THE POST-FORD1ST POLITICS OF SUSTAINABILIlY ON WNG ISLAND (original) (raw)

Critiquing the pursuit of island sustainability

This article critiques a focus on 'sustainable development' which highlights a liveable 'future' without paying adequate attention to what, we argue, are more pressing issues for a liveable present. We contend that, while inherently commendable, the thrust of many current initiatives related to sustainable development, especially those associated with climate change, promote an ethos which crowds out other pressing policy pursuits with more immediate relevance-although often also associated with sustainable development-such as health, basic education, poverty reduction, and productive employment and livelihoods. Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are at the forefront of these initiatives, given their prominence in discussions on sustainable development, but especially climate change, alongside the basic challenges that they face in maintaining viable economies. Long-term thinking and planning is needed and welcomed; but we may now have gone too far in the opposite direction in terms of aiming for sustainable development in, and for, a distant future that emphasises climate change, without better balancing of that concern with the pressing needs of the moment.

Sustainability: Suspicions Concerning Attainability, with Particular Reference to the Pacific

PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies

Sustainability and unsustainability are frequently deployed in discussions of intended, predicted and observed changes occurring in or impacting on Pacific islands societies. Local communities often have their own distinctive understanding of the natural environment. Their concern for sustainability frequently extends further afield – to languages, cultures, and other aspects of life. International agreements and the constitutions of a number of Pacific islands countries address relevant issues. Constitutional government in the region has been remarkably sustained. Sustainable development has diverse dimensions and can be controversial. Climate change and rising sea-levels threaten the very survival of low-lying islands. Harvesting of non-renewable resources raises particular issues. Pacific islands studies have made significant contributions to scientific knowledge and human understanding of issues and processes of wider, even global importance.

Politics of Sustainable Development

Keynote address to International Society of Environmental Economics, Rio de Janeiro, 19 June 2012, 2012

This address was about how the clash of environment and development concerns played out in the Brundtland Commission and the 1992 Rio Conference.The author was personally involved with this quite intimately as the Senior Economic Adviser to the Brundtland Commission, as the Deputy Secretary General of the Rio Summit of 1992, as the UN Under Secretary General in charge of the Commission on Sustainable Development and as the Secretary General of the World Summit on Sustainable Development of 2002.I The address however limits itself to the Brundtland Commission and the 1992 Rio meeting leaving the later history for another occasion in the belief that the both the Brundtland report and the outcome of the Rio Conference have had a longer a deeper impact than almost any other exercise of a similar nature

Gatekeepers of island communities: exploring the pillars of sustainable development

2010

Sustainable development (SD) is generally recognised as having three dimensions, ecological, economic and social. Yet, its implementation is burdened with resistance and conflict rooted in the short-term 'business as usual' development model, opposed to the long-term sustainable benefit of local communities. Hence, the development of strategies to implement SD projects may require further differentiation of these dimensions in relation to the contextual situation in which the project resides. In two studies of SD projects on the Croatian islands, we identify five interlocking spheres of importance, Spiritual, Political, Economic, Educational and Health, in addition to Ecological. Each of these spheres is accessible through gate-keepers, individuals or a group of people who have the authority over the sector and as such, significantly influence public opinion. We suggest that in this particular island context the sustainability of these projects may lie with those gate-keepers. Hence, initiating and maintaining SD projects in these contexts requires a structured and targeted lobbying of these gate-keepers.

Sustainable development and the nics: Cautionary tales for the South in the New World (Dis)Order

Third World Quarterly, 1994

Sustainable development and t he NICS: cautionary tales f or t he South i n t he New World (Dis)Order JOHN F DEVLIN & NONITA T YAP Sustainable development has achieved wide currency as a policy objective integrating environmental and developmental concerns. It adds an environmental decision to an already politically and theoretically contested development debate. Representatives of the low-consumption countries of the South have long questioned the validity of existing distributions of economic development and have demanded some form of redistribution of assets, income and markets to redress the balance. Representatives of the high-consumption countries of the North have long resisted such pressures. In the current conditions of weak growth, increasing unemployment, large trade imbalances, mounting debt and continuing conflicts over international trading relationships there is little political space for a serious consideration of international redistribution. Now environmentalists are arguing that the levels of material consumption achieved in the high-consumption countries are not biophysically supportable and cannot be diffused more widely without potentially disastrous results. To make matters worse the linkages between environmental sustainability and economic growth are 'wicked' problems where neither behavioural nor environmental outcomes can be anticipated with any confidence.' There are deep theoretical and technical problems which make the 'facts' highly contestable. This makes the political conflicts even more difficult to resolve. Sustainable development thus presents itself not simply as one of the major challenges of the late 20th century but as a focal point for debate over many of the problems that contribute to the current era of global disorder. Sustainable development implies that some middle ground can be found which satisfies both environmental concerns and developmental aspirations. Unfortunately, as S M Lele suggests, there is no "Metafix" that will unite everybody from the profit-minded industrialist and risk-minimizing subsistence farmer to the equity-seeking social worker, the pollution-concerned or wildlife-loving First Worlder, the growth-maximizing policy maker, the goal-oriented bureaucrat, and therefore, the vote-counting politician.2 The dominant neoliberal approach to sustainable development assumes that the pursuit of market efficiency and free trade can achieve the necessary balance

Regionalizing the sustainable development goals: interpretations of priorities and key actors for creating sustainable island futures

Ecology and Society, 2023

The 17 United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) are an important step in defining what sustainable development looks like in practice. However, to make concrete progress toward the SDGs, it is essential to understand how they are perceived and can be acted upon locally or regionally. In this study, we draw on survey and focus group research carried out in Newfoundland and Labrador, on the east coast of Canada, to analyze how the SDGs are interpreted in a regional context. Our research questions are as follows: Which SDGs have the highest salience for participants and may be leveraged for sustainability policy and practice? Which political actors are seen as having the capacity to implement the goals into policy and practice? Sustainable development goals aligned with economic sustainability are emphasized and seen as particularly important. However, economically oriented SDGs are viewed as compatible with a broad range of SDGs. Overall, respondents view the provincial government as the most salient actor with the capacity to implement sustainability policy and practice for the region. However, despite its perceived importance, participants assess provincial government performance very poorly regarding SDG implementation. In terms of the governance dimension of sustainability, our results highlight the importance of attending to the roles of mid-level political actors, as well as their relationships with national and local/municipal governments, in pursuing regional sustainability.

The Politics of Sustainable Development: A Subsistence View

Canadian Woman Studies, 2003

Cet articlehit le lien entre le sommet de Rio de 1992 et 2 celui deJohannrbergde2002 en notant qzre dans les deux cas, le dbveloppement durable a ktkprbsentb comme un rem2de Rio's State-Based Development and the Politics of the Global Commons At the Earth Summit in Rio, economists proposed that the ecology must be embedded in the economic system through the price system, that is, the economy requires a fully monetized world in order to be protected. This meant that atmosphere, oceans and seas, land, forest, mountains, biological diversity, ecosystems, fresh water etc. need to be priced. Following this logic, the WB