ABSTRACT
Change. Complexity. Uncertainty. Conflict. Each requires attention in resource and environmental management. The people in Bangladesh, described in Chapter 1 and who are contending with the impacts of arsenic-contaminated water, are certainly encountering each of them. The individuals and groups in Pakistan who are striving to implement the National Conservation Strategy, which will balance economic, environmental and cultural considerations, are addressing them. The precautionary principle was created as a guideline to handle them. Hedging and flexing have been recognized as alternative approaches toward them. Visioning, backcasting and adaptive environmental management are being increasingly used to anticipate and to respond to them. Techniques such as Life Cycle Analysis and Environmental Audits have been created to help managers address them. And, increasing attention to implementation, and to monitoring and evaluation, explicitly acknowledge the need to be able to modify approaches as a result of them.
