THE UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG

Technical rationality on the other hand deals with critical decision-making, in modern
capitalist societies, based upon the value of efficiency. Therefore, when discussing these
modern environmental management techniques, the concept of bio-ethics is very critical and
central. Very central indeed and entails the use of rationality in attaining both means and
ends. 422 Rationality in this context specifies the means by which given ends can be achieved.
Those ends are strictly environmental goals such as less pollution, less forest destruction
through over grazing, over cultivation and the arrest of diminishing biodiversity. We must
also add that since rationality is hard to achieve and to predict, sets of formal and informal
rules are adopted in order to achieve intended objectives. This explains our interest in
institutionalism, bio-ethics and biodiversity.
Being cognisant of the fact that individual rationality is suspect, the use of biodiversity
management rules and methods in tropical poor countries is sometimes hard to implement.
Institutionalisation of rationality is grounded in democratic values. In most countries, such
values include establishment of environmental management standards as one of the
parameters followed in ascertaining rational environmental values. 423 A number of agencies at
different levels of government are instituted to ingrain such values. These environmental
value ingraining agencies may take the form of community groups, interested corporations,
resource users and organised ordinary citizens. 424
In Kenya, NEMA the leading agency for such an undertaking, working in conjunction with
other coalitions and non governmental as well as governmental agencies such as the Forest
Department, Kenya Wildlife Services, Resource Sensing and surveying Centre. Other
agencies in the non-governmental sector may include: INCRAF, the Forestry Society of
Kenya, WWF and IUCN among others. NEMA for instance uses a decentralised system of
administration to achieve this feat. Its management system is spread in various districts to
monitor and implement environmental management standards in liaison with sister agencies.
These obtain information that might otherwise be excluded from administrative decisionmaking
although this information may not directly influence the final decisions; it makes
environmental and democratic values more visible and legitimate than before. Hohl and
Tisdell reported that for over two decades, development assistance agencies have urged
developing countries to adopt rationally based environmental management techniques. 425
Howarth and Norgaard add that such organisations while working with government agencies
especially in the developing countries, have pressed upon environmental impact assessment as
one of a suite of predictive, scientific and essentially rational techniques developed in the late
422 Peluso, N. 1992. Rich Forests, Poor People: Resource Control and Resistance in Java. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
423 Crook, R, and Manor, J. 1994. Enhancing Participation and Institutional Performance: Democratic
Decentralisation in South Asia and West Africa'. Report to ESCOR, the Overseas Development
Administration, on Phase Two of a Two Phase Research Project. London: Economic and Social Committee
on Overseas Research.
424 Fisher, A. C. and Hanemann, W. M. 1990. Information and the Dynamics of Environmental Protection: The
Concept of thre Critical Period," Scandinavian Journal of Economics 92(3):399-414.
425 Hohl, A. and C. A ,Tisdell. 1993. How Useful are Environmental Safety standards in Economics? The
Example of Safe minimum Standards For Protection of Species," Biodiversity and Conservation 2:168-181.
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