Robert Goodland

Environmental sustainability in agriculture: diet matters

Abstract There is no agreement that diet matters for environmental sustainability in the agriculture sector. Much current agriculture is unsustainable and worsening; the environmental impact of agriculture degrades natural capital (e.g. loss of topsoil, waste and pollution of water, nutrient loss, extinction of species). Cattle raising is one of the most damaging components of agriculture. Livestock now eat about half of global grain production. There is limited scope for improving food supply and what scope there is will further damage the environment. All means to improve nutrition, especially for the poor, will be needed as population increases. One such means is to improve diets of the rich by eating lower down the food chain. While most people in the world thrive on mainly grain-based diets, carnivory is high in OECD and is increasing in LDCs. In order to reduce food wastage and to improve health and food availability, a food conversion efficiency tax is proposed. The least efficient converters (pork, beef) would be highly taxed; more efficient converters (poultry, eggs, dairy) would be moderately taxed. Most efficient converters (ocean fish) would be taxed lowest. Grain for human food would not be taxed, while coarse grains might be modestly subsidized. Non-food agriculture also would be taxed: highest on tobacco and on starches destined for alcoholic beverages produced from land suitable for food production.

Neoclassical economics and principles of sustainable development

Abstract This paper reviews the principal policy-related issues for which the professions of ecology and economics provide conflicting prescriptions. Emphasis is placed on the work of the World Bank, although the issues raised are relevant to a broad range of organizations. Rather than providing definitive solutions, the paper suggests an agenda for research in the ecology-economics interface. Present-day neoclassical economic theory and its applications to development policy seriously overlook or undervalue major ecological concerns. The economic values of environmental services, while very real, are systematically underestimated in cost-benefit analysis because of measurement and valuation difficulties. ‘Intangible’ environmental benefits, such as those derived from the preservation of biological diversity, are recognized even less in economic analysis. The irreversible environmental effects of projects or policies are usually treated no differently from more reversible effects. The practice of discounting economic costs and benefits strongly favors projects with short-term benefits and long-term costs, often (though not always) with highly negative environmental effects. Using Gross National Product as a measure of development progress encourages rapid overexploitation of a countrys natural resource base. Extravagant natural resource consumption by industrialized countries may undermine long-term development prospects of developing countries. The emphasis of many developing countries on export crops rather than domestic food production often entails major environmental costs. The paper outlines some of the principles of ecologically sustainable development. At the project level, safe minimum standards are an important environmental supplement to cost-benefit analysis. At the national policy level, steady-state economics can be used to reconcile economic planning with the limits to growth in natural resource consumption.

An ecological-economic assessment of deregulation of international commerce under GATT

This paper discusses the ecological-economic implications of deregulation of trade as promoted by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).1 This includes both environmental2 and socio-economic factors such as standards of living and equity. We outline fifteen overlapping problems with deregulation or “free” trade. We argue that many environmental problems cannot be resolved equitably, efficiently, or sustainably by unregulated markets, and that there is no alternative to public intervention in certain situations. We repeat the 1987 Brundtland Commissions question of how far into international trade should regulation penetrate (WCED, 1987)? The Commissions call for GATTs environmental reform 3 has not yet been heeded.

Environmental ranking of Amazonian development projects in Brazil

The types of development that now prevail virtually throughout Brazilian Amazonia are transforming vast areas of forest to other ecosystems, a devestation that has become a matter of national controversy. The aim of this paper is to indicate some of the possible environmental costs and benefits of the various choices of development projects. It does not maintain that the forest be totally protected in perpetuity, but that it be approached with the optimal combination of projects over time. Development projects will continue and some will create adverse environmental impacts. This paper seeks to help choose, design, and locate projects in such a way as to minimize these adverse impacts.

Why Northern income growth is not the solution to Southern poverty

Abstract Decreasing Southern poverty is arguably todays main goal of economic development. The two main views on how this can be achieved are not compatible. The traditional view, held by most economists and development agencies, is not working well. The traditional view is that rich Northern high-consumption societies should consume yet more in order to help the South by providing larger markets. This paper outlines the alternative view: that the North should stabilize its resource consumption and reduce its damage to global life-support systems. Any higher consumption must come from productivity improvements rather than from increased throughput growth. If natural resources were infinite, then growth would be unreservedly good. Since resources are finite, more Northern growth inevitably means less room for Southern growth. For example, the North has consumed much global sink capacity by its CO 2 and CFC emissions. Productivity improvements must replace throughput growth as the path of progress for the North and eventually for the South as well.

Tropical moist forest management: the urgency of transition to sustainability.

The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), an increasing number of citizens and foresters, and the vast majority of environmentalists, must surely realize that most current use of tropical moist forest is unsustainable. The environmental services of tropical forest, and the biodiversity which it harbours — the worlds richest source — is being lost so rapidly that consumer boycotts and other trade constraints aim to reduce the rate of irreversible damage but have so far proved little-effective. On one hand, tropical moist deforestation benefits exceedingly few people, and then only ephemerally. On the other hand, such deforestation permanently impoverishes, deracinates, or sickens, millions of people, impairs local or global environmental services, and exacerbates global environmental risks. The World Resources Institute ranks logging as one of the top causes leading to deforestation.

The Urgent Need for Rapid Transition to Global Environmental Sustainability

This paper outlines the concept of environmental sustain-ability (ES), shows why it is important to make it a top-priority goal, and why that will be difficult to attain but essential. The ES equation of impact = population × affluence × technology, is outlined. When the world approaches stability in both population size and the throughput of energy and materials per unit of production, we may indeed be approaching sustainability. As the worlds population is apt to double every 40 years, and as only a few countries ( e.g. Japan and Sweden) have managed so far to reduce the energy intensity of production, we are hurtling away from sustainability rather than even approaching it. Environmental sustainability can be approached by implementing four priorities: first, by using sound microeconomic means; second, by using sound macroeconomics to differentiate between use and liquidation of natural capital by means of environmental accounting; third, by using environmental assessment to incorporate environmental costs into project appraisal; and fourth—until the first three become fully achieved—by following operational guidelines for sustainability. Thus: 1) Sound Microeconomic Means involve: (1) Getting the prices right: to reflect full social marginal opportunity cost; use the ‘full cost’ principle, or the ‘cradle-to-grave’ approach. (2) Repealing perverse fiscal incentives. (3) Strengthening the ‘polluter pays’ principles. (4) Including non-monetary values in project justification. (5) Adopting the transparency principle that markets can function efficiently only if relevant information is available at low cost. This involves the participation of people in decisions affecting them, and advertising who is polluting what and by how much. 2) Sound Macroeconomics by Environmental Accounting is essential to discern decapitalization and to shift to using income rather than drawing down capital assets. Environmental accounting clarifies what is liquidation of natural capital from what is income. This is essential because decapitalization is frequently confused as income. Environmental accounting warns us when liquidation of potentially renewable resources exceeds their regeneration rates, such as in many forests. 3) Environmental Assessment is part of the project selection process. The purpose of EA is to ensure that the development options under consideration are environmentally sustainable. Any environmental consequences should be addressed in project selection, planning, siting, and design. EAs identify ways of preventing, minimizing, mitigating, or compensating for, adverse impacts. 4) Sustainability Guidelines: Until the first three rules are heeded and duly acted on, the following guidelines will be necessary: 1, Output Rule: —waste emissions from a project should be within the assimilative capacity of the local environment to absorb without unacceptable de-gradation of its future waste-absorptive capacity; and 2, Input Guide: —harvest rates or renewable resource inputs should be within regenerative capacity of the natural system that generates them. Depletion rates of non-renewable resource inputs should not exceed the rate at which renewable substitutes are developed by human invention and investment.

If tropical log export bans are so perverse, why are there so many?

Abstract A substantial number of tropical timber-owning nations have enacted bans or similar provisions constraining the export of crude logs. Job creation, capturing value-added, and improving the efficiency of domestic processing are often given as reasons for such bans. However, neoclassical economics finds such bans uneconomic, and development agencies often support their repeal. This paper examines this contradiction and offers reasons why: (a) log export bans are defensible in certain realistic circumstances and (b) certain theoretical arguments against log export bans often lack relevance.

Burden sharing in the transition to environmental sustainability

Abstract Unbridled consumerism in developed nations, marked by increased use of environmental resources, competes with escalating population growth in developing nations as principal threats to environmental sustainability. The paper examines the issue of sustainability through the I = P × A × T identity, whereby the impact of any population or nation on environmental sources and sinks is a product of its population, its level of affluence, and the damage done by the technologies that support that affluence. Population stabilization is essential in the transition towards sustainability. Likewise, reduced consumption, poverty alleviation and improved management of environmental resources are key in this transition. Finally, technology transfers to low-income nations are vital in reducing environment throughput. In closing, the article outlines priorities for high-and low-income nations alike, pointing out that changes in public perceptions about the concept of development are needed to avoid overshooting the carrying capacity of the Earth.

An ecological-economic assessment of deregulation of international commerce under GATT Part II

This paper discusses the ecological-economic implications of deregulation of trade as promoted by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). This includes both environmental and socioeconomic factors such as standards of living and equity. We outline fifteen overlapping problems with deregulation or free trade. We argue that many environmental problems cannot be resolved equitably efficiently or sustainably by unregulated markets and that there is no alternative to public intervention in certain situations. (EXCERPT)