Characterizing Sustainability Assessment

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Usually policies are assessed for cost benefit analysis which is a traditional approach of economics. However, social sciences, on one hand and biological and environmental sciences on the other have addressed the issues separately, and often antagonistically. If examined closely, the term “sustainability” till now is limited within the claim and concern of certain issues (e.g., the rain forest movement). A real push into the era of policy sustainability has not yet been reflected in the resource and environmental sectors of developing countries. Many issues of society and sustainability need to be internalized such as tradition and culture, population, resources, and pollution for a comprehensive program of policy sustainability. The characteristics of a sustainable policy can be assessed through understanding how the inclusion/exclusion of these issues in the policies could have a bearing on the sustainability of resource and environment of developing countries. Some of the issues are described in the following sections.

3.2 RESOURCE SYSTEM

The first point of characteristics for assessing environmental sustainability is embedded within the natural resource system and its relationship with other communities. The basis of ecological community relationships on the earth starts from plants. The first utility of direct solar energy and all physical transformation made by solar energy, such as rain, hail, creeks and crevices are captured by the plants and released into the ecosystem for which other organisms compete. Policies intervene in the human attitude on the natural ecosystem and decide how much could be taken away from the resource production system, how the production can be maximized, and how the needs can be served. However, there is a time lag between capturing the energy by plants and growing them to harvestable size.

Sustainability of a production system depends on the matching of the time lag and desire of the policy plan. Most resource policy formulation and evaluation place an emphasis on the relative abundance of resources, either in the form of area or in the form of volume distribution (Castle, 1982); however, seldom is this seen with reference to adequacy of other factors like land, air, water, and other consumptive resources. The nonrenewable resources like rocks and minerals are mainly used by human being. Collection, processing, and utilization of those resources cause displacement and produce a load on the

environment. Relevant policies are employed for regulating the volume of use and controlling the distribution of such resources. The characteristic of policy evaluation for sustainability assessment is thus to relate the consequences of use-related operations on the resource systems and their environmental components.

3.3 SOCIAL SYSTEM

The discourses of natural resource operation of developing countries, if we consider the case of forest resources, are mainly concentrated on the causes and background of resource exploitation (deforestation) and the response of specific actors like traders, multinationals, and governments. Governments’ unresponsiveness to local and international calls for stopping natural resource destruction usually tries to seek an excuse either by showing the social importance of economic growth and/or to meet the demands of increased population. But some authors (Berghäll and Konvitz, 1997; Kolk, 1996) considered that social changes induced by the governance also have a bearing on the implementation of resource policies. For example, repeated changes in the governance weaken the institutional development due to which a substantial quantity of resource leakage may happen (Bautista, 1990) induced by corruption, nepotism, and bribery. Although there may be many sociopolitical reasons for such changes, some of those changes could have resulted from “cold war,” global influence, and/or modernization, which could be seen as postcolonial competition for global supremacy.

Since 1980s, environmental concern for natural resources such as rain forest destruction has been debated strongly in such a way that, irrespective of the state ownership, international communities started to establish a global legitimacy on resources. However, claims of the international communities (hereafter internationalization) on natural resources (e.g., forest conservation) are different in the sense of interest for which they were claimed. On one hand, the claims can be related to undisclosed business interests, and on the other hand, they can be for common reasons. The mood of internationalization usually varies on interest and types of resources and their distribution. In relation to natural resources usually policies assert the rights and legislations, whereas the internationalization issues are guided by arguments and persuasions. The policies are often practiced through depriving people, whereas the legitimate (nonbusiness) internationalization modifies

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policy practices through participation of people. The policies are mostly autocratic, whereas the internationalizations for commons are democratic. There are clear transitions between policy prioritization and claims of internationalization. Thus, the characteristics of sustainability assessment lie in clarifying social transition for encouraging spontaneous global participation in environmental sustainability.

3.4 GLOBAL SYSTEM

It is understandable that presently the social system is not separable from global system. It is also highlighted in the discussion that in addition to cost benefit analysis, policy evaluation involves assessment of social parameters. Policy evaluation is thus likely to invite factors from movement of globalization for the coronation of social contemplation. However, the problem is that many authors perceive globalization as a driver of an unsustainable situation. Some scholars (Hirsch and Warren, 1998) sense the smell of colonization in the present global system often calling it neocolonialism. Nevertheless, the concept may have originated in the development literature out of frustrating poverty and lack of sustainability in developing countries. In effect, modernization has been accused of being unable to deliver the goods and services and of an inability to eradicate the poverty. Moreover, modernity made such poverty increasingly associated with ecological degradation as Durning (1990) says:

. . . poverty’s profile has become increasingly environmental.

Under these circumstances, it is hard to see if resources (forests) are used up in search of modernity how a country would contribute to social well-being in a sustainable fashion. Indeed, large-scale resource depletion (deforestation) would tend to reinforce social and economic inequality. For example, Redclift (1991) says:

forest conflicts are still, after all fundamentally a question of sustainable livelihoods in the face of existing political and economic situation. Inevitably they carry important implication for the way power is understood between groups of people as well for the environment itself.

Therefore, consideration of global initiatives justifies resource (forest) conservation over resource exploitation for economic growth, thus playing a role in changing and improving policies by influencing developmental and economic efforts of a country toward the sustainability thinking of resource management. The global effort for environmental conservation