Monitoring, getting co-operation or enforcing environmentally sound stewardship is
challenging, even more so when the resources are in common ownership, for example
in international waters. Diamond (2005) felt that there was a better chance of sound
resource management when powerful decision makers were not remote from other
people and the ‘grassroots’ environment. Problems may be more likely when resource
exploiters reside at a distance from the exploited resource. However, poor people may
damage resources they are in contact with, because they have no choice but to do so
to survive; also, people can use resources in a damaging manner through ignorance or
unwillingness to change their outlook.
Resource exploitation usually depends on know-how. Environmental managers may
therefore have to deal with human resources, technical skills, organisational abilities and
knowledge. Some traditional knowledge may be useful worldwide, raising issues of ownership
and royalties. Similarly, corporate knowledge gained by costly research may be
needed by countries which cannot afford to pay back through royalties or market prices.
There are also situations where resources lie on or under land occupied by indigenous
peoples who may have very different values from those of the national government or
world community. In the past such people were generally driven out, ignored or exterminated;
now resource and environmental issues may require co-operation with them or
learning from them. Some resource usage can thus present legal and ethical challenges,
but law and ethics are still developing and may be inadequate to meet such needs.
Over the past half-century, as people have over-stressed the land, congregated in
urban areas, demanded manufactured goods, and have been fed with the produce of
modern farming, concern for outputs (pollution and waste) has grown. Ecosystems can
each render a certain amount of contamination harmless – their assimilative capacity.
The time needed for an ecosystem to deal with the pollutants varies, being affected by
the types and quantities of pollutant received, the season, and other factors. This capacity
may be seen as a renewable resource. However, the sudden arrival of a very toxic
compound, large quantities of the usual pollutants, unusual weather conditions, or some
other environmental variation, may cause a breakdown of assimilative capacity that is
difficult or even impossible to restore. Before the spread of the ‘polluter-pays’ concept,
outputs were rarely allocated economic value and were often ignored. During the past
forty years there has been some progress in addressing pollution and waste problems;
there is a growing awareness of the need to monitor and control carbon emissions,
stratospheric ozone-scavenging compounds, pesticides, volatile organic compounds,
polychlorinated biphenyls, nuclear waste, and many other compounds. There has been
huge, but still inadequate, progress with measuring techniques, legal controls, and the
establishment of international standards.