Dean Forbes

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN MEGA-URBAN REGIONS MANAGING THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT LEARNING FROM PACIFIC ASIA INTRODUCTION • Learning from Pacific Asia: Four Lessons • Water and Asia’s cities • Managing the urban environment: the SPERLL Framework FOUR LESSONS FROM PACIFIC ASIA Lesson 1. We are in the midst of the urban revolution, one of the most fundamental and far-reaching changes in the way in which humans are distributed across the planet, and as a consequence, the way in which they interact with the environment. Between 2000 and 2030
• Total world population will grow from 6.1 billion to 8.1 billion • The world's urban population will grow from 2.9 billion to 4.9 billion people. • Around 90% of the world’s population growth will be in developing countries, and 90% of that will be in cities. • By the year 2030 the world’s urban population (4.9 billion) will be 50% larger than the rural population (3.2 billion). Lesson 2. is that our definitions of what constitutes the environment, and the key focus of environmental problems -- the brown agenda -- will continue to change. Lesson 3. The concept of sustainability is the central, overarching framework within which to consider environmental issues. The Brundtland Report defines sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Haughton and Hunter (1994 p 27) say ”a sustainable city is one in which its people and businesses continuously endeavour to improve their natural, built and cultural environments at neighbourhood and regional levels, whilst working in ways which always support the goal of global sustainable development” Lesson 4. is drawn from the experience of the international agencies working in the Pacific Asian region, notably the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.
• Mobilizing public support and participation – engaging the community; • Choosing policy instruments that will change behaviour, relieve conflict, and encourage cooperative arrangements – eg the price of environmental services; • Building local institutional capacity – ie ensuring there is a local administrative structure capable of continuing with the project activity; • Strengthening urban service delivery, making sure that services don’t need to be built in an ad hoc way by the residents themselves. • Increasing local knowledge about the environment and about the consequences of environmentally damaging activity  (Bartone et al 1994 p 1 Abstract).

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN MEGA-URBAN REGIONS MANAGING THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT LEARNING FROM PACIFIC ASIA WATER AND ASIA’S CITIES Asia’s Water Crisis: The Struggle Within Each Drop (Asian Development Bank 1997) Sri Lanka (Colombo and the Upper Mahaweli Watershed Program)
The Philippines (Manila and the Metropolitan Water and Sewerage System)
China (urban water shortages). LEADERSHIP AND THE ENVIRONMENT SPERLL 1: Strategic thinking is the first. That means understanding the past, analyzing the present, and imagining the future, and based on all three, deciding what you have to do to achieve the goal. If we are dealing with the environment, then a key goal, and hence of strategy, must be sustainability. SPERLL 2: People, relationships and trust. I believe that the core of both public and private sector success is a network of relationships that are established, nurtured and maintained. SPERLL 3: Ethical practices are an essential underpinning of leadership and management. And that means not just fiduciary propriety, but the fuller set of moral principles, which includes good faith, doing right and not wrong, and doing good, not bad. SPERLL 4: An appropriate approach to risk management is the fourth element of my framework. What are the risks in doing nothing? What are the risks in doing something? SPERLL 5: Logic, intuition and emotional intelligence. We are trained to think logically, but this should not be to the exclusion of intuitive systems of thought, emotional intelligence, or understanding different cultural perspectives. SPERLL 6: The need to develop the culture of learning organizations and learning communities. In the words of Bob Garratt:
• “The twenty-first century organization is driven by regular and rigorous learning, particularly through open and critical review and debate, at all levels of the organization, continuously as part of its normal work” (Garratt 2001 p xvi)

READING

Lindfield, Michael and Royston Brockman 2008, Managing Asian Cities, Asian Development Bank, Manila <http://www.adb.org/Documents/Studies/Managing-Asian-Cities/default.asp>