Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-hvd4g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-25T01:29:19.541Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sustainable Development: Theoretical Construct or Attainable Goal?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

David Simon
David Simon
Affiliation:
Centre for Developing Areas Research, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London, Egham Hill, Egham TW20 OEX, England, UK
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Awareness of the environmental implications of different development strategies has grown significantly since the early 1970s. Although much destruction is still being wrought, there are at last hopeful signs that some major multilateral development agencies, governments, and NGOs, are beginning to adopt more environmentally sensitive policies.

Recent advances in environmental and development theory have focused on the concept of sustainable development, arguing that the environment must be seen as an integral part of long-term sustainable development rather than merely as a resource to be exploited or traded for economic development.

This paper reviews recent contributions to the literature on both conceptual and empirical aspects of this topical debate, stressing particularly the ‘Brundtland Commission’ report and the work of Michael Redclift. An historically sensitive political perspective is proposed as most appropriate for embracing not only the more traditional ecological and economic aspects but also the crucial political factors underlying uneven development and underdevelopment in the age of an increasingly integrated global economic system. Although we now have a fairly sophisticated theoretical understanding of sustainable development, appropriate methodologies and techniques for translating this into practice are still required. The paper concludes that a blend of ‘top down’ and ‘bottom up’ approaches would give greatest flexibility, and suggests how the assessment of sustainability at the level of individual agro-ecological systems might be advanced.

Type
Main Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , Spring 1989 , pp. 41 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barbier, E.B. (1987). The concept of sustainable economic development. Environmental Conservation, 14(2), pp. 101–10. fig.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braack, T., Loubser, J. & Braack, M. (1987). The ‘Argiope Trap’. African Wildlife, 41(4), p. 211.Google Scholar
Brandt Commission (1980). North-South: a Programme for Survival. Pan Books, London, England, UK: 304 pp.Google Scholar
Brandt Commission (1983). Common Crisis: North-South Cooperation for World Recovery. Pan Books, London, England, UK: 192 pp.Google Scholar
Bush, R. (1985). Unnatural disaster: the politics of famine. Marxism Today, 29(12), pp. 8–11.Google Scholar
Chambers, R. (1986). Sustainable Livelihoods: an Opportunity for the World Commission on Environment and Development. Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, England, UK: (mimeogr.), cited in Redclift (1987 p. 36).Google Scholar
Conway, G. (1983). Agro-ecosystem Analysis. Imperial College Centre for Environmental Technology, ‘Series E. No. 1’, Imperial College, London, England, UK: cited in Tisdell (1988 p. 375).Google Scholar
Conway, G. (1985). Agro-ecosystem analysis. Agricultural Administration, 20, pp. 31–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ecologist, The (1972). A Blueprint for Survival. Penguin. Harmondsworth, England, UK: 130 pp.Google Scholar
Glenny, M. (1987). Living in a socialist smog. New Scientist, 24th 09, 41–4.Google Scholar
Ledger, J. (1987). The eighth plague returneth: the locusts are coming! African Wildlife, 41(4), pp. 197–210.Google Scholar
Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J. & Behrens, W.W. (1972). The Limits to Growth. Pan Books, London, England, UK: 205 pp.Google Scholar
Nash, C. & Bowers, J. (1986). Alternative Approaches to the Valuation of Environmental Resources. Paper presented at ESRC Environmental Economics Workshop, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, UK: mimeogr.Google Scholar
Panos Institute (1987). Towards Sustainable Development. Panos Institute, London, England, UK: xvi + 224 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Redclift, M. (1984). Development and the Environmental Crisis: Red or Green Alternatives? Methuen, London, England, UK: x + 149 pp.Google Scholar
Redclift, M. (1987). Sustainable Development: Exploring the Contradictions. Methuen, London, England, UK: x + 221 pp.Google Scholar
Sattaur, O. (1987). Trees for the people. New Scientist, 10th 09, pp. 58–62.Google Scholar
Simon, D. (1985). Agrarian policy and migration in Zimbabwe and southern Africa: reform or transformation? Review of African Political Economy, 34, pp. 82–9.Google Scholar
Stohr, W.B. & Taylor, D.R.F. (Eds) (1981). Development from Above or Below? The Dialectics of Regional Planning in Developing Countries. Wiley, Chichester, England, UK: xii + 488 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Tisdell, C.A. (1988). Sustainable development: differing perspectives of ecologists and economists, and relevance to LDCs. World Development, 16(3), pp. 373–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tolba, M.K. (1987). Sustainable Development: Constraints and Opportunities. Butterworth, London, England, UK: 232 pp.Google Scholar
Ward, B & Dubos, R. (1972). Only One Earth. Penguin, Harmondsworth, England, UK: 304 pp.Google Scholar
World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) (1987). Our Common Future. Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, UK: xv + 383 pp.Google Scholar
World Conservation Strategy (1980). World Conservation Strategy: Living Resource Conservation for Sustainable Development. IUCN-UNEP-WWF (obtainable from IUCN, Avenue du Mont-Blanc, 1196 Gland, Switzerland: pack of c. 50 unnumbered pp. in stiff paper folder).Google Scholar