1.2 Community at the population-environment interface: primary environmental care

'Primary environmental care' is an approach to community-based sustainable development matured on the basis of field experience. Many people and organizations - from both developing and industrialized countries - contributed to the development of this approach. Most of them worked in participatory projects in poor urban and rural areas. Others were involved in Primary Health Care, and water and sanitation programs. Others were employed in large- and small-scale integrated rural development schemes. Still others were simply concerned about improving their own quality of life - and the quality of life of their communities - by making optimal use of scarce resources. The knowledge and skills these people acquired from their practice with methods and tools, their tribulations with conflicts and failures and their excitement as they solved problems and helped people, all contributed to a consensus on goals to strive for, and ways to approach them. To give visibility, legitimacy, incentive and impetus to such a consensus, a name package was found: primary environmental care (PEC).

The objectives of PEC are not new, but the approach has the merit of integrating them, affirming that the management of local environments becomes effective and sustainable when linked with the satisfaction of the needs (income, food, health, etc.) of local communities, and when all the concerned people are involved and empowered to participate.

'Meeting local needs' means that people can maintain, produce or gain access to the goods and services (food, shelter, income, health care, education, transportation, etc.) necessary for their life, health and well-being.

'Protecting the local environment' means different activities under different conditions (e.g., eliminating a fire hazard, cleaning and protecting a watershed, preventing flooding, halting an unsustainable extraction of timber from a local forest, improving tilling practices to protect topsoil, restoring a degraded communal building, leaving undisturbed the habitat of wildlife, etc.).

'Empowering local communities' means that communities, groups and individuals obtain greater control over the factors influencing their lives. This usually goes through several stages, in which people discuss and identify their common problems and opportunities and then organize and take action in partnership with others. Securing tenure to the natural resources protected by the work of local people is a most important element of the empowerment process, and essential for sustainability. With security of tenure, in fact, the long-term economic interests of people tend to merge with the long-term 'interests' of the environment.

Box 1.3 Primary environmental care (PEC) Primary environmental care is a process by which local communities - with varying degrees of external support - organize themselves and strengthen, enrich and apply their means and capacities (know-how, technologies and practices) for the care of their environment while simultaneously satisfying their needs. In synthesis, PEC integrates three objectives: meeting local needs; protecting the local environment; and empowering local communities. The intelligence, experience, self-perceived interests and priorities of people and communities, and their willingness to work together for the common good, are what PEC is all about.

If a community engages in primary environmental care, many sensitive issues are bound to be encountered, and many conflicts between local and non-local interests and opinions are likely to emerge. Such conflicts can arise in the planning stages (e.g., when trade-offs must be set among environmental, economic and social goals, and priorities for action must be agreed upon) or during implementation of activities, when some can try to take advantage of others, or problems and mistakes become apparent.

The 'community' may also be united and well defined only in theory. Community members may not feel a sense of common identity, may not be equally aware or concerned about problems and ready to commit resources or may not manage to achieve any suitable agreement about what to do. A lengthy process of conflict management and negotiation may be necessary before PEC activities can take off. In fact, major differences, contrasts and power imbalances are common among community members and subgroups. Women, ethnic minorities or religious minorities may not be allowed to participate in decision-making or in common endeavors on the same conditions as others. In such cases, PEC requires a significant change in local habits and departure from cultural norms.

Local empowerment can only be based on the concerns of community members and their willingness to be involved. Certainly, it cannot be 'brought in' from outside. From outside, however, it can be impeded. In this sense, PEC needs to be politically feasible, a condition too often difficult to meet. Other constraints to PEC may be lack of capital, information, expertise, or the capacity of local people to organize, to manage finances or to deal with government officials. Supporting institutions (governmental and non-governmental, national and international, profit-oriented and solidarity-oriented) can help communities overcome these constraints.

Thus, what are the challenges of PEC?

• The first challenge is political: assuring people a fair amount of self-determination and control over local resources.

• The second is institutional: developing local institutions capable of gathering local knowledge and skills and delivering good ideas and honest practice.

• The third is socio-economic: assuring social appreciation and fair economic returns to sound environmental practice.

• Last but not least, there is a challenge of intelligence and ingenuity: identifying the 'win-win' solutions by which both the environment and people can profit.

If the process of PEC is complex and difficult, its rewards are certainly worthwhile. People who organize and take initiatives for common

interests develop a sense of solidarity and common identity, learn how to establish and follow their own rules, learn how to pull together resources and overcome problems. In the process, they create new employment opportunities, mobilize individuals and resources that were idle and underexploited, and liberate their own energy to work, innovate and diversify the basis of their livelihood. It is the experience of many communities that such initiatives can take off with capital investments that are relatively low. When those initiatives benefit, at the same time, both the environment and the people, the sense of community responsibility for the environment grows and puts down strong roots.

Box 1.4 lists some conditions for the success of PEC, and the next section gives a case example of the first steps of a real PEC initiative in a rural context in Uganda.

Box 1.4 Conditions for success in primary environmental care 1. Capacity to organize and participate. All community members need to be able to play a role in decision-making that affects livelihoods, in particular decisions over access, control and management of common resources. This implies the right to set up community gatherings and organizations. Women must be able to participate fully in these processes and capitalize on their role as environmental managers for the benefit of themselves, their households and the whole community. 2. Capacity to influence development priorities. Development programs need to be oriented according to the priorities felt and expressed by communities, in full partnership with the national authorities and the aid agency that may be assisting in the process. As a result, the entry point for external assistance for environmental programs may not always be an environmental priority but a community need, such as employment, housing or health care. 3. Integration of local knowledge and awareness of the environment. Communities need to be involved in the assembly and analysis of environmental data. The provision of external environmental information and advice should be based on a dialogue with the community. Building on and integrating traditional knowledge and skills is essential. 4. Access to natural resources. Communities need access, equitable internal distribution and security of tenure for all the natural resources necessary to their livelihood. Security of land tenure in urban and rural settings is particularly important, since only when tenure is safely secured do motivations for long-term improvements emerge. 5. Access to financial resources. Communities need access to loan and credit facilities that rely on record of payment rather than on collateral, which communities often lack. 6. Access to environmentally sound technologies. Communities need access to environmentally sound technologies. These are best developed by way of participatory research, to assure that they respond to felt needs and are adapted to local conditions, and are gender-appropriate, affordable, efficient, usable and repairable by locals. In particular, there is a strong need for environmentally sound alternatives to the 'unsound' technologies presently in use. 7. Governmental support. Governments are the prime and indispensable partners of com- munities in PEC. They need not only to allow the process of community-based environmental management to take place, but also to support it actively. To do so, a legislative framework for environmental protection, including monitoring and enforcement, and an integrated set of sectoral services that can address community needs are vital. Administrative decentralization is another very important step towards the PEC process. 8. Access to information and public accountability. These need to be provided in governmental policy and decision-making and in all aid-assisted activities. Community empowerment cannot be achieved in an information vacuum or without a chance for the community to evaluate and discuss responsibilities. 9. External support. Institutions (governmental and non-governmental) that can offer experience, expertise and skills in support of the PEC process at the community level need to be developed and strengthened. Also, a network of multi-disciplinary institutions capable of carrying out relevant research and training for PEC is needed 10. Appropriate time frame and adaptive planning. A longer-term time frame compared with capital-intensive approaches is indicated. (Experience with other community-based approaches suggests 10-year programs as realistic, although benefits should occur far earlier.) Also, great flexibility in project planning by an iterative approach ('learning' rather than 'blueprint') and adequate monitoring are needed. Donors must be prepared for low initial levels of disbursement and for changes in priorities. 11. Access to environmentally sound and socially responsive practices. Communities need access to environmentally sound and socially responsive practices and tools, particularly in terms of: participatory assessment of problems and resources; effective education, training and social communication; local organization, planning and management of community-based initiatives; sustainable production (e.g., agroecology, agroforestry, integrated pest management, recycling schemes, renewable sources of energy, biogas plants, fish ponds, etc.); participatory monitoring and evaluation. From: Borrini-Feyerabend, 1995