The dimensions of the environmental debate which bear on educational assistance
appear to be three fold.
First, environmental impact cannot be ascertained or monitored without an adequate
number of scientifically and technically competent staff capable of undertaking data
collection and analysis. Without this ignorance and prejudice will inform discussion
rather than an accurate understanding of emerging problems and options available to
reduce adverse effects of development policies on the environment.
Second, information on environmental changes has to be available to those who
consciously or inadvertently damage the quality of the environment through activities
necessary for their livelihoods.
Third, since the effects of environmental damage are often long term rather than short
term, and since some may prove effectively irreversible after a threshold has been
passed, a sophisticated as well as an immediate understanding of the issues is needed
amongst specialists and, as far as possible, in the population as a whole.
Educational assistance can provide support for all three of these developments. The
training of scientists and technologists, and the provision of an infrastructure to allow
them to operate, is critical. In many countries, and especially in the poorest neither the
human development infrastructure nor the physical infrastructure exist to enable this to
happen effectively. Without it, dependence on outside expertise is complete. In some
cases this expertise may well be over influenced by the commercial concerns of
production organisations whose first interests lie in servicing the interest on the capital
they may invest and in making returns for shareholders. The availability of
environmental impact information can be supported in several ways. Part of the
problem is to ensure that regulatory authorities have the ability to project the results of
data collection and analysis into the public domain. Where this is possible it can then be
included in materials used in educational organisations to reach a wide audience.
School books, university texts newspapers and popular books can all heighten
awareness of environmental issues and develop awareness of the range of costs and
benefits involved in choices that have to be made.
More freely available information is however not itself sufficient to result in more
informed decision making. The specialised and general audiences have to have the
educational tools to interpret information and the awareness to make reasoned
judgements. This often presents awkward dilemmas - individual and local interests in
competition with national ones; employment generation accompanied by an increase in
occupationally related diseases; higher immediate costs of goods and services
compensated by lower long term adverse environmental damage. Increasing
educational participation, and the intellectual skills this imparts will not in itself solve