Explore the meaning of 'sustainable development' in the Southeast Asian context. Can one make a case for a distinctively Southeast Asian definition of this concept?

Explore the meaning of ‘sustainable development’ in the Southeast Asian context. Can one make a case for a distinctively Southeast Asian definition of this concept?

The concept of ‘sustainable development’ has become an area of intense debate and extensive discourse since its inclusion in the report ‘Our Common Future’, a document prepared by the World Commission on Environment and Development which espoused a form of development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” (Brenton, 1994:129) The importance of linking development and the environment was realised and popularised, subsequently the search for sustainability became the new ethos for governments and environmentalists alike. Following the promulgation of the sustainable development concept, its actual meaning became increasingly clouded, with different definitions being adopted across groups. Academics contended that the common usage of ‘sustainable development’ was too narrow in its preoccupation with stewardship and the interests of future generations, and while these were important factors in the concept, it should also include other goals, such as “providing adequate income… reducing disparities…[and] providing equitable access to resources.” (Pierce, 1992:312)

Global environmental summits such as the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, and the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) ten years later in Johannesburg, received extensive criticism and moderate success. The various agreements and conventions put forward at UNCED were characterised by heated debate and disagreement mainly along North/South lines (although we should be aware that this is a crude distinction). The Prime Minister of Malaysia was particularly forthright in what he saw as Western hypocrisy surrounding environmental issues and sustainable development and spoke of the sovereign right to exploit forest resources. What these conventions and the debates within in them have highlighted is the internationalisation of the environment and the promulgation of sustainable development as a universal concern, both in conceptualisation and in application. However, conceptualising sustainable development is in itself problematic, as it is likely to mean different things to different people at different stages in development.

Southeast Asia, with its trends of rapid economic growth and large-scale environmental degradation, provides an excellent contextual base from which to explore the meaning of sustainable development. The region is exemplary in displaying requirements for more ‘sustainable’ development methods and processes in the midst of the rapidity of political, environmental and economic change. It is also a region within which to analyse what Parnwell and Bryant describe as the “intensely political nature of sustainable development-from its initial definition to its attempted implementation.” (Parnwell and Bryant, 1996:2) How the political nature of the concept manifests itself within the Southeast Asian context is discussed herein, with particular reference to the state as an influential catalyst for the processes of change. As well as being political in nature, the broader meaning of sustainable development encompasses social, historical and cultural considerations alongside regard for production and the environment and the interplay between these elements. This essay aims to apply these various facets and criteria to the Southeast Asian context and to present a discussion concerning the universal promulgation of sustainability within a diverse region engaged in several stages of development.

The political nature of sustainable development in contemporary Southeast Asia has been largely conditioned by historical influences, particularly those during the colonial interlude, which have initiated a resource dependency in the region. The centrality of export-orientated resource extraction to the region’s economies has dealt Southeast Asia’s environment a significant blow, with many countries being practically ‘logged out’. Moreover, this continuing process has begun to push the resource exploitation into peripheral areas, such as the formerly socialist countries that border the ‘exploited’ nations. Consequently the ‘exploited’ are now the ‘exploiters’ exemplified by Thai logging companies moving into the abundant forest reserves of Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. Rapid resource extraction for an export-orientated economy has been exacerbated by patterns of permanent agriculture, with cleared land being used to produce cash crops. Parnwell and Bryant use the Burmese example to describe the interconnectedness of colonial politics and environmental change. “[T]he widespread conversion of forest to field in southern Burma would not have occurred without a package of incentives offered to peasants by the colonial state designed to facilitate this process.” (Parnwell and Bryant, 1996:5) Sovereignty and the socially constructed nation-state have also played a crucial role in environmental degradation in Southeast Asia, by creating an exploitative tradition within its territories for large financial rewards. The implications for sustainable development in contemporary Southeast Asia should be viewed within this historical context as it offers the observer a pattern of human-environment interaction which has wide political and ecological ramifications.

There is a need to understand the political sources and their motivations to better comprehend what sustainable development might mean in the Southeast Asian context. “Political ecology addresses environmental questions through a political-economic lens of state, capital and social formation, which determines patterns of control over natural resources.” (Hirsch and Warren, 1998:55) While the state is an influential actor and catalyst of environmental change, there remains a conflict in its role. “[T]here is an inherent, continuing potential for conflict between the state’s roles as developer and as protector and steward of the natural environment on which its existence ultimately depends.” (Walker, 1989:32) Tensions between the state’s desire for economic growth and the inevitability of environmental damage are illustrated in the recent construction of the Nam Theun Hinboun hydro-power project in Laos, with which it hopes to become the battery for Southeast Asia and earn valuable foreign exchange for its struggling economy. The significant environmental costs, such as disruption in the local community’s primary sources of food and income are a consequence of many dam projects, which are often touted as the epitome of sustainable development. “[H]ydroelectric dams are a perfect example of “renewable” or sustainable development, largely because of the use of water as their fuel and the fact that the dams employ technologies that are non-greenhouse gas emitting.” (Sullivan, 1999:302) The construction of the Pak Mun Dam in Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani province received a torrent of dramatic protests from local people, who argued that it was an explicit threat to their livelihoods, and it became a main feature of the media during community protests in demand for damage compensation. It is in Laos however, where the conflict of needs is most poignant, as one of the poorest countries in Asia tries to make the transition from socialist to market-based economy by harnessing its massive hydroelectric potential.

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These kinds of projects show how state policy plays such a crucial role in contemporary human-environment interaction and demonstrate the kinds of dilemmas faced by governments and the impact on local communities. The Nam Theun Hinboun project also shows the importance of contextualising sustainable development for the purpose of analysing priorities in different stages of the development process. These priorities differ according to state, business or community needs, and at the global, regional, national and local levels. In Southeast Asia there is a dependency on resources and resource exploitation is continuing because economic growth is prioritised at the state level. The meaning of sustainable development in the region is also defined by the input of and control over business enterprise, which in Southeast Asia continues to be dominated by ‘crony capitalism’, and the relatively recent influx of trans-national corporations, which have both been instrumental in the process of industrialisation with profound ecological and social impacts. “The politics of industrialisation …reveal the centrality of the state-corporate nexus in the political economy of Southeast Asian development.” (Hirsch and Warren, 1998:17) Business elites may feel threatened by efforts to implement environmentally protective measures, or development which purports to be ‘sustainable’ because their power is often maintained with profits derived from non-renewable resources.

The role of the state is not only essential to the way development is implemented in the region, but it also influences the way sustainable development is understood. Moreover, the wide manipulation of the concept and the way it is practiced is largely a consequence of government needs and priorities. Current political rhetoric focuses on the inclusion of a universalistic sustainable development concept in the policy making process, but implements it according to the state’s definition of what sustainable forms of development might constitute, or what might be most suitable for their political or economic interests. The elusiveness of the concept encourages varying interpretations of sustainable development practice. ‘Our Common Future’, while espousing a universal form of sustainable development, recognised that there remain certain conditions affecting promotion of a common cause. “[O]ur inability to promote the common interest in sustainable development is often a product of the relative neglect of economic and social justice within and amongst nations.” (WCED, 1987:49) In the Southeast Asian context its meaning has been applied in several controversial areas. An area in which analysis is particularly illustrative is that of eco-tourism, which encompasses the issues of needs and priorities while demonstrating the continuing lack of regard for elements contained within the broader notion of the sustainable development concept.

Eco-tourism is used to describe a type of tourism that purports to be more environmentally aware and responsible, but is arguably an ostensibly sustainable activity. In Southeast Asia, eco-tourism is adopted by governments and private enterprises and sold to tourists in the form of new and exciting destinations. However, over time, as numbers of tourists intensify, the impact they have on local environments will increase, alongside greater control of activities by the tourist industry as it vies to profit from increasing demands. Eco-tourism in Indonesia has witnessed the opening of various national parks to increasing numbers of tourists, but as Cochrane notes, they are having little benefit on local ecosystems and communities. “[E]cotourism …in Indonesia is not currently making much of a contribution to conservation, and there are certainly few examples of it being sustainable.” (Cochrane, 1996:259) Similarly, in Thailand’s Northern province of Chiang Mai, ‘eco-treks’ are promoted to offer tourists ‘rare’ glimpses of hill minorities in their natural environments, but they remain extremely problematic, as there is an absence of organisational involvement from the hill minorities themselves. Moreover, they have become so popular that they are now a serious threat to hill communities, whose needs are rarely considered, and whose fragile lifestyles are overexposed. It is these very activities that form part of the region’s new promotion of sustainable development practice.

Control over ostensibly sustainable activities leads me into the related issue of indigenous knowledge and indigenous people’s contribution to the development process. The value of indigenous knowledge is argued to be paramount if sustainable forms of development are to occur. “Of critical importance to sustainable development is a concern for land usage and the need for popular input into developmental decisions.” (Sullivan, 1999:300) Many development approaches now advocate and try to implement a participatory modus operandi in development practice, a mixture between a ‘bottom-up’ and a ‘top-down’ approach. Colchester contends that there is an existence of “social, cultural and institutional strengths inherent in traditional systems of resource use upon which to achieve sustainability.” (Colchester, 1993:81) However, it is also important to recognise that “not all indigenous resource-use practices are ecologically and environmentally sound and …are indisputably “sustainable” and above criticism.” (Lian, 1993:331) It may be inherently problematic to assume that indigenous peoples provide substantial lessons in sustainable development. But in practice the concept may face premature barriers or limits unless policies focus on cultural traits and indigenous knowledge to help direct them to the most pragmatic procedure. The viability/sustainability of development scenarios could then be determined by reviewing contextual variations in social and political structures and situations, by being aware of the need to consider the appropriate course of action for different development scenarios. Indigenous knowledge could assist and advise when particular development scenarios are met with challenges, or are not being implemented as planned. Unfortunately, as we have seen in the eco-tourism example, different agendas, priorities and vested interests often impede what might become a more sustainable process.

It is contextual variations that provide the core of this discussion. As the environment is placed at the forefront of debate in western societies, increased attention has moved towards so-called ‘global’ environmental problems such as climate change and the protection of biodiversity. One would assume, from the outcomes of global conventions on the environment and sustainable development, that most governments are concerned about these ‘global’ issues. However, at a local level climate change might not even be understood, let alone considered relevant to a person’s needs. Abraham Maslow’s theory that there exists a ‘hierarchy of needs’ offers a contention that humans are primarily motivated by unsatisfied needs. Maslow purports that certain ‘lower’ needs, such as food and shelter need to be “satisfied before we begin to seek knowledge and fulfilment” (Gwynne, 1997), or become concerned with issues of the environment. It is a useful theory in the context of this discussion, and relevant to the anthropocentric statements made by Southeast Asian politicians in defence of their resource extraction. We could also argue that the issues of climate change and biodiversity that are driving environmental debates in developed societies may not hold much sway with a Southeast Asian labourer, whose employment with a logging contractor has brought his family an improved standard of living. So can we really expect people living on the poverty line to act or even care about environmental problems when they are not experiencing threats to their own livelihoods? Once again the need to recognise the differences between global and local problems, as well as the importance of contextualising priorities and concerns becomes apparent. Differing needs and priorities exist not only between the global and the local levels, but between the national and regional levels as well. The patterns and processes of industrialisation and human-environment interaction in Southeast Asia have been influenced by varying factors; development must take these variations into account if it is to increase its concern for inter-generational equity. There also remains an ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ perspective to what is best for whom and for whence it is most suitable. “[There is] a rising interest in research which moves away from global sustainability analysis towards empirical policy-relevant research at the regional and urban level. (Giaoutzi and Nijkamp, 1999:8)

The criteria that feed into the meaning of sustainable development demonstrate what must be considered when implementing development practices. Sustainable development as a universal concept is therefore, problematic when we take into account the diversity of the Southeast Asian region. The consideration of varying factors in the political, socio-cultural and economic realms should be inherent in the conceptualisation of sustainability and sustainable development practice to ensure that methods can be implemented more successfully. It is important to recognise the relationships between criteria to better understand the forces and impacts of change. For example, while the espousal of a universalistic sustainable development definition is problematic, it is also unhelpful to separate the processes of environmental change from the impact of international economic forces. “The environment in the international economy is an internationalised environment and one which often exists to serve economic and political interests far removed from a specific physical ‘location’ (Redclift, 1987:79)

Advocacy of the need for conceptual variations to be incorporated in the meaning of sustainable development, should thus be aware and in accordance with the requirements of particular peoples and environments at different stages of development. Examples of this are struggling to take place in the region and still become entwined with the vested interests of states and to a lesser degree, social forces, further supporting the notion that sustainable development is ripe with political meaning. In the southern provinces of Sulawesi and also in Bali, Gertler (1993) researched Indonesian government efforts to implement sustainable development whilst considering particular localised conditions. “[E]mphasis [in the two Sulawesi provinces] was placed on improving strength in [the]sectors [of] agriculture, health [and] education positioned to meet the basic needs of the people.” (Mitchell, 1994:146) In Bali, a sustainable development project reinforced resource and cultural conservation. Both plans were, however, implemented through the five-year ‘Repelitada’, the Indonesian government Regional Development Plan. Ibrahim noted the importance of including localised specificities in state interest dominated environmental discourse. “[The discourse] is not meant to be a ‘cultural’ or ‘regional’ construct, constituting a separate South-East Asian paradigm per se. It should be seen rather as a set of selective universal attributes that are articulated with certain South-East Asian cultural and historical specificities.” (Ibrahim, 1998:344-345) The current universalistic sustainable development discourse does not yet encompass the distinctiveness of certain regional contexts or the specificities within those contexts and thus encounters problems during stages of implementation.

Dividing the concept of sustainable development into global, regional, national and local definitions could also be problematic, as it could undermine the collective global effort to implement the concept. We have already seen the way states use the concept in different ways and implement it according to their particular interests, which are often little more than a ‘greenwash’ of already unsustainable practices. To argue the case for a region specific definition of sustainable development would expose it even further to political manipulation and could potentially hinder successful implementation efforts. Essentially, dividing the definition of sustainable development into meanings with contextual considerations illustrates the difference in priorities at different stages of development and across groups. At the global level (nested in the throngs of environmental discourse) we have increased concern in so-called ‘global’ issues, namely climate change, decrease in biodiversity levels and the destruction of forest reserves. These issues continue to be the focus of debate at global environmental conferences such as UNCED and WSSD. At the regional level interests and priorities differ according to that particular region’s needs and requirements. In Southeast Asia there has been a pattern of resource exploitation that has dramatically decreased levels of forest cover and subsequently depletion in biodiversity. However, it has resulted in processes of rapid industrialisation and economic development, creating Newly Industrialised Countries in Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. Other states in the Southeast Asian region, particularly states that are changing from socialist to market-based economies, are now beginning to follow the same destructive path towards economic development and reform. Nationally, the influence of the state becomes paramount to issues regarding sustainable development. At this level, conflicts of interests often lead to unsustainable forms of development exemplified in dam projects, mines or ‘reafforestation’ schemes often promoted as sustainable, but with largely negative social and environmental impacts. Locally, we have varying environments, cultures, and social hierarchies which are often powerless to contribute to the implementation process, but who are essential to the sustainability of development processes.

Context, therefore, is imperative to the meaning of sustainable development. The issues occurring within these varying strata are fundamentally affected by the needs and priorities of communities, states or regional alliances which are now imposing greater influence in the region. Nijkamp and Vreeker offer a succinct analysis of the significance of context: “It should be noted that the openness of a regional system may create a complication, as externalities may be imported or exported via trade or dispersion of pollution. Consequently, …[a distinction is made] between internal and external sustainability, where external sustainability takes also into consideration the spill over effects to and from other areas…Clearly seen from this perspective, sustainability is context specific and may hence be co-determined by needs and opportunities in a given region as part of a broader spatial system.” (Nijkamp and Vreeker, 1999:8)

As the processes of globalisation and regional integration become more implicit within the Southeast Asian society, governments are vying to position themselves within a global economic order. The processes of development have regional trends and similarities and are also affected by externalities and the new international division of labour. Sustainable development in the region is ripe with political, social, cultural and environmental meaning that manifests itself in varying ways largely conditioned by context. Therefore, a global, eco-centric sustainable development concept that is, or is seen to be, driven by rich western nations becomes wrought with inadequacy when implemented within national or local environments. “[L]ocation-specific circumstances should be taken into account in the operationalization of the sustainability concept [.]” (Nijkamp and Vreeker, 1999:13)

It may be easy to criticise the actions of states in the region when observing their track records regarding the environment, because criticism comes easy when we consider the environmental implications of state development policy and nest them within our idealistic framework for the future of the natural environment. Southeast Asia, with its particular or varying stages of development may be best suited to a realistic and pragmatic sustainable development approach, as governments and communities continue to be faced with a ‘Hobson’s choice’ when it comes to sustainable development. “All governments must prioritise their efforts, usually based on complicated and country-specific formulas of political, fiscal and economic pressures and constraints.” (Schubert, 1993:246-247) Perhaps compromise between development and sustainability, or between personal interests and the greater good would be the most realistic course of action for the region in its current developmental phases, but then we are faced with differing opinions on what the ‘greater good’ might be, or indeed for whom!

The conflicts emerging from sustainable development discourse seem to coincide with conflicts arising from implementation efforts. At the heart of these conflicts remain differing sets of values, interests, priorities and needs that fluctuate not only across social strata and political interests, but also across scenarios, in which the development process is at different stages of implementation. “[A] sustainable development strategy cannot be fixed or static. It must evolve, and also be custom-designed for conditions specific to place and culture.” (Mitchell, 1994:146) In a diverse region such as Southeast Asia there is a clear need not only for a distinctive Southeast Asian definition of sustainable development, but for particular nationalised and localised definitions as well. While at risk of confusing and deepening the concept even further, there remains a need to break down the elements that make up certain contexts and apply the definition that is most suitable to a particular development scenario in the effort to make it sustainable.

3668 Words.

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