When sustainable land use ideas were being discussed in 2001 I made the following comment for RIO + 10, for RIO +20 and now:
---------------------------------------------------
"March 10/2001/FAO-RIO10 Conference: commments on Draft Report/SARD Part I
From: "Lucio Munoz"
To: "RIO10-Moderator" ,
Subject: COMMENTS ON DRAFT REPORT/SARD PART I
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 22:55:56 -0800
Dear Friends, my name is Lucio Munoz, I am an independent researcher based in Vancouver, Canada
http://www.interchange.ubc.ca/munoz
II recall well, the problems at the time of Rio were, in general terms, increasing poverty and increasing environmental degradation. The rio conference formally recognized these two aspects as the main issues to be addressed. A plan was made to address these two issues as soon as possible, but with long term objectives.
The content of the draft repor SARD Part I sent to me provides evidence that the policies originally followed to address poverty and environmental degradation led to increase poverty and increased environmental degradation.
Then globalization came to worsen the problem more by intenfying the poverty and environmental degradation problem of concern. Have we failed the goals of Rio so far?.
As things are right now, globalization forces will become more wild and poverty and environmental degradation appear to be moving to a critical stage. Eco-economic partnerships can not be the solution in the long term as implied here if they leave out social concerns(the majority).
Over all, I see a systematic direct delinking of the goals(poverty and environmental degradation) that were set out 10 years a go and the instruments and processes chosen to achieve that.
This report indicates that while poverty increased and environmental degradation increased, production increased, standard of living in industrial/urban areas increased, awareness and NGO movements increased,
Goverment and international research networks increased, economic development over all increased, free trade increased, infrainstructure improvements have increased, vertical integration has increased, privatization has increased, and decentralization has increased.
It looks like the better we do in all the fronts above, the more poverty and environmental degradation we are generating. And the report suggest that the way out of this poverty and environmental cycle is to still improve still more those areas/tools/technologies that appear to be leading to the problem we are trying to address.
I would suggest that this issue should be looked a little bit closer. Otherwise, we may find out during RIO-20 that poverty and environmental degradation are still worse.
My warm greetings to all. The views shared here with you are my personal views, I may be wrong. Your comments are welcome.
Sincerely yours;
Lucio Munoz
Vancouver, BC., Canada
http://www.interchange.ubc.ca/munoz"
------------------------------------
A new round of discussion is about to happen about "sustainable land use model" and the issues I raised are still valid, poverty and environmental issues are worse, is it not time to think in sustainability terms this time around? What do you think?
You brought in a sensitive issue. Yes, degradation in all aspects have increased parallel to the suggestions and policies observed in the different meetings simply because the stakeholders are not well defined or at least the main ones do not want to compromise to the global call.
I believe that planning is fundamental along the anti-degradation strategies, however our problem (ongoing) is that the major players are not committed except verbally,not in actions.
Lucio's description is quite right.
The answer correctly lies in sustainability practices.... the problem, however, is that all those "increasing trends" you mentioned have been interpreted by the "Giant Corporations Controlling/Gearing World Societies" as forward sustainability !!!! Indeed, the trend has been an increasing RATE of degradation (with its vicious circle of connection to poverty).
It is an utmost MUST that sustainability trend be connected to safe-resilient-commujnity land use regulations, thus leading to future-generation-friendly development.... opposite to what it is now: Growing-hegemonic-corporations seaking GROWTH-NO-MATTER-WHAT leading to increasing capital wealth of the rich & increasing poverty of added classes.
You have brought in a pertinent conundrum facing the global community due to silo thinking and unsustainable practice leading to zero sum game rather than win win situtaiton.
With respect and agreement with Hussin and Mohamad observations, let me add few points.
At the outset, I agree with Mohamad’s statement that ….all those "increasing trends" have been interpreted by the "Giant Corporations controlling /Gearing World Societies" …
The observed growing trends in poverty and environmental degradation despite progress in other indicators of development has to be understood in broader context as poverty-environment linkages are dynamic & context specific and are affected by diverse factors governing poverty and environment degradation, chief among them being the policy, governance and implementation failures.
The observed trend also depends very much on how we define/measure poverty (income versus multidimensional non income) & environmental degradation (deforestation, soil degradation, water & air pollution). Nevertheless, the environmental Kuznet curve is highly debated and does not generally hold true even in developed countries.
The problem also lies in the failure to address vicious circle of entitlement degradation because insecure property rights to natural resources, institutions governing resource use and access, create both poverty and give little incentives for sound resource management. Many good practice examples creating virtuous cycle for poverty reduction and environmental preservation at micro scale are thinly scattered and yet to be coherently assembled for informed policy making. Yet hamming out the national policy through such bottom up (good practice) process has always been marginalized due to top down policy making culture still dominated by silo/sectoral mentalities in policy -program- action continuum.
Dear Hussin, Mohamad, and Bikash.
A few tying thoughts: All the issues each of you hightlight come across and are possible because all that is possible under additive thinking and compartamilized action, which is the essence in which current and past land use models work. Protected areas in one place have nothing to do with neigbouring areas, the impact of deforestation in one area can not be linked to other areas. Unprotected areas next to agricultural areas....and so on.
No linkages between forest areas and deforested areas, within different forest areas, within different deforested areas, no systematic way to look at imptacts to determine who pays/who benefits from conversion and reversion processes and so on. I always like to think that this modeling knowing that it is not working is not done on purpose, but because the sustainability theory and tools were not yet available.
That is why the task is to develop the proper models and tools and shared them to pushed ideas, models proved not to work with new thinking.
Here I share some ideas I wrote years ago on how we can look at the problem from the forest area and deforested area point of view...I will share in the coming months new ideas on how a global sustainability based land use can be designed and how it would work for each country to be able to track what happened after optimal levels of dorested area and deforested area are established; and be able to track progress on social, economic, and environmental issues ongoing.
Unprotected Areas, Protected Areas, and Sustainability Under GreenDevelopment Policies: Which Are the Expected Impacts
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26422674_Unprotected_Areas_Protected_Areas_and_Sustainability_Under_GreenDevelopment_Policies_Which_Are_the_Expected_Impacts
The Meso-American Biological Corridor and Regional Sustainability: An Overview of Potential Problems and Their Policy Implications
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281276185_The_Meso-American_Biological_Corridor_and_Regional_Sustainability_An_Overview_of_Potential_Problems_and_Their_Policy_Implications
The Search for Equity in Access to Land in Latin America: Which Are the Main Characteristics that Define a Sustainable Land Reform Model?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282199695_The_Search_for_Equity_in_Access_to_Land_in_Latin_America_Which_Are_the_Main_Characteristics_that_Define_a_Sustainable_Land_Reform_Model
Wish a nice day to all
Article Unprotected Areas, Protected Areas, and Sustainability Under...
Article The Meso-American Biological Corridor and Regional Sustainab...
Article The Search for Equity in Access to Land in Latin America: Wh...
Niels thanks for your comments.
Everything is politics for polititians, not for me I am a scientist. But we know poliltics breaks when there are crises, social and/or,economic and/or environmental; and we know too that sometimes it is good politicis to do the right thing. That is why RIO is there, why the global warming gatherings is there, why new round of land use planning is there....
Since 1987 to now sustainable development thought has guided land use planning with the goal of at least mitigating poverty and environmental problems while being within economic sustainability, but poverty and environmental issues are even worse today than in 2001 when RIO plus 10 was held and than in 1987 when the Bruntland Commission report was shared.
Is it not a good time now that a new round sustainable land use discussion is coming around to consider new approaches such as sustainability? if not, how many decades you think we need to wait to accept that the sustainable development framework does not work? we have been at it 2015-1987 for almost 3 decades!
I am currently working on some ideas on how a global sustainability land use model can be framed. and how it can be implemented at the regional, national, and local level. A framework that can allow for ongoing progress/monitoring in quantity and quality through links to markets from the deforested area and forested area point of view. I will share it in researchgate when ready and your comments will be welcome then. We need new ideas to move science forward and my personal goal as a scientisit is to provide some from the sustainability point of view so that sooner or later the status quo will fall by its own weight.
Thank you for your comment Niel and have a nice day.
I imagine to use the two kind of approaches: local sustainability models (people and citizens of one specific region) and global sustainability proposals.
Good day Luiz and Niels. I think we should be able to have models of similar structure linked together from local, to provincial, to regional, to national, to blocks of countries, and one global, which can then be linked to global programs and banks and global institutions in a way that we create links of what it is needed globally with what it happening on the ground and be able to monitore it in real time yearly and ongoing...so each locality, province, region, block and the world know what they need to do based on sustainability land use planning and that others can see what they are doing....all from the deforested area/deforested area point of view...It can also help land users to connect directly with kyoto programs, global warming efforts....and so on.
I will bring together the ideas in the following papers:
Traditional Forestry, Sustainable Forestry, and Forestry Sustainability: Expressing Evolving Forestry Practices Using Qualitative Comparative Conjunctural Interactions
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281276252_Traditional_Forestry_Sustainable_Forestry_and_Forestry_Sustainability_Expressing_Evolving_Forestry_Practices_Using_Qualitative_Comparative_Conjunctural_Interactions
Beyond traditional sustainable development: Stating specific and general sustainability theory and sustainability indices using ideal present-absent qualitative comparative conditions
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281276522_Beyond_traditional_sustainable_development_Stating_specific_and_general_sustainability_theory_and_sustainability_indices_using_ideal_present-absent_qualitative_comparative_conditions
Linking Sustainable Development Indicators by Means of Present/Absent Sustainability Theory and Indices: The Case of Agenda 21
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281276222_Linking_Sustainable_Development_Indicators_by_Means_of_PresentAbsent_Sustainability_Theory_and_Indices_The_Case_of_Agenda_21
Article Traditional Forestry, Sustainable Forestry, and Forestry Sus...
Article Beyond traditional sustainable development: Stating specific...
Article Linking Sustainable Development Indicators by Means of Prese...
My suggestion is that those with data should analyze if there is link between increased poverty /environmental degradation/ increased income gap between the wealthy and the poor in all countries
Lalita good day and thank you for your comment.
Not to stray away from the question sustainable land use vrs sustainability land use and will link your poverty comment to existing RIO, RIO +10..., and to the last RIO process...
We know that from 1987 to now we have been under a sustainable development framework and the RIO documents indicate poverty and environmental degradation and income gaps between rich and poor, within and between countries is worse...
Because of this fact described in RIO +10 reports I received and read I asked the questions opening my question at that time, 2001...and I asked it again...
Sustainable land use planning since 1987 has been aimed at reducing or at least minimizing poverty and enviornmental impacts locally and globally, but things have been getting worse even by their own accounts.....So I we are rational decision makers how bad the poverty and environmental degradation need to be for us to call it quit and looks for alternative ways of planning and thinking?..that is a related question to my main question. What do you think Lalita?
Wish a good day to everyone.
Dear Niels, thanks for your comments:
Two things related to your comments
a) the use of sustainable development thinking and sustainable land use planning allows for those political and non political issues you described to happen because they a king of happen in the background or behind closed doors....There is not direct link between the thinking and the acting to hold any stakeholder accountable for the results...For example, the world bank goal since its creation was to reduce or eliminate poverty while making money, poverty is worse, and they have made money since their creation...the conflict of interest between seeking profits while eliminating poverty is hidden in the sustainable development framework....Sustainabilty vrs sustainable development...issues...
b) your comments about renewable energy in Germany and its surprising growth whether it is at invidual level or corporate level brings another issue related to energy/land use planning, that of the growing renewable energy technology gap, which by the time they think "Okay sustainable development fail, let's go to sustainability and the clean econonomy" the renewable energy technology gap will be so huge within and between countries whole economies will shot down which I called economic black out when suddenly there are no more non-renewable resources or they can no longer be afforded;
You may like the ideas share in:
Understanding the Road Towards the Current Dominant Non-Renewable Energy Use Based Economy: Using An Inversegram to Point Out a Step by Step Strategy Towards an Efficient Dominant Renewable Energy Use Based Economy
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281230333_Understanding_the_Road_Towards_the_Current_Dominant_Non-Renewable_Energy_Use_Based_Economy_Using_An_Inversegram_to_Point_Out_a_Step_by_Step_Strategy_Towards_an_Efficient_Dominant_Renewable_Energy_Use_Based_Economy
Article Understanding the Road Towards the Current Dominant Non-Rene...
Wish you success in Asia Niels....Hard decisions like abandoning the past and enbrasing a new future, methodologically or scientifically, usually require a huge crisis..., it took an environmental crisis to green up the old economy....So I will expect a huge huge social crisis to make the green economy ; and therefore sustainable devellopment and land use planning socially friendly...
Thanks for participating Niels. And greetings to all..
The answer to this question is a capital Yes! this is so because land use practices should and must give considerable attention to sustainable development indices. In every activity involving the environment and its resources, appropriate care must be given to make sure development and land use planning does not interfere with ecological quality and balance. Take the sustainable theory of entropy and energy use in the ecosystem, there must be a careful and self recycling system to give the ecosystem and all environmental resources continued capacity for resilience, resistivity and sustainability. In all, land use framing and modelling must be carried out with sustainable development consideration. This question brings to mind Mabogunje's land bequital theory, though not properly pursued, but looks at sustainable land use from within the tenets of sustainable rules.
Good Day Chris-Valentine. Thanks for your comment. It seems when you say "In all, land use framing and modelling must be carried out with sustainable development consideration", which in the eyes of those leading the sutainable development process(FAO, RIO, SARDS,,,,) they have been doing since 1987, but so far the problems they have been addressing, poverty and environmental degradation are getting worse.... I am for a new approach under sustainability thinking and acting...
If we are open to the possibility that the old traditional market and the current green market are distorted markets, then there is room for sustainability actions as they they would correct the market, not distort it as it is commonly believe...
See those ideas here as you may find them interesting:
What If Markets Have Always Been Distorted? Would It Then Be a Good Fix to Add Fair Trade Margins to Correct Distorted Agricultural Market Prices?.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281244562_What_If_Markets_Have_Always_Been_Distorted_Would_It_Then_Be_a_Good_Fix_to_Add_Fair_Trade_Margins_to_Correct_Distorted_Agricultural_Market_Prices
I also took a look at land reforms under sustainability rules, not sustainable development sustainable rules and I came with the following ideas...
The Search for Equity in Access to Land in Latin America: Which Are the Main Characteristics that Define a Sustainable Land Reform Model?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282199695_The_Search_for_Equity_in_Access_to_Land_in_Latin_America_Which_Are_the_Main_Characteristics_that_Define_a_Sustainable_Land_Reform_Model
I wish a good day Chris and friends
Article What If Markets Have Always Been Distorted? Would It Then Be...
Article The Search for Equity in Access to Land in Latin America: Wh...
Sharing here my most recent publications as food for thoughts:
Adam Smith and Karl Marx Under the Sustainability Eye: Pointing Out and Comparing the Sustainability Gaps Behind these Two Great Simplification Failures
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299885202_Adam_Smith_and_Karl_Marx_Under_the_Sustainability_Eye_Pointing_Out_and_Comparing_the_Sustainability_Gaps_Behind_these_Two_Great_Simplification_Failures
Understanding the Death and Paradigm Shift of Adam Smith’s model: Was Going Green the Only Option? If not, Is This Option the Most Sustainable One?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299882613_Understanding_the_Death_and_Paradigm_Shift_of_Adam_Smith%27s_model_Was_Going_Green_the_Only_Option_If_not_Is_This_Option_the_Most_Sustainable_One
The Unintended Consequences of Paradigm Death and Shift: Was the Arrow Impossibility Theorem Left Behind?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299879934_The_Unintended_Consequences_of_Paradigm_Death_and_Shift_Was_the_Arrow_Impossibility_Theorem_Left_Behind
Paradigm Evolution and Sustainability Thinking: Using a Sustainability Inversegram to State Paradigm Death and Shift Expectations under Win-Win and No Win-Win Situations
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298353982_Paradigm_Evolution_and_Sustainability_Thinking_Using_a_Sustainability_Inversegram_to_State_Paradigm_Death_and_Shift_Expectations_under_Win-Win_and_No_Win-Win_Situations
Article Adam Smith and Karl Marx Under the Sustainability Eye: Point...
Article Understanding the Death and Paradigm Shift of Adam Smith’s m...
Article The Unintended Consequences of Paradigm Death and Shift: Was...
Data Paradigm Evolution and Sustainability Thinking: Using a Sust...
Dear friends, here sharing my most recent article which I trust you may find interesting in terms of food for thoughts:
If Going From Free Markets to Non-Free Markets is the Way to Go: Does This Means the End of Rational Decision Making Thinking or Is This Just a Temporary Block of a Perfect Paradigm Shift to Green Markets?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312092336_If_Going_From_Free_Markets_to_Non-Free_Markets_is_the_Way_to_Go_Does_This_Means_the_End_of_Rational_Decision_Making_Thinking_or_Is_This_Just_a_Temporary_Block_of_a_Perfect_Paradigm_Shift_to_Green_Mark
Article If Going From Free Markets to Non-Free Markets is the Way to...
- Badges
- Science topic