Can Democracy Foster Environmental Justice & Sustainable Development?

What are the inherent rights of the environment? The environment, by definition, that which is everything that surrounds us. Our fundamental rights as human beings includes the right to live in a healthy and safe environment. To live in a healthy environment means that regardless of our background, culture, race or income, people should be able to participate in the development, implementation and enforcement of policies that protect our environment. This is the basis of environmental justice.


Protesting is one way a community fights for environmental justice.

Environmental justice began as a grassroots social movement in the 1980's so it is a relatively new idea. Today it features part of environmental discourse for the protection of the people whom are more vulnerable, people with the least power and money, from seeing their environmental rights denied. Environmental justice is an agenda that argues for the communities that are often exposed to a range of environmental stresses and risks than others and so aims to integrate social justice and equity considerations into a framework which extends into political and environmental ethics. But does democracy facilitate environmental justice and how does it relate to sustainable development?

Sustainable development is about ensuring that development meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future. This is achieved through an in integrated approach to decision-making over the economy, environment and society. It is within the social context that environmental justice relates to sustainable development with values of social justice, fairness and poverty reduction. Democracy is congruous with the principle of information sharing and citizen engagement for equal say in making informed decisions about protecting rights to a clean environment. So there are various concepts and values in environmental justice that is compatible with sustainability and democracy.

Democracy can foster sustainability and environmental justice but it is constrained and sometimes it doesn't. Short-term interests based on electoral cycles, such as giving a disproportionate amount of focus on issues like economic growth, is one reason governments limit action towards sustainability and environmental justice. Initiatives, such as wind farms, eco-town planning and landscaping, and voluntary home saving measures have been slow in some countries because of community opposition. A lack of community acceptance has been linked to failures in policy delivery and limited public knowledge on the issue. This means that slow moving initiatives could have improved with better information exchange. There is also a level of distrust in government because they may have the interests of a group rather than the whole community, the translation of good intentions doesn't work out in practice because of lack of competence among bureaucracy and governments have a tendency to limit the right information needed for decision-making by compartmentalising issues. Some democracies outright violate fundamental human rights and fail to provide proper access to information and to justice. Other constraints to the movement is a lack of a unifying framework, to properly map ethics of equity and environmental justice which have varying definitions and implications to different communities.

When democracy does not foster the kind of social and environmental justice that is embedded in sustainable development, an erosion of democracy is likely to result. Research continues into finding ways to equip democracy to deliver environmental justice and sustainable development. This includes determining means that improve the quality of consultation and involvement at the local level. It is unknown if a decentralisation of power on sustainable development to local authorities is better than a centralised, global authority as one can result in an unequal distribution of innovation and the other will have the power to create innovation that may not carry public support. What needs to be remembered is that democracy for environmental justice and sustainability is more than action by elected representatives and realising the power of citizens in creating social justice.

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/elizabethbw/8227835280/">Elizabeth Brossa</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a