequences. Although this attention has not been maintained at a continually high level, especially during the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations (the last of these has been constrained by forces in the Republican majority in Congress), concern over environmental affairs is still evident. Urgent and powerful pressures for environmental change have been and will continue to be exerted in political and administrative arenas. Since the late 1960s, attention has been directed, however, mainly toward environmental crises. Environmental administration, especially, has a crisis orientation in crucial situations concerning highly sensitive areas or species. Alarmed by this crisis orientation, scientists at the well-respected environmental policy research center Resources for the Future observed:

The crisis syndrome performs a profound disservice to the nation.... The problems mostly are long term and require a sustained effort even to understand what is involved, let alone to forge solutions. A roller coaster of public interest (and government and foundation support) does not provide a context congenial to the kind of long-range research, analysis, and social institution building required. Crises occur, to be sure, but they usually represent a trend or deep-seated problem, and the prominence of the one must not obscure the greater importance of the other.... The part is confused with the whole.

Environmental public interest

Governments and their personnel are, in theory, oriented toward the public interest in their policies and decisionmaking. In the case of environmental administration, public interest issues arise from the interface of society with its environment. The public interest, however, is an abstract and symbolic concept that refers to the values and general interests of all citizens. It will often conflict with private interests of specific individuals, groups, and organizations. Environmental public interest may be variously justified and interpreted, but it affirms the value of long-term interests of the public over short-term private interests.

Future generations

In environmental administration, concerns must extend to future as well as present generations. Complex values difficult to identify and predict for future generations must be encompassed in judgments and decisions made in the present. The depletion of nonrenewable resources in the present, for example, can affect the quality of human life and the survival potential of living things and systems in the future. Environmental decisions made in the present can constrict or eliminate future options. An endangered species that is eliminated today may have been the crucial link for medical research tomorrow.

Intangibles

Many values and considerations found in environmental administration are of an intangible nature and consequently are difficult or impossible to define or quantify. It is extremely difficult if not impossible to assign economic values to living resources, due to the complexities and ambiguities associated with their being given proper weight and consideration. Tangible, quantifiable values such as board feet of timber or tons of minerals will be given more emphasis than less tangible, nonmarket values such as those associated with watershed protection, wildlife conservation, or scenic preservation. Intangible values include psychological and indirect benefits associated with aesthetic and other aspects of the natural environment that contribute greatly to the quality of human life.

Values

The values and value judgments of agency personnel play predominant roles in the policymaking and other processes of environmental administration. Values form the basis for the perspectives and actions of personnel in their decisionmaking. Thus, they provide a frame of reference or general guide for many of the actions of environmental administrators. In this sense, values are individual and collective conceptions that have emotional and symbolic components about what is important or desirable. Values also include judgments about what is "right" or "wrong." Value judgments also occur when administrators decide that a particular environmental condition should be given greater emphasis than the values of human species.

As a consequence of the factors that distinguish environmental policy and administration from other decisionmaking activities, environmental administrators are less able than others to adopt compartmentalized approaches to problem solving. Holistic approaches should therefore be employed to direct or manage complex relationships that occur among individuals or groups of individuals and their evolving societal and natural environments. Because values and value judgments are involved in the formulation and implementation of environmental policy, decisionmaking processes should be made within an interdisciplinary context where multiple values are considered.

Natural Resource Characteristics

Since much of environmental administration pertains to natural resource development and allocation, it is useful to consider the characteristics of natural resources. All natural resources are produced through natural processes. Some, the renewable resources, can sustain and perpetuate themselves through reproduction, or their survival can be encouraged through employment of proper management techniques. Human beings have the option of interfering or not interfering with these processes. Under a utilitarian philosophy, a natural resource must be used or have the potential for use by humans. However, uses and needs as well as attitudes toward natural resources may change greatly over time and with location and culture. An isolated mountain peak may or may not be a natural resource, depending upon one's perception of it.

Actual management of natural resources by government represents a small proportion of environmental administration in the United States. The term "resource management" is in fact somewhat misleading. The majority of resource managers are concerned basically with management of people's behavior relative "to" natural resources rather than "with" natural resources.

Resource management implies some manipulation of natural resources and their environment, whereas the main function of resource managers is to interpret or decide upon the various uses of resources or degrees of use to be granted to individuals and nongovernmental organizations. For example, resource managers decide how much grazing or logging would be acceptable on public lands. Their decisions on use depend on the self-sustaining needs of the renewable resources. Thus, resource managers actually manage the interaction of humans with the environment rather than the environment itself.

Natural resource administrators usually recognize that the great preponderance of their time is spent on problems affecting the population at large. Their decisions concerning human behavior in relation to the environment involve the value determinations and perceptions described above that are further complicated by the changing complexities of science, technology, and society.

Cultural differences, for example, can affect management perspectives. Forestry management practices in the United States are minimal in comparison with Germany, where intensive control and manipulation of forest ecosystems are undertaken by government foresters.

Fluctuating resource availability also affects decisionmaking. In their decisions environmental resource administrators must make value judgments within a political environment of competing interests and powers. These judgments are complicated by the decisionmaker's limited perspective of the world, which is further influenced by his or her experience or field of specialization. Agency ideology also influences the decisionmaker. The entire decision process hinges, again, upon value perceptions.

Although management implies control, complex ecosystems are not readily controlled, even through the use of the most advanced technology. Ecologists caution us about the philosophy of the noosphere, which proposes not a biospherical world but one dominated by the human mind. Most ecologists also agree that people are not wise enough to understand the results of their actions. The view that humans, through management by science and technology, will be able to produce the type of controlled environment or world that will do nothing but serve their needs and wishes competes with the more ecological view of human beings as responsible creatures who respect and value themselves, future generations, and other forms of life.

The ability of humans to grasp the consequences of their actions is complicated further by the efforts of those scientists who participate in efforts to provide misinformation to citizens on environmental problems. In their book Betrayal of Science and Reason Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich provide alarming insight on the potentially negative effects of misinformation strategies. They describe the backlash against environmental controls that began in the 1980s and continued into the 1990s. Advocates of this "brownlash" challenge beliefs that environmental problems continue to be the threats that they were once perceived to be because human ingenuity has substantially addressed the problems. The Ehrlichs provide compelling arguments that such antienvironmental rhetoric threatens our future by potentially weakening public understanding and support for needed environmental controls.