Renegotiating the Environment: The Power of Politics in Managing the Environment

Environmental managers, scientists and activists are accustomed to seeing politics in a negative light. Politics equals self-interest, which means the power structures, assumptions and behaviours which, many would argue, are the reason for our seeming inability to deal with a range of environmental issues, including the toughest questions of salinity, land degradation, and coastal development. The authors of Renegotiating the Environment argue that, rather than seeing the politics of self-interest as an impediment, managers should learn to acknowledge, understand and use politics to generate better outcomes. Better environmental governance will be achieved by a process of evolution rather than by imposition of changes in response to conventional diagnostic and analytical frameworks. But rather than just waiting for this evolution to progress of its own accord, Stewart and Jones argue that it can be pushed forward by understanding of politics that allows for the energy and interests of groups and individuals to be harnessed rather than stifled, in order to achieve more consensual (and hence more sustainable) solutions. For managers, scientists and even for activists, this is a new and different way of approaching environmental problems. Renegotiating the Environment supports its case through detailed case studies and theoretical analysis as well as offering practical guidance for managers interested in implementing governance-based responses to environmental problems.