Development and the environmental crisis
- London Methuen 1984
- 149 p.
This important new book makes the global environmental crisis a central concern of political economy and its structural causes a central concern of environmentalism. Although there is a growing recognition of the environ mental crisis facing the South-triggered by the Brandt Report's North South debate and the concern with the tropical environment set out in the World Conservation Strategy - the environment is rarely interpreted within the framework of global economic relations, nor does it form part of most current analyses of underdevelopment.
Michael Redclift argues that a close analysis of the environmental crisis in the South reveals the importance of the share of resources obtained by different social groups. The development strategies based on the experience and interests of Western capitalist countries, like those based on most alternative Marxist approaches, fail to recognize that environmental degra dation in the South is a product of inequalities in both local and global economic relations, and cannot be solved by applying 'solutions' borrowed from environmentalism in the North. The key to understanding the South's environmental problems lies in the recognition that structural processes markets, technology, state intervention - although influenced by natural resource endowments, are also a determining influence upon the way natural resources are used. Thus solutions to environmental problems whether deforestation, desertification or the dwindling 'gene pool' - call for determined political action on behalf of specific interest groups and classes. The assumption that disinterested 'management' of the environment can be
undertaken in the name of the community at large needs to be challenged. Through his review of Europe's Green Movement, recent breakthroughs in biotechnology and information systems and recent feminist discourse, Michael Redclift has enlarged the compass of the environmental debate and produced a book which should serve as a benchmark in future discussions of development and the environment. It will be of importance to students in a range of disciplines, within development studies, geography, ecology and the social sciences.