Final Variables, Functions, Quality: The Basic Relations

The final variables, as said, express the values in the environment or served by the environment, treated as final, that is, intrinsic, for most practical purposes. Because of this status of the final variables, it may be intuited that other normative concepts expressing what the environment means to us ('functions of the 'envi- ronmental quality') should somehow either be an alternative way to express the same intrinsic values, or be more extrinsic, more instrumental with respect to the final variables. Putting it in the visual terms of the picture 3J, the latter relationship is that 'functions' and 'quality' are lower, leading up to the final variables which stand at the top. This, indeed, seems to be the basic relationship. A "food production function" of the environment, for instance, is instrumental to the final variables of health and material human well-being. And the environmental quality va- riable 'soil fertility' expresses the fact that the environment has a property that leads to food production and, through that, to health and material well-being.

This simple notion is not shared everywhere. We will arrive at an alternative way of thinking by having a brief look at three concepts respectively: policy aims (final variables), and quality of the environment.

Dutch environmental policy, roughly stated, has always encompassed the full final variable set, represented in Box We see them clothed in their statu nascendi in a book published in 1971, entitled "Criteria for Environmental Management", in which the first-generation Dutch environmental scientists tried to arrive at a full set of policy objectives (Vink, 1971). In the policy document (1983) quoted already in Chapter 3, "human health and well-being" are present alongside "respect for nature as a value in Udo de Haes (1984), and again in the revised edition of this text (Udo de Haes, 1991), enumerates the "relevancies" of the environment as "health and "use possibilities" and "intrinsic

The policy documents NMP NBP (1990), analogously, both speak of the "values of public health and and the intrinsic values of plants, animals and For the purpose of this chapter, it is important to note that finial variable for- mulations of this kind, although basically encompassing everything valuable, leave room for other normative concepts such as sustainability, functions, environmental

Except the relationship value, but that is of no importance to the discussion here.

on page 12, "(...) production in the economic sense; the social interest; the cultural interest and on the concluding page 175: "(...) food production; supply of sunlight, oxygen and carbon dioxide; lowering the levels of toxicants and noise; recreation; protection of nature in biological sense and ecosystems as values in their own right]".

quality and carrying capacity to be defined according to their common-sense meanings and then be connected to set of final variables, as I do with respect to

bility in Box with respect to carrying capacity (environmental capacity) in Chapter 3 and as I will do with respect to environmental quality and functions later.

Ten Brink et al. (1991), describing their 'AMOEBA approach' for assessing aquatic ecosystems, are a good example of connecting other normative concepts to the full set of final variables. They start out by listing "three categories of valuable characteristics the of which is desirable" amounting, roughly, to the final variables list of this section ("production for economic diversity for ethical and and so on). All this, they then state again, should be sustainable. From there on, 150 "target variables" are derived (we would say: environmental quality variables), together with the "concrete objective" in these terms (we would say: environmental quality norms). For the North Sea these variables include, for instance, algal species, the seal, wild mussel beds, the herring and the Brant goose, irrespective of the final variable from which these are derived. The AMOEBA itself is then a visual presentation of the discrepancies between the facts and values (presence and norm) in terms of these variables. Finally, it is shown how policy statements in terms of "steering variables" are derived further downward, e.g. with respect to toxic emissions, fishing techniques and area protection (we would say, environmental capacities).

In the meantime, leading international documents took a different position. Con- nected perhaps to the well-known conceptualization and discussion of conservation versus preservation (e.g. Passmore, 1974), the intrinsic value of nature tended to become a discredited policy aim. An illustration is the "World Conservation Strategy" of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources and the World Wildlife Fund (WCS, 1980), in which nature is present only in its instru- mental resource aspect ("the sustainable utilization of species and "living resources This stance is highlighted in 'Our Common Future' (WCED, 1987). As analyzed by Achterberg (1991) the aims expressed in this document are completely anthropocentric, in spite of some scattered references to obligations to "other living beings". It is not for this chapter to discuss the strategic and moral aspects of proclaiming man as the only creature that "commands an accounting". Let me add only that the new policy document of IUCN, UNEP and WWF, 'Caring for the Earth' (IUCN et 1990) has allowed nature to step back in, cloaked in new language and vision, i.e. of community and care Section 4.5 and De Groot

1992b, Chapter 8).

Through the WCED report, the concept of sustainability became firmly associated with anthropocentric values only, especially those of the socio-economic kind ('mate- rial well-being', in Box In The Netherlands, this line is followed in Opschoor and Van der Ploeg (1990). Conceptually, the association has the weird consequence that it becomes impossible to speak of a sustainable place on earth for non-human creatures.

Formally, the concept of environmental quality, in Opschoor and Van der Ploeg as well as remained defined as relating to all final variables. In practi- cal usage, however, the consequence of associating with socio-economic values only is that the concept of environmental quality becomes associated with cultural values and the intrinsic value of nature only. Politically, the situation now reproduces the old 'conservation versus preservation' conceptualization; the economic values associated with sustainability are of course the more basic and environmental quality is the more additional, ephemeral value. Thus, a pre-defined and general value hierarchy has been created. Pre-defined, abstract value hierarchies are risky possessions, as Section 4.5 will indicate. Conflicts between values are real enough, but it is better to respond to them at the more concrete level of real-world problem situations. Matters are made even worse when conflicts are created because of conceptual ambiguity; concepts should support discussions, not funnel them into pre-arranged antitheses.

Summarizing, we are now in a position to define the intuitive concepts in a more grounded fashion:

the 'final variables' express all possible aims of environmental policy (or: every- thing the environment is valuable for or valuable without a pre-arranged value hierarchy

among these, 'sustainability' expresses the long-term emphasis on all others and 'environmental quality' encompasses all parameters in the environment con- ducive to, or themselves expressing, the final

The last concept needing some positioning here is of the environment, often used as an 'organizing concept' in economic evaluations, impact studies and policy formulations, either as an alternative to final-variable concepts or in a sup- portive role. The basic definition of a function being "a task in the broad sense" (Bouma and Van der Ploeg, 1975) or "a capacity to satisfy needs" (Van der

and Dauvellier, the functions concept obviously lies in an intermediate position between environmental quality and the final the final variables express what the tasks are for, and what the needs are. Thus, a term like 'production function of the environment' takes in a large number of environmental quality parameters and delivers them, as it were, to a large number of socio-economic values (goods, services etc.). Similarly, a term like 'processing function' takes in another large number of environmental variables and 'delivers' them to the maintenance of human health, the socio-economic value of organic waste recycling and so on.

Thus, we arrive at the basic ordering of the three concepts, depicted in Figure 4A. It has been drawn so as to be with the central part of the

E.g. Udo de (1991), Bouwer and (1991), as well as the policy documents NMP (1989) and NBP (1990), dealing with general and environmental policy, respect- ively.

Thus, environmental quality also comprises what Bouwer and Groenenberg (1991) call 'future- value' (not: future value); the gene pool is an example.

picture with the final variables at the top. Two variants are drawn, in order to indicate that the insertion of the functions concept is Economists and physical planners, for instance, often use the functions concepts, but Environmental Impact Assessments usually go directly from the environmental quality to the final variables.

As explained in the Chapters 1 and 3, the final variables are typically a bridge between the environment and economy, philosophy, medicine and other disciplines. Hence, if making these connections is relevant to a research or education project, impact assessments and general discussions should reach up to that level. On the other hand, if environmental quality standards have been derived properly from these variables downward, assessments may be kept in these 'lower' terms. 'Final-variables thinking', 'functions thinking' and 'quality thinking' can all be self-contained, exhaus- tive and coherent. This is not to say, of course, that they can be freely

It may be noted at this point that I have here made no distinction between 'nature'and 'culture' or between the 'natural environment' and the 'man-made

Nature and culture interpenetrate too much to generate a sensible dichotomy at this general level. Naturalness ('wildness') and are around us everywhere, but at the same time hardly any concrete environmental entity or system is simply natural or cultural; Section 4.6. will consider this in greater detail. A natural/cultural dichotomy in the area of final variables, functions and qualities of the environment will therefore be a conceptual burden rather than a help, especially since the two would have to be re-integrated anyway at some lower level of evaluation and design. The terms of 'value', 'function', 'quality' all have a basically positive connotation. In not using more abstract and neutral terms like "normatively relevant or some- thing similar, I simply follow the theoretical and policy-oriented literature, for reasons I will explain further on. Adhering to the positive connotations rigidly, as if the

» As in Section 3.3, 'societal interests' (agriculture, nature recreation urban etc.) ,s concept often used an for the classification of

mental impacts and norms. This could have been drawn as a third alternative.

An assessing impacts in terms say, 'soil a, ends in the conceptual morass of double-counting

others The of also holds with to organisational Matters would be clear, for if there were of Final Variables

etc.) and of Conditions (environment, education, internal affairs ach own set of conditions for all Final Variable Ministeries, receiving

from them each adding its of

facts and values in terms of FINAL VARIABLES

(health, nature, economy, etc.)

facts and values in terms of FINAL VARIABLES

(health, nature, etc.)

s facts and values in terms of

FUNCTIONS OF THE ENVIRON- MENT

(production function, processing, etc.)

facts and values in terms of ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY (soil, air, biota, etc.)

facts and values in terms of ENVIRONMENTAL QUAL- ITY

(soil, air, biota, etc.)

Figure 4A

Two variants of the conceptual of final variables, functions of the environment and quality of the environment. All three concepts refer to all values of the environment (intrinsic and instrumen- tal); refers to the long-term aspect of all. Both variants are drawn as a rephrasing of part of Figure All arrows denote causal relationships; single arrows relate to the phenomena (effects, etc.), the double arrows relate to the normative phenomena (values, norms, standards, etc.). In one variant, the functions concept act as an intermediary between environmental quality and the final variables; in the second, impact and norms derivation go directly between these two.

environment can only be positive, leads to inconsistencies, however. If we say, for instance, that the function or value of the ozone layer or a row of coastal dunes is to protect people against cosmic radiation or floods, respectively, we thereby imply that cosmic radiation and floods have negative aspects too. And if we say that a value or function of a river is to provide a means for transportation, we cannot deny that at certain times and places, the river is an obstacle as well. If we say, to take a final example, that a wetland has the value or function that the water flowing out of it is 'purified' or 'clarified' compared to the water flowing in (less detritus, less toxic substances, less silt), we cannot consistently put this on a rigidly positive list and then, when speaking about men-made reservoirs, make a list of negative 'impacts' that

includes the trapping of silt, causing fertility problems to downstream agriculture. For both wetlands and whether the trapping of silt is positive or negative depends on on-site and downstream circumstances.

Using 'values and functions' language for the natural environment and 'impacts' language for human interventions, instead of the same more formal and neutral language for them both, expresses and reinforces the basically positive attitude of most environmental scientists toward the natural environment, and their far more reserved attitude towards human interventions. This, I think, is just as well. Taken as a whole, after all, the natural environment is benevolent; otherwise, we would not be here. And at a more down-to-earth level, there will always be enough other people around who are perfectly capable of explaining why this wetland should urgently be drained or this dam be built.

Final Variables, Functions, Quality: