Understanding New Modes of Environmental Governance | Prakash C.J.

Introduction: Environmental governance is a concept in political ecology used to find best solutions to contentious issues affecting environmental management. ‘Governance’ signifies the act or process of governing to address collective needs, problems and challenges - a social function covering all instruments and mechanisms. More specifically, environmental governance in relation to public goods deals with problems of varying nature, their temporal and spatial effects, often transboundary, cross-sectoral and complex. Often it has to deal with a high level of scientific uncertainty, unpredictability and risk that may cause governance deficit and ineffective performance. South Asia in general and India in particular confronts major environmental as well as socio-ecological challenges: increasing conflicts generated by the development strategies coupled with environmental degradation and climate crisis. Since the framing of environmental laws for effective governance initiated in the 1970’s, the conventional idea of environmental protection remained the mainstay of new environmentalism starting in the preceding decade with the publication of Silent Spring. This new environmentalism later shifted to the sustainable development discourse, still contested for its neoliberal connotation.

From the very beginning when environmentalism emerged as one of the most controversial and rapidly growing areas of public policy, the focus was more on conservation and ’ill-conceived’ notion of environmental protection. The green movements of the Global North (Environmentalism of the Rich) and the local resistance and grass-root movements of the Global South (Environmentalism of the Poor) figured respectively in environmental policymaking and governance. India enacted several policies and regulations for environmental protection and conservation in the process of struggle and quest for a progressive legislation, but without ensuring a responsive delivery system and necessary political will for conflict resolution.

The environmental governance is influenced by bureaucratic hierarchies (state), market and social networks. The state influences and in turn gets influenced by markets and formal as well as informal institutions. The non-state actors are conflict-ridden, acting mainly as a local pressure group. Therefore, a multi-dimensional approach giving consideration to political processes, institutional structures and policy reveals the complexity of governance. This calls for reconceptualization and framework development for different modes of governance. Compared to dominant governance model, the ‘new’ governance mode(s) is target-oriented with flexible administrative action, directed at specific groups, taking them on board in various ways. Whereas existing model of governance is legitimized by democratic majority votes, the new model based on cooperative policy instruments have other sources of legitimacy: negotiated consensus, involvement of ’affected parties’, and documentary proof of effectiveness [1].

In this essay, an attempt has been made to understand the emerging new mode of environmental governance in response to environmental and climate crisis affecting the lives and livelihoods in vulnerable South Asian region. Further it also explores the possibility of a viable alternative to dominant frameworks. Latin America has already made significant progress in this direction. There is a rich tapestry of local/regional movements everywhere. The European Union (EU) provides a distinct example providing scope for ‘speculation’ on new modes of environmental governance. The purpose of present essay is not to vilify or reject the dominant modes, nor to uncritically accept ‘new’ alternatives within and beyond the academy, but to understand the ‘alluring’ alternatives in popular imagination that will be challenging to realize. Starting with sustainability transition challenge issues, the new modes of governance will be discussed for a strategic vision focussing on transboundary problems between India and Nepal within alternative development paradigm, concluding with a rethink for ‘sustainable’ futures in the regional/sub-regional frame.

Sustainability Challenges: Sustainable transition concept has a dual meaning. There is a growing scientific debate on suitability of certain modes of governance, but there is no agreement on how to assess the social function of governance modes. Besides, the neoliberal ’anarchy’ (unsustainability) of production and consumption with existing socio-technical regime for food, energy, water, and waste disposal sectors have pushed the need for sustainability transition. Transition can be natural, forced or both due to the sequence of events in a crisis situation. Unfortunately, today’s transition is a result of multiple crisis driven by finance capital. Always known for findings its way out, capitalism is ‘notorious’ for resolving its own crisis through reinvention of nature as capital [2]. Nature has always been intrinsic to the development process. So, ecological crisis is not only a result of development but part of development process. ‘Green’ transition in particular hurts developing countries like India, where diverse ecosystems and developmental pressures offer unique challenges. On the other hand, developed economies relatively face low intensity problems. Because the ‘green’ transition can be financed by money collected through tax to support transition that makes economy more resilient. This is likely to make global culture’s unsustainable cultural imperative of perpetual capital accumulation which is reducing the earth’s stocks of water, soil, forests, and fisheries to dangerously low levels disrupting ecosystems and natural cycles on an unprecedented scale [3].

Sustainability transition sometimes results from a comprise in conflict-driven socio-ecological systems. The market-oriented transition management perspective indicates that these transformations cannot be managed in the traditional hierarchical sense. Therefore, new modes of governance are required to deal with the complexity and nature of sustainability issues. Taking a broader perspective, the new modes can be participatory, collaborative, multilevel, and network governance. These modes of governance differ according to the actors involved and the nature of their interactions and encompass different political processes, institutional structures, and policy content. The assumption is that new modes of governance can distance themselves from conventional approaches based on top-down control favouring transition initiatives that promote transformative processes toward a more resilient and sustainable society. However, the inherent embeddedness of the public service is recognized, which requires transitions in governance itself through institutional adaptations and changes in the role of actors and public officials [4].

The last two decades have seen a tendency to shift from representative governance to more participatory structures, from policy issues that are solely top-down to those that reflect local and regional priorities within a national, regional and international framework. This calls for simplification, integration, and re-prioritisation of modes of governance. India’s track record of environmental performance even during the heyday of "environmentalism" has never been up to the mark. Under the current political regime, it would rather be difficult to pursue a fairly ‘good’ governance model. Obviously, the present governance failure is ascribed to the lack of political will in the face of competing interests. It is also true, despite several progressive legislations, the ongoing policies have failed to deliver due to their superficial protective coverage, absence of concrete measures and poor execution (Sarada Prasanna Das, 2023). Based on a path-dependent analysis of the environmental governance in India, it is argued that balance in the environment-development trade-off is necessary to meet growth objectives and the enforcement measures do not necessarily obstruct the growth. Further, more public engagement as well as creative politics are required for better environmental decision-making [5] .The entire policy-making enterprise within sustainable development framework and the impact assessment procedure represents development politics which tends to dilute environmental policy. The next question is how do we proceed from this point in the most vulnerable South Asian region. Already, the impacted local/regional commons like air-shed, water basin and biodiversity (both terrestrial and marine) have spillover impacts over the national or sub-national boundaries affecting health and livelihoods in the most densely populated region. The related questions from the class angle to multi-species perspective is how to approach and where is the voice and who can speak for the most vulnerable? The dualism inherent in the socio-ecosystems approach, is an accepted fact in the interdependent entities (nature and society). This dualism appears to be necessary to understand and wage a battle against class and social injustice together. Other research ï¬ elds have adopted different approaches regarding human–nature integration versus dualism, offering a window on the advantages and limitations of various positions [6]. Therefore, methodological choices become critical on human-nature integration or dichotomy. If human beings are treated as just another ecological entity by considering socio-ecological interactions as self-adaptive, this may result in an ‘apolitical’ vision of the ecological crisis leaving the structural ambiguities unaddressed.

As environmental governance is becoming more complex in the global context, solutions are expected to address negative externalities globally while considering local and regional factors. Despite all mitigation efforts, the planet has already warmed by over 1 °C since 1850–1900 with the last four decades being successively warmer, and this warming is projected to continue until at least 2050 under all emissions scenarios (IPCC, 2021). To have a reasonable chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C, greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by 45 % by 2030 compared to those expected under current policies and must continue to decline rapidly after this (UNEP, 2022). This seems unlikely given that global policy changes have only achieved projected reductions of 0.5 GtCO2e compared to the situation at COP 26 (UNEP, 2022). Therefore, the local commons including biodiversity have had to cope with extensive climate change in recent decades and will have to deal with further changes in future also. The mode of governance issue is therefore more compelling, complex and difficult to handle not only for a deliberative democracy but also a matter of concern requiring immediate action.

Governance Concern: The mode of governance concern is not a new development. For decades new modes have been discussed, debated and experimented with as an alternative to the existing models of development, but practised on a limited scale. At best, these can be possible supportive options but not be substituted with the dominant models. Transitioning to new modes of environmental governance could possibly serve as an alternative in the midst of ’good’ governance approach promoted to subterfuge the neo-liberal intent. The Latin American (LA) critical thinking has reference to productivist vision of development and modernity that has opened up to the vast plurality of popular movements in search of autonomy and enhancement of rights, and to the unique and constitutive relationship that communities have with their local nature and territories [7]. It questions how contestations between knowledge systems and ways of being in the world come together with questions of environmental justice and injustice, class, race, and social costs to future generations when industrial production, infrastructure, and consumption destroy the very basis of urban and rural livelihoods: water, forests, and biodiversity? [8]
This is a new beginning in Latin American context as the study of power relations across socio-environmental disciplines has introduced interdisciplinary area of thinking on society/environmental relations. The new environmental governance modes have attracted more research work on framework development. Luisa E. Delgado et al. addressed the problems encountered to build an analytical framework to understand the environmental governance modes currently available in Latin America and to generate a new sociopolitical interdisciplinary framework involving both natural and sociopolitical systems as a contribution to a new analytical framework for environmental governance [9]. Based on Latin American experience, governance can be understood as a process involving the participation of governmental and non-governmental actors reaching decisions, for mutual benefits, through negotiation processes. However, the study acknowledges that there is no inclusive and participative governance oriented towards the sustainable use of natural resources and no unified theoretical framework to deal with environmental governance issues. The recent Latin American efforts at best are a step forward in conceptualizing environmental governance (from the Global South). At a regional scale, discursive turns in national policies such as the introduction of the sustainable development concept have triggered an increase in studies and applications of environmental governance (e.g., forest-governance, climate change, marine coastal zones) including the use of the ecosystem services concept [10]. In "Cultural Autonomy: Social Movements Perspective" Arturo Escobar [11] considers biodiversity a “hegemonic construct…activists of these movements acknowledge that this discourse nevertheless opens up a space for the construction of culturally based forms of development that could counteract more ethnocentric and extractivist tendencies". Given the fragmented nature of environments movement discourse, there are other perspectives are also to be taken into account for a better understanding of governance modes. This brings into focus the ‘ecological civilization’ perspective which believes that environmental governance, in the light of serious environmental issues, has emerged as a crucial tactic to support the sustainable development of human civilization. Using technological approach, the level of environmental governance can be continuously optimized to strengthen the development of ‘ecological civilization’. [12]

Strategic Vision: Strategy as a vision for a desirable future, coupled with an idea of how to get there, is one of the crucial ways actors attempt to make a difference. Kristof Van Asshe, et al. has indicated the waning popularity of strategy at academic and popular level, though they too acknowledge that it has never been absent from governance, policy and planning. Strategy has been critiqued as shallow managerial wisdom, for its military connotations and association with naïve modernist ideas of steering and control. Environmental policy and planning are forms of governance, embedded in broader governance configurations, where actors make collectively binding decisions in the pursuit of public good. Strategy in governance requires investigation, before addressing the domain of environmental governance more specifically. The limitations of strategy and governance, notwithstanding, strategic vision offers the concepts of intermediate strategy and transitional governance for situations where articulation of substantive and long-term strategy might not be possible [13]. Using various levels of observation in different modes, these ideas can be synthesized into a framework conceptualizing strategies as productive fictions that require constant adaptation. They never entirely work out as expected or hoped for, yet these productive fictions are necessary and effective parts of planning and steering efforts [14]. The ground for strategic planning can thus be prepared for which there is a "need for simple, powerful, and positive stories that inspire reflection on our lives in the Anthropocene and catalyse climate action has always been there. But for the lack of planning as well as desired sociotechnical regime to enable appropriate agenda setting precipitating a logical course of action, that is, from climate crisis to social revolution is not happening [15]“. The climate action in terms of re-strategizing development paradigm is also necessary to cope with changing situation. In respect of climate change adaptation new modes could possibly be tried for producing better results by mobilizing the state apparatus more effectively. The Global Commission on Adaptation was launched in October 2018 with the mandate to “accelerate adaptation by elevating the political visibility of adaptation and focusing on concrete solutions†[16]. However, the governance mode will still remain a valid point of concern unless the basic issues affecting the people do not get resolved, even within the deliberative democracy frame.

Transboundary Problems: Thinking in terms of new mode of governance, it is imperative to address potential environmental conflicts in South Asia by initiating dialogues and discussions involving both experts and local stakeholders on common transboundary issues. In the World Social Forum held on 16-17 February 2024 in Kathmandu, an initiative was taken by civil society toward preparation of a road map for regional integration (Sagar Dhara, 2024) [17]. Some of the resolutions of the session touching the transboundary issues passed in the meeting includes: alternative development models having the potential to decrease environmental impacts, upstream polluting industries to follow environmental regulations strictly, measures to avoid environmental conflicts to be devised, methods for monitoring potential environmental conflicts and cooperation on environmental programmes to be devised, formation of a South Asian Union to help reduce the potential environmental conflicts and engender greater cooperation among South Asian nations to tackle the climate crisis, a list of points to be prepared for the people of South Asia to lobby with their respective governments to reduce potential environmental conflicts and increase cooperation in tackling the climate crisis, and last but not the least, the SACEP must be revived [18]. It was thought that cooperation among South Asian countries should go beyond the existing South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) by forming a South Asian Union (SAU) along the lines of the European Union (EU). The SAU could have a single currency and visa-free travel within the SAU. The formation of a SAU will allow greater economic cooperation (including resource sharing), cultural exchange and mutual security by phasing out weapons of mass destruction. Such an organisation would thus engender greater cooperation and be instrumental in mitigating the impacts of climate crisis in South Asia by addressing climate change issues and avoiding environmental conflicts. [19].

As water management remains the recurrent contentious issue between India and Nepal, there has to be more interactive, basin-wise, sessions to reach an understanding. Literature reviewed in the context of transboundary water conflict resolution by Tayia & Madani (2017) reveals a widening gap between theory and practice, “Although numerous studies have addressed the problems of transboundary water conflicts, very few of them have been used for planning water resources management. This gap between theory and practice is evident in engineering and economic studies of transboundary water conflicts. This theory-practice gap can be attributed to two main reasons. The first is the nature of the mechanistic approach as a “sometimes-true†theory. Each mechanism is true in some situations and not in others. Second, as has been indicated above, none of the theoretical mechanisms has a comprehensive structure that can address all the dimensions of conflict resolutions. Therefore, it can be more useful when academic research addresses a transboundary conflict to apply various conflict resolution mechanisms. In this way, literature can provide practitioners with an array of settlement options to choose of them the most feasible one in the case in question†[20].

It may be noted that historical ties and cultural proximities between India and Nepal offer distinct advantages. Nishikant Gupta et al. (2021) have provided some useful insights on transboundary water management through the application of sustainable solutions. These have the potential to generate numerous benefits like more international trade, promote climate change adaptation and resilience, increase economic growth, promote food security, and improve governance and regional integration [21]. In this regard, it would not be out of place to mention that both formal and informal discussions between Nepal and India have been taking place. Recently, an idea has been muted for holding larger consultative meeting leading to ’Peoples’ Charter’ in the format of common agenda. The Madan Bhandari Foundation, located in Kathmandu, and the Centre for the Study Nepal at Banaras Hindu University have in principle come to an understanding to host consultative meetings on the Kosi river basin for mutual cooperation on water sharing and trade facilitation issues (Personal communication, 2023). This initiative was taken at the behest of ‘Land Knowledge Research Foundation’, a non-profit organization. Similar initiatives were earlier taken by a host of other organizations in India and Nepal. The question arises, how to integrate these piece-meal efforts into a grand narrative for sub-regional cooperation. Facilitation of transboundary cooperation through a specific knowledge network, coordinated approach for capacity building, joint adaptation project formulation and implementation, high-level coordination mechanism, and the creation of an adaptation portal could be the way forward [22]. The benefits of transboundary cooperation are often determined by the political, geographic, economic, and cultural aspects of the river basin [23]. The benefits would be better management of ecosystems, increased energy production, economic benefits, and increased cooperation among countries [24]. Given the geographical and demographic characteristics involved, some of the principles of mutually beneficial local area action as contemplated in transboundary context would be: evolving a common programme addressing structural inequalities faced by vulnerable groups, investing in local capabilities, building a robust understanding of climate risk and uncertainty, and collaborative action and investment. The objective of transboundary research and development is to re-strategize the local area development plan through segment-wise mutual cooperation without following ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. It is expected that with deliberations by civil society groups, actual groundwork will be prepared that can serve as a pathway for regional cooperation and integration in future. Integration of the South Asian region, or any other region for that matter, requires the collaboration, and goodwill of the key regional players [25]. South Asia being one of the least integrated regions as compared to European Union or Latin America, throws remarkably new and difficult governance challenges.

Alternative Development: The politics of alternative development is gaining traction in ‘political ecology frame’. Acknowledging that politics is influenced by conflicting ideological and material perspectives, the role of new modes of environmental governance is liable to become questionable. This is because of the fact that global environmental crisis has compounded the problem of value conflicts, and hence cannot be resolved through deliberative procedures alone. Therefore, a more nuanced approach of engagement consisting of development of an action plan is required involving both state and non-state actors. In his introductory article on non-capitalist political ecologies, Burke and Shear (2014) have offered a new vision of how scholar-activists can engage with and support more just and sustainable ways of organizing human–environment relations. More specifically, “engaged researchers can significantly contribute to a meaningful "ecological revolution" by (1) examining the tremendously diverse, already-existing experiments with other ways of being in the world, (2) helping to develop alternative visions, analyses, narratives, and desires that can move people to desire and adopt those ways of being, and (3) actively supporting and constructing economies and ecologies with alternative ethical orientations. Building non-capitalism requires moving beyond reformism and resistance, toward a non-capitalocentric politics that projects possibilities and desires beyond what can be conventionally imagined as feasible†. [26] Many of such ethnographically grounded reflections on diverse strains of economic activism, in the process of building alternative vision, can articulate a non-capitalocentric political ecology that we think can help scholar-activists politicize, reimagine, and recreate socio-ecological relations [27] . The distinctive contribution of political ecology is reconstitution of the political-economic drivers of environmental outcomes with focus on power relations in production, environmental protection and inequities in governance. Resetting the development goal by focusing on political asymmetries in social structures of the various actors involved will enhance the outcome of alternate model. This could possibly be achieved by collaborative governance. The collaborative governance research now goes beyond a fragmented consensus on its enigmatic nature by comprehensively and systematically extricating and codifying different paradoxes and proposing paradox-handling mechanisms. How to handle these inherent paradoxes and propose research agendas useful for scholars and provide practical guidance to administrators based on the paradox perspective is expected to enrich collaborative governance research and practices [28].

In Lieu of Conclusion: There are several strands in the concept of new mode(s) of environmental governance. Some are discussed here and others seen in an evolutionary perspective, can explain the emerging forms of governance. South Asian context provides some useful lessons to be learnt from possibilities and predicaments of new models of environmental governance. In view of climate vulnerability, the transboundary challenges between India and Nepal require joint action plans. The civil society initiatives taken towards strengthening the mutual trust on water management, energy, food and trade issues could serve as a starting point. The South Asian region remains relatively unexplored and there is a scope for scientific deliberations. Still, experiments with new models could be useful for the exploration of alternative pathways. In general, paucity of research on new models is an impediment. There is also insufficient data to substantiate the new claims on alternative models. Further, debate on Latin American examples with possible linkages with neoliberalism is yet to be settled. The question how these emerging modes could possibly integrate with dominant model (in hybrid mode) remains to be answered. Out of several case studies, the ongoing experiments with new modes of governance in China appear to be more systematic and evidence-based. The new "Ecological Civilization" discourse needs to be closely watched and debated as there are inherent contradictions in the non-capitalist path of development. Since ecology is a threat to neoliberal hegemony, a rethink on political philosophy too seems necessary [29]. Elsewhere in EU context, there are some successful examples, but in view of political compulsions, one needs to examine its sustainability. Based on some practical examples of environmental policy integration in EU, there appears to be some possibilities to mature for further case studies. One can provide an analysis of the sustainable development strategy along with impact assessment procedure and explore the opportunities for environmental policy integration. There could be question mark on the new mode as policy integration becomes a convenient rhetoric in deliberative democracies. Sometimes it has little substance due to the politics of convenience or a deliberate strategy to dilute environmental policy. No one disagrees with a greater emphasis being placed on building effective environmental governance systems requiring solutions that enable tenure system reforms, but not without bringing revolutionary changes in the rights, relationships and connected responsibilities. ‘Ecological revolution’ as may be called, will be extremely complicated because it will require qualitative restructuring of the whole aggregate of technical, economic, social, ethical, scientific and theoretical factors of social development [30]. Till then, new modes of governance discourse will play an important role in determining future political ecologies irrespective of the fact that environmental conflict like class conflict will continue to shape the emerging ‘brave new’ world!

(Author: Prakash C.J, Independent Scholar)