The farewell

Never the Ranger felt so Lone!

The semester classes have reached its end, and consequently, this blog also. This is going to be a farewell entry with some reflexions about the experience.

To begin with, some numbers:

• Entries: 8 + this for feedback;
• Visits: 112 by October 13^th, most of them from my classmates;
• Followers: 4, 3 of them, again, my classmates;
• Comments: none.

Unsurprisingly, 91 of the visits are from New Zealand; the rest have been from Spain (oh my good friends that read IEM things only for me!), one from Germany, two from the States, and one from Taiwan (!).

Despite the number of comments was zero, there was some feedback, but, again, the scale has been the classmate area. The only comment I received out of my classmates was “Oh, I love Mafalda’s!” which is thankful, but not very related to the contents themselves. I can attribute the lack of visits and comments to several factors:

1: Integrated Environmental Management is not the most common topic in the web. Checking the most popular things in different countries (using Google’s Zeitgeist), sports events and teenager pop so-called stars lead the searches. Environment only appears in the top searches when there is some natural disaster and, honestly, this is not the happiest way to gain some popularity. Besides, even if you specifically look for IEM, the blog won’t be among the first links so it is really hard to find it by chance if you are not particularly looking for it.

2: This blog is new and there is only one editor (me). The most successful blogs I know have a troupe of people to keep making entries and have been running for quite a long time. As well, the comments left in those blogs usually are from common visitors who keep adding their views to their favourite blogs.

3: A topic like IEM is not either the most common to have a blog; as well, the comments expected in a blog with a “formal” matter like this are not like those that I can recall in the most popular blogs. Maybe this is a topic too “serious” for a blog, as they are more a way of fun than to study things in depth. It is true that you can find a blog for almost every single topic in the world, as anybody can make one, or a dozen, but the number of people interested about reading an IEM blog is not yet considerable. There are some, though; proof of this, the mysterious visitors from USA and Taiwan that, somehow, reached the blog.

Nevertheless, this has been all an experience. I had never done a blog in English and with written articles as the main format before, so this has let me learn a couple of things.

First of all, I’ve tried to keep the entries in a medium length; they are, on average, no longer than a page, as I am aware that excessively long entries would imply no readers at all. Consequently, there aren’t that many words in this blog, and there are only eight entries, not taking this last one into account; despite this, it seems it takes far more time to be done that an essay with the same length. Fighting with/against the blog format has remembered me my programming days, when a semicolon out of place was able to spoil an entire program.

In other hand, I tried to include Google advertisement to increase the traffic; nevertheless, it took a while to be approved and was only available around two weeks ago, so finally it was for nothing.

In the positive hand, this is quite a different assignment with some good points:

1: First of all, the blog is an ongoing work which takes a whole semester. It’s possible to see the evolution of your own blog, but also your classmates’. Even if it is an individual work, the main source of comments and feedback are your mates.

2: Secondly, I tried to make an enjoyable blog, so I could include comic cartoons, links, news and videos, which would have been impossible on a standard essay. At the same time, the language used is less strict that in a written essay; I am supposed to be writing for an audience and, therefore, addressing what I write to you, the reader.

3: The need to include contemporary affairs, such as pieces of news and media, helps you to realize about the links between the environment and everything else, trying to imagine how things are related to this IEM approach that, most of the times, is not mentioned but is still there.

Well, this is the final entry, at least for the moment. Cheers and thanks for having a look!

Devil is in the details

Mafalda: It should be redone, to see if it gets better.
Felipe: Agree.
Dad: Hey, what are you playing at?
Mafalda: Nothing man! We were talking about Humanity!


IEM is a means to get the best outcome possible whene nvironmental issues and resources are involved; to get this, there are toolsand techniques to make sure the IEM approach is being followed and, somehow, those reflect into the normative and laws [Ton Bührs (2009). Environmental Integration: our Common Challenge, SUNNY Press, Albany, chapter 1, pp. 7-39.]. In this entry I will talk about some of the requirements in New Zealand to present a project with environmental impact to be approved, and also about a topic quite close to Lincoln University as Lake Ellesmere. Recently I was able to visit the area during a field trip and see a bit closer the problems that the fifth most extensive lake in New Zealand has.

If you have a look at the Resource Management Act Fourth Schedule, and the online version from Malborough District Council which can be found here, there is a curious difference in the language employed for every requisite; if you read carefully, the only compulsory requisite is taking into account the customary rights (1A, matters, that must be included in an assessment of effects on the environment). Despite this is supposed to be designed to take care of the environment and the effects projects and actions have on it, even a description of the proposal, the potential effects, the appearance of hazardous materials and the discharge of materials are only recommended actions.

I am conscious this is a general guide to all kind of projects, from the smallest that can happen in a backyard to the biggest that can affect an entire region, these directives seem to me too loose to be ableto be considered a good IEM approach. Is it good to have this laxity when asking for requirements?

From an IEM perspective, making such a difference among the compulsivity of customary rights and the electivity for everything else is not a good beginning. To begin with, it makes distinctions among people since the very beginning and give to some the right to ask for something that others could consider as theirs as well. This is a source of conflict and, consequently, it can crash the hopes to bring an entire community together and look for the general and greater good that will benefit everybody as well. Secondly, relegating to an elective level the real care of the environmental impact a project may have, opens a door for careless or biased environmental studies, as there is none obligation that ensures all the aspects of the environmental impact have been taken into account.

I will link that to the field trip to Te Waihora LakeEllesmere I mentioned a few lines above. As a foreigner, I have to recognizethis was my first visit to a marae and let me see in the first person these community members in their own field. And I say community members instead of Maori people because not all of them were Maori, but all of them felt the Lake as their own and their responsibility. Actually, the fusion between ethnicities in this marae and in this community is an example of coexistence that this prevalence of customary rights could break if it’s forced; it is remarkable the accomplishment for both the Maori and non-Maori blood lines and connections in all their genealogy and histories, and how these people feel both of them as an enrichment for who they are. The important thing for those people is their Lake, their community and neighbors, their environment; uses in the marae were contemplated by both ethnicities, history and traditions were known by people from different origins and the environmental, social and economic issues around the lake were analyzed and recognized without blaming anybody guilty. These people have grown up there and that is what makes them feeling the problem of Lake Ellesmere as theirs.

In such a situation, which I doubt being unique for this case, old customary rights which would leave people in or out a circle couldbring nothing more that disrupt and loss.

An integrated approach to those issues focusing on the affected people instead of their provenance is an opportunity for a new beginning that shouldn’t be dismissed. To get a real and integrated approach for environmental management, the present and future environment, in its wider definition as a triple-bottom lined environment, should be more important than the past one. Past cannot be changed, but is people’s decision to change the future. This is where the focus of environmental management should be and it is the law and policymakers’ responsibility to develop the tools which this could happen with. IEM is about building trust, closing wounds and approaching views. The moment this gets forgotten, the environment and the community suffer and lose. Preventing this early mistake is a renewed point for the success of the process and a hope for the future.

Lake Ellesmere and Community Based Environmental Management

Felipe: Alright, let's play good and bad guys, ok?
Everybody: I'M WITH THE GOOD GUYS
Felipe: Aw, no! We cannot be all goods otherwise it's all for nothing!

Lake Ellesmere has appeared lately in some of the subjects I’m studying and also seems to be taking a good amount of media attention; I’ve run into this lake a couple of times in The Press, it has also been mentioned in a Maori Resource Management paper I’m doing and also in this subject.
I will use this to talk about C(B)EM, Community (Based) Environmental Management. The idea could be briefly summarized as the process of manage environmental issues and resources in a collective and locally based way by mean of voluntary and community actions [R.D. Margerum (2008). "A Typology of Collaboration Efforts in Environmental Management", Environmental Management, 41:487:500.].

At first sight, this looks like a feasible idea, as people living with a problem will be the most interested in solving it, but it makes me wonder about a couple of things. In the first place, the burden transfered to citizens and, secondly and related to that, the role of government in all this: are they enhancing citizen implication or simply avoiding a lot of costs by putting those responsibilities on people’s hands?
Letting the management of environment issues completely into collective action can end in a situation of mistrust towards the government or even the feeling that such a money-sucking institution is not necessary at all. Maybe in some centuries when humankind will evolve towards a utopian society of equity and inclusiveness this will be possible, but right now, a strong government is a need, to face lobbies and to give a sense of unity. I’m not touching now the numerous weak points of the current government system that exist in many countries today, as the list could be long enough to make a new blog, but getting completely rid of those institutions won’t help IEM approaches, for two reasons.
First, the idea of “people’s problem, people’s solution” is a perfect shield to hide behind and let people deal alone with troubles that may be bigger than them and break the concept of broader belonging (“it’s their problem, not mine” mind). Secondly, what would avoid government institutions from moving to this idea in environmental management to social, cultural, education of health issues? Instead of a completely independent and self-raised system of management, the objective should be an active governance where institutions and communities would work together to have the general and specific views of the problem and avoid worsening problems.

Having said this, citizenship involvement is crucial to get things moving and can be well enhanced to seize the huge knowledge and ability of those people, but institutions have to be actively involved in this process or the general view will be that people are doing the job that belongs to them. Back to Lake Ellesmere, there exists the Waihora Ellesmere Trust  (you've got a very good report about the trust's activities and working here), as the means to get C(B)EM moving on, but there is also a 12-million NZD agreement among big actors, the Goverment, ECan, Fronterra and Ngai Tahu, to undertake the cleaning of the lake and take care at the same time of the lake, the cultural meaning for the local iwi, the farmers that live and have the area as their way of earning a life, and the environment [infromation from The Press published August 26^th]. IEM cannot exist without both community and institutions; money raising, coordination with other areas, contribution with professionals and expertise and care for the big picture are things that should be given by institutions; after all, taxes are supposed to be for these things and people cannot use another whole working day after theirs. But at the same time, no government initiative can succeed without the people digging, cleaning, planting or, simply, acting properly and accomplishing the required standards and actions. Does it mean people should be passive and let government think for them? Definitely no! Just on the contrary, it is people and communities who are the most capable to change their houses, living, gardens, consumption patterns, transport, to create trusts and community centres, to organize plantings, meetings, events, and be the lever point to make things change. Rather than people, it’s the role of government that makes me wonder. Government has the role to enhance these initiatives, coordinate and get everybody involved to make sure they are approached right. People and communities are the base but need a cohesive net to do something big out of a bunch of small things; in this arena, IEM is the ground to grow marvellous synergies for today and tomorrow.

[Do you want to read more about C(B)EM? Check Elinor Ostrom’s wide work about community governance in the commons and Rich Margerum’s IEM approach for the same issue.]

Moving Planet in Christchurch

Well, alright!...
...where I have to push this country to move it forward?

Today’s entry is going to be dedicated to an ongoingevent in the field of environmental awareness and care. I`m talking about MovingPlanet, an event organized by the international organization 350.org with themain idea of raising awareness about fossil fuels and alternatives. Here in Christchurch it will be organized by 350 Chch in Hagley Park, with local events to get people into bike riding, car alternatives and renewable energies but, asI’m reading on their page, with a real focus on transport issues. There will beplenty of ideas to get rid of the car and a bike workshop.

As they claim (check www.350.org for more info), they are “creating a movement tosolve climate crisis” and take their name because of the 350 ppm. of CO2 which is the maximum safe level.

It sounds like a good idea, right? Well, from an IEM perspective,it can be as well, and is a good example to show how IEM approaches don’t need to come from a formal institution nor been given the IEM-name. Nevertheless,this initiative takes care of the famous triple-bottom line with little actionsthat can have a great impact on a particular person and a community;eventually, if a huge number of people join, this impact will be sawn over theentire global ecosystem, as their main aim is. Let’s take for example, the use of bike, as it’s the main focus point of the Chch Moving Planet:

Does it affect the three lines of the triple-bottom line?

Definitely yes! It affects the environmental sphere inan obvious way, diminishing emissions locally and globally, noise and visualpollution. It affects also the socio-cultural sphere by changing people’s wayto interact with the environment around them, improves their social inclusion by taking part in those activities and meetings and, as it is aerobic activity, it has repercussion over the health, rhythm of life, and general happiness. And finally,it affects the economic sphere, as this substitution improves private budget by saving in petrol and cars (and gyms probably), but also is beneficial for the local and city’s budgets, as it promotes public transport use as a side effect,diminishes traffic congestion and, by enhancing local movement and living,improves small commerce and services sector.

Is it inclusive?

In some areas, the social barrier between people being able to afford a car or not can determine their ability to access jobs and education because of the design of the cities and economic/income distribution.Even if this is not such a sharp problem in New Zealand, this initiative is inclusive as it blows social barriers; there are no divisions among stakeholders, lobby groups, leverage collectives. The favoured are much bigger than the affected ones (car industry as the main group) and the side effects are beneficial for the community as a whole.

Is the problem correctly defined?

Traffic is a main contributor to cities’ pollution ina bunch of places in the world. Despite it’s not New Zealand’s nor Canterbury’s main polluter regarding air quality, the problem of traffic emissions here is seen as a symptom of a much broader problem which encompasses the lack of environmental awareness. I think it’s a good thing trying to see the main picture, and this solution could appear as focused in a small problem but also improves the entire picture. Bikes and cars are quite visible and,consequently, present in our lives; using the bike is a declaration of principles, and can make a significant impact in the way people understandtheir relation with the ecosystem, not only those who bike-ride, but also those who see it and decide to change other aspects of their lives that are affordable to them.

Does it include the other issues related in the given ecosystem to achieve a complete view and reach the best solution?

Well, this is a tricky one. To begin with, the horizontal distribution of Christchurch and transport system cannot be changed nor by a small community, a group of aware neighbours, nor even all the bike riders of Canterbury by their own. It needs institutional involvement, substantial changes in the public transport network, and community development. Nowadays Christchurch is facing the development of its future and the scale of investments, changes and planning has probably no rival in all its history; this is both anopportunity and a threat for the environment (including the people and human environment) and the level of institutional commitment will shape itdramatically.

So, what’s the general conclusion? From an IEM perspective, this event and the initiatives they try to enhance are a very good starting point. Nevertheless, the planning model of the cities cannot bechanged without some institutional involvement, but people’s awareness is a powerful weapon and constitutes the main potential of this event and the entire 350.org’s initiative. Small actions are as important as mammoth enterprises and their repercussion on people’s lives’ improvement shouldn’t be dismissed so easily; after all, mountains are made of a bunch of sand grains, right?

And finally, one proof to show you that it’s not abudget issue, if you cannot afford the whole bike, you can save one wheel ;)

Edited on Monday26^th September:

Having a look at the page, it seems this day had agood tracking and assistance in the main cities it was celebrated, any ideasabout Chch? Please feel free to comment!

Lighting future up

Felipe: No, that helmet full of holes isn't good! It lets bullets in!
Mafalda: But' lets ideas out.

There haven’t been any entries these last two weeks because... there were holidays! Nevertheless, here we come back with some news. The semester is half way to its end and, despite I know I’m getting some readings, the comments and feedback are null, so I have added Google advertising; maybe this way the number of visits will increase. Soon you will see some advertising around here.

Today I will talk about two pieces of news I’ve found and, even if they’re not initially related with the environment, but which take care of one of the spheres I’ve mentioned in other entries: the social sphere. Each one of these spheres has a “bottom-line”, a minimum which is considered acceptable, and no action to improve any of them can imply the conditions to fall below this line. It’s the base and the objective of IEM practices is always keeping these lines high so all the spheres that affect environment mutually profit from this enhancement [This theory concept comes from Freer Sperckley (1981). Social Audit - A Management Tool for Co-operative Working, Beechwood College, Leeds, UK].

The first news (seen in The Press published August 26th) is caused by the anniversary of the first Christchurch quake. As some Cantabrians in nearby areas may have seen during the night, since September 4th there are two beams shining in the night sky from Cathedral Square and they will be on until February 23rd, to remember people the future that is to be re-built in Christchurch.
The second, also related with the social sphere, comes from the North Island; there, New Plymouth prison is teaching the prisoners to knit and they donate their creations to Women’s Refuge (more info here).

Ok, I recognize you could be wondering what on earth these so different pieces of news have to do with environment, but I think they take care of one of the line of the “triple” that usually is forgotten or dismissed and that can be very helpful regarding to prepare the field for future IEM actions.
Are people who make the work for the environment and who are (or must be) educated and cultivated to appreciate, value and protect environment; enhancing people into their communities, making sure their culture and welfare levels are high is a way to uphold the standard of that wire of the triple-bottom line. Even if these projects aren’t directly related to some environmental challenge which needs to be managed, they improve people’s life, by giving hope and mission, building stronger communities and, this way, facilitating the settlement of a basis for dialogue, bargaining, negotiation and cooperation that will be extremely helpful when approaching environmental problems; this way, given-hope people from Chch will pay more attention to their city reconstruction, and benefited people from New Plymouth prison initiative will be more valuable and will give better contribution to their community that if they are treated as cons and problem women. People will take more care about what surrounds them, will value better their strengths and know more deeply their weaknesses, so they can contribute better to their places, and this means the environment. Cultured, happy and focused people (the kind of people these projects help to create) value their environment and their Nature more deeply and are more willing to get involved into their conservation and management.
Using the phrases from The Press, the future is bright. And people are who are called to build this future.

It's a mad world

Would God have patented that idea about the round madhouse?

This week I had thought about keeping with the topic I begun last one; if last one I spoke about traditional knowledge, this one was intended to be for the result of humans’ most marvellous capacity for imagination: technology! But while diving through the news, I felt I had to dedicate an entry to this piece of news.

It’s in Spanish, sorry for that to all my kiwi/English-speakers, but I’m sure you will reach the same conclusion as me after reading the heading: “A Cantabrian mayor appoints a confessed pyromaniac as Environment City Councillor”.

The first thing that came to my mind was “It’s a joke, right?” But, unfortunately, it is completely true and made me think about how the environment is systematically humiliated by politicians with acts like this and about the relevancy of this in the general topic of this blog. This is completely relevant for two reasons:
1: Credibility of the process and stakeholders selection, and
2: Trust building.

Making decisions like that can spoil a process of environmental management by eroding the very basic foundations. When discussing about the basics of the theory, one fundamental pillar was trust, based on professionalism and honest work. With decisions like these, the entire process is rotten from the very beginning, a complete lack of credibility will surround any decision made from the Councillor, or the person who appointed him. This is a failure sentence, and an enormous lack of respect for the rest of actors and interlocutors which shows the role the environment and its defence have in many cases yet. A lot of questions arise from this election, the why, the how and the hidden who, but I won’t go deeply into them. The most important one that appears to me is how the involved stakeholders will react to something like that: how would any process of dialogue or negotiation be approached with these precedents?, how could anybody pretend to gain some agreement or advance if the head actor shows such a complete disdain of the matter?, would anybody agree even to try to gain some goal?
The answer to all this is not easy and, surely, in some cases will be no option but to work with these kind of institutions and actors; but when a chance, even if radical, the election should be a complete withdrawal of the process. IEM takes time and resources, and both are valuable enough to be spoiled in a doom-to-failure process; a sign of professionalism should be to demand the same in our interlocutors and they should take the task as seriously as we do. Without this basis, the trust and credibility construction is impossible and, consequently, all the IEM process, a chimera.

I don’t want to seem pessimistic or disenchanted, nor naive or falsely optimistic. Even if this is an example, an unfortunate election from a Major, environmental insults like this happen far away, and close to home, as well as remarkable intents to amend things and act correctly. Which side does the scale tip in? I won’t answer that; instead, I will ask you as a reader to wonder that yourself and act, so you can, as a citizen, tip it through the right side.

Making possible the impossible

Mom: What are you doing with this in here?
Mafalda: I thought you may like crying for something better than an onion.

The recent news about climate and weather give uneasy feelings to many people. If you have a quick search in the news and people’s comments about, you will see never-before experienced phenomena, gales in Central Europe, 24 consecutive days of rain on the Iberian Peninsula just in the middle of the summer or persistent drought in vast areas of East Asia. I’m not discussing here if those are evidence of the so claimed climate change, Mother Nature taking revenge as some predict or, as some sceptical are ready to say, simply statistical anomalies.
The fact is that these events may have a strong link with IEM as human action has indisputable repercussion over the natural world and it will turn back to us. Searching for some image to illustrate it, found this astonishing aerial picture in Indochina Peninsula.



This photo gave me a bit to think about. The terraces, as common in those parts of the world, use the land and rain in the most efficient way the people who thought about them had, millennia ago, and it is still a marvellous way to multiply the available surface. It shows the hand of humans shaping their environment, but also how they keep some vital aspects of natural ecosystems in place, wisely using what the nature has to offer in each place as a matter of survival. In all those pictures of farmland, crops, cities, villages and fisheries, a single fact becomes obvious. Human and Nature are together. The four spheres (some authors refer to them as three by merging the social and cultural) are heavily intertwined.

The way that nowadays progress is mainly understood means altering the environment to grow, no matter what the consequences are and, simply, there are things that are not possible. Human kind can try to alter the natural environment at will and, certainly, sometimes the achievements are remarkable but, what is the price? The costs (and not only monetary) are incredible. The fight that positions people and environment on different sides of the line creates depletion of resources, loss of time and energy, suffering in communities and sometimes even irreparable damage in entire societies. "Fighting because of fighting" in the understanding that the natural environment is an enemy to surrender means, eventually, being in war on ourselves.
See this example; the people there made terraces because the terrain was rough. They could have thought about flattening the hills to try to make an immense monoculture with hectares in extension and, certainly, they could have tried to combat the environment with all their means only because of stubbornness. And they would have failed. Instead, it was much wiser to adapt their actions to the specific area which surrounded them, bargaining areas with nature so they intertwined, knowing that this way they would survive for generations.

There is no way to live or evolve without leaving a print, something like that is a complete chimera, every single human action implies an effect. The challenge is choosing what kind of footprint is to be left, how deep and how painful.

Don’t misunderstand me, dreaming and advancing is inherent to being human and this search and interest has created marvellous weapons at the disposal of people's objectives. After all, what’s IEM about if not about evolving and moving forward? Without this permanent aim we wouldn’t be people anymore, but realism and consciousness must impose. Not everything is achievable, not every ecosystem and resource is there to be exploited and ruined and not every warning and limit means a challenge to be broken and trespass.

Traditional knowledge all around the world has been aware of a lot of those things for a long time, from the Mediterranean horticulture systems that rotate and mix species not to exhaust the soil, to those terraces that keep soil in place and take advantage of the monsoon. In the light of that, couldn’t it be wondered whether IEM is a return to the origins?
Well, I believe that it is an important step forward, acknowledging the history to learn from past mistakes and create a bright future.