Hanten Suru Kankyō Kokka (Inversion of Environmental States: Beyond the Trap of "Sustainability”)

When I was doing fieldwork deep inside Thailand as a graduate student, I witnessed the hardship that policies for the protection of tropical rainforests. Forest conservation, taken as obviously a “good thing” in advanced countries and the urban areas of least developed countries, were threatening the livelihood of local people. The enclosure of forests by the state was significantly limiting the resources that farmers could access on a daily basis, and local people were generally hostile to the Royal Forest Department Even so, it seemed puzzling to me that such policies did not halt deforestation, while the forestry department itself was becoming more and more powerful.

In this book, “inversion” refers to the deterioration of the human-nature relationship as the livelihood of people in a given region is tampered with, in the name of state-led “environmental protection.” Why is it that although least developed countries have splendid environmental protection systems, they are not effective? What effect are state environmental policies having on human society (rather than on the environment itself)? This book goes on to ask why policies that are supposed to be environmentally friendly sometimes invert and cause hardship for local people.

The specific examples of inversion investigated are irrigation water in Indonesia, state-owned forests in Thailand, and the management of fishery resources in Cambodia. In these countries, where slogans about “community resource management” prevail, the authority to manage resources is being delegated to local communities. However, the reality is that people are becoming increasingly dependent on the state. Generally speaking, there are few who would oppose protecting the environment, and even if there are people suffering as a result of environmental policies, because they are often politically vulnerable people living in peripheral regions, many of us do not even notice the this “inversion” phenomenon.

For people in least developed countries who depend for their livelihood on the natural resources around them, who controls the resources is a matter of life and death. This is not a theme that should be discussed only in terms of environmental considerations and economic efficiency, but which should also be looked at from the perspective of power and politics. When evaluating environmental policy, it is necessary to ask questions such as “What effect has this environmental policy had on people” rather than simply asking, “Has the water and air become cleaner,” or “Has the forest expanded?”

What are the mechanisms of inversion? Because the process of development is so rapid in least developed countries, ideas and ways of thinking embedded in “developmental states” are carried over unchanged even as times change and environmental issues enter the political agenda. That is to say, intermediate groups which should form the cornerstone of resistance to state power (such as local groups or ethnic groups) have been weakened through the process of economic development, which emphasizes individual rights and freedom. This book argues that environmental policies tend to have a parallel process of state centralization that tends to go unnoticed and to face little resistance. Environmental policies are necessary, but we must also question how such policies have changed the relationship between the state and human society.

This book does not limit its analysis to the current state of affairs, but proactively engages with policy discussions regarding what should be done. In particular, it explores ideas on how to control the negative repercussions of “inversion” by focusing on 1) the Japanese pollution experience during the processes of postwar economic growth, 2) ecological perspectives on the history of civilization, and 3) a unique resource conservation theory developed immediately after the Second World War. There are many lessons from Japan that today’s developing countries should make use of. If you have grown tired of so-called environment books, or if you wonder whether there might be something wrong with the SDGs which are now so popular, then I humbly recommend that you pick up this book.

 

(Written by SATO Jin, Professor, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia / 2019)