Forces Shaping Environmental and Natural Resource Administration

Since the first edition of this book, several major changes have occurred in environmental administration. First, there is now a greater emphasis on the interconnectedness of elements within ecosystems. Management of environmental problems is taking on an ecosystem perspective in the United States. The leading land management agencies now use an Ecosystem management approach that incorporates ecological considerations while acknowledging human needs. Since ecosystems do not recognize political boundaries, management strategies must be employed that involve cooperation across jurisdictional lines, as well as between the private and public sector. For example, a watershed management approach has been adopted by federal agencies for water quality management that emphasizes cooperation across jurisdictions.

A second change is a greater emphasis on economic incentives and flexibility in pollution control. The high cost and inflexibility of the traditional "command and control" regulatory approach have yielded to a growth in regulatory incentives and innovative management approaches that increase flexibility in implementation. For example, trading programs have been established in air pollution control for sulfur dioxide emissions and in water pollution control for nutrient loads. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reinvented environmental management with a greater emphasis on flexibility and cooperation with state and local governments through its Common Sense Initiative, Project XL, Brownfields, and Community-Based Environmental Protection (CBEP) initiatives.

A third major change appears to be a devolution of responsibility from the federal government to the states. In some areas of environmental protection, the states have been more innovative than the federal government. In other areas, the states claim that the inflexibility of federal regulations impedes their creativity. Collectively, the states have assumed greater responsibility for environmental protection and clearly dominate in the areas of waste management, groundwater protection, and coastal zone management. The states acknowledge the federal government's role in establishment of national standards for pollution control but demand greater flexibility in their implementation.

Environmental and Natural Resource Administration

Environmental administration constitutes all activities taken by government (local, national, or international) to protect or enhance the quality of the environment in the public interest. It involves numerous governmental departments, agencies, and independent units with environmental and natural resource programs and concerns at virtually every level of government. In the United States, numerous federal departments and agencies are involved in the implementation of environmental policies. Some are charged with the administration of more than 650 million acres of public land, which is about one-third of the nation's total geographical area. A totally comprehensive public policy for environmental administration does not exist in the United States nor any other country.

The administration of environmental programs, just like any other public program, is a human process where individuals and groups interact and work toward achieving certain collective and organizational objectives or values. Politics and public administration are intertwined in the struggle for power to affect governmental policies. Every policy decision in the public sector is a product of individual or group judgment through the political process. Regardless of their areas of responsibility or clientele, public organizations and personnel must operate in a highly political environment influenced by regionally or nationally dominant cultures.

The public administrator must pay particular attention to those pressures that he or she can best control while minimizing the negative effects of those that cannot be controlled or moderated significantly. The purpose of this book is not to prescribe any specific environmental administration theory. The position taken by Peter Savage–specifically with regard to comparative administration and public administration–in general remains true today: "[P]aradigmatic orthodoxy of any kind is unlikely to take root short of force." Nevertheless, this book provides a guide for natural resource decisionmakers. The theme of the book is that environmental and natural resource managers should act continually on behalf of the environmental public interest. They, more than any other public administrators, must guard against public decisions that support short-term economic gain at the cost of substantial and potentially irreversible environmental losses in the long run. Throughout the book, the role of values in decisionmaking is emphasized. Values enter into all decisions, and the quality of the environment will be determined extensively by the degree to which environmental values are taken into consideration in decisions made throughout the public sector. Among the most important influences affecting environmental and natural resource administrators are (1) Ecological complexities, (2) a Crisis Orientation, (3) the environmental public interest, (4) concern for future generations, (5) the intangible nature of many environmental values, and (6) the values and value judgments of agency personnel.

These considerations influence the feasible decision space of the public administrator. The world of the public official is not the neat, clearly defined world that many people perceive; rather, it lacks any specific shape and tends to be amorphous. The ill-defined world of the public administrator can be modified by particular forces, some of which he or she may be able to influence. Therefore, some influences may have greater or lesser impact than others, depending on the time and place of interaction with the administrator as well as his or her own administrative capabilities.

Ecological complexities

Ecology is the study of the relationships among all living things and the physical environment. The ecological concept of interrelations provides a central theme for environmental administration. Management of a specific natural resource at a given time and place involves a complex of interrelations that has the capacity to influence the environment in the present or the future. For example, the management of water resources cannot occur without affecting other natural resources. Since the environment includes all living and nonliving features,...