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precautionary principle — English
There is no standard definition for this term. It is a term that scientists should handle with the greatest of care. It is actually an intuitive sense of caution or doubt or uncertainty, stemming from both a certain ethical code and a mount of empirical evidence. The precautionary principle forms one of the basic tenets underpinning the entire pluri-disciplinary field of environmental management. The ethical code in which modern day environmental management is embedded, is that we should do nothing that might cause irreversible harm, alter or destroy the natural environmental heritage which future generation would inheret from us, and that we must endeavour to use nature’s resources in a sustainable way (see “sustainability”, “ecocentrism” and “environmentalist”). This ethical code differs totally from the prevailing environmental ethics during certain periods of human history. During the Industrial Revolution (see “Industrial Revolution”), the environment was regarded as nothing more than a supplier of resources and a receptacal of things we no longer needed. Sustainability of ecosystems and sustainable resource use were not part of that ethic. Empirical evidence later disclosed how severely we had impacted the environment and revealed the irreparable harm and destruction we had wrought. At that stage (more or less the 1950s and early 1960s) the Environmental Movement was born and started gaining momentum (see “environmentalist” and “ecocentrism”). After another three to four decades, the environment has become one of humankind’s most important considerations in managing our actions and activities (see “ecocentrism” and “greening mainstream politics”) – a completely different environmental ethic had replaced the previous one of non-sustainability. Based on the precautionary principle, we have developed sophisticated systems of institutional caution to regulate human actions and prevent irreparable harm to the environment. Owing to the precautionary principle, we now manage the environment in such a way that we must carefully consider our actions and their potential impacts on the environment before we embark on any activity involving the environment, and our aim is to prevent environmental destruction rather than rehabilitate a destroyed environment – prevention is cheaper than cure! The predictive and preventative nature of environmental management is founded in the precautionary principle. Environmental management is constructed around a goal of preventing, rather than reacting to, undesirable environmental impact.
