The dilemma of conflicting environmental outcomes
Current or emerging issues paper
Dr Steve Dovers, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, The Australian National University
prepared for the 2006 Australian State of the Environment Committee, 2006
This document was commissioned for the 2006 Australian State of the Environment Committee. This and other commissioned documents support the Committee's Report but are not part of it.
Dovers S 2006, 'The dilemma of conflicting environmental outcomes', paper for the 2006 Australian State of the Environment Committee, Department of Environment and Heritage, Canberra,
Environmental issues arise from interactions between human and natural systems, both of which are characterized by considerable complexity and uncertainty. Attempts to achieve desirable outcomes through policy or management interventions in these systems are rarely simple tasks with clear cause-and-effect linkages or single impacts. Usually an intervention will produce more than one result, creating the need for assessment and prediction of outcomes, and for balancing or trading off these outcomes.
One category of conflicting outcomes is between environmental, social and economic outcomes and values, and integration of these is central to pursuing ecologically sustainable development (ESD) However, often there will be multiple environmental outcomes. This is to be expected, as “the environment” and environmental policy cover a wide range of interrelated natural processes and associated human values. Issues and values such as biodiversity, water quality and quantity, soil erosion, salinity, forest productivity and climate change are closely interdependent. Policy and management interventions aimed at one will invariably have implications for others.
Four examples illustrate how conflicting environmental outcomes may arise from a management or policy intervention:
- A chief strategy to control dryland salinity is revegetation of upper catchment areas using deep-rooted plants, to arrest the rise of saline groundwater and thus salinity. However, this may also impact on surface water flows in the upper reaches of streams. This may have economic impacts via the reduction in water availability for agriculture immediately downstream, but also an ecological impact on local streams and their biota.
- Reducing carbon emissions from energy use may be sought through a shift from carbon-intensive fossil fuels. One alternative to coal-fired electricity is wind power, which although emitting little carbon involves development and scenic impacts on local environments. Another alternative is nuclear power, which again will lower carbon emissions but requires uranium mines in sensitive areas and creates problems of radioactive waste disposal.
- Different product packagings have different environmental impacts. Liquid food packaging choices include re-usable (refillable) glass, recyclable glass, plastic or paperboard, and various non-recyclable options. Glass is an energy intensive product which may be recycled, as is plastic and plastic coated paperboard. All use different resources, involving different extraction impacts, pollutants from manufacture, and transport and storage energy costs. If materials are not recycled, they have different impacts through land fill or incineration disposal processes. Glass is refillable, and although this minimizes material and energy use with sufficient cycles of re-use, significant amounts of water are used for washing and refilling. Therefore, environmentally optimal packaging depends on which particular extraction impacts, resources and pollutants are considered the most important, and on the detail and quality of the manufacturing, transport, use and disposal or recycling systems.
- The control of a vertebrate pest species may be considered necessary due to its environmental impact, such as soil and vegetation damage. However, native predators may have become reliant on the abundance of the pest species and rapid decimation through biological control, harvesting or poisoning will pose a t