Environmental Concerns and Virtual Politics: Knowledge and activism on the web
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Development. Copyright © 1999 The Society for International Development. SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), 1011-6370 (199906) 42:2; 74–82; 008414.
Local/Global Encounters
Environmental Concerns and Virtual Politics: Knowledge and activism on the web ELENA MANCUSIM AT E R I
ABSTRACT Elena Mancusi-Materi looks at the opportunities and illusions of environmental campaigning on the web by analysing some of the material that is shaping environmental politics in cyberspace.
Globalization of environmental concerns Environmental rights were first formulated within the framework of the socalled ‘third generation’ human rights in the early 1970s. Together with the right to self-determination and the right to development, they complemented concerns on the protection of political and civil rights deriving from Locke’s natural rights philosophy of the 17th century, and the economic, social and cultural rights acknowledged at different levels throughout the 20th century. Whereas political and civil rights have traditionally been given priority by western States, particular emphasis has been put on the economic, social and cultural rights by the advent of socialism (Harris, 1991: 601). ‘Third generation’ human rights emerged with the support of developing countries, the particular feature being collective, rather than individual, human rights. Since the early 1970s the international community has been more accepting of environmental rights and they are now seen as essential to the improvement of people’s quality of life. The adoption of the Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment in 1972, followed by many other international agreements on environmental issues in the following decades, formalized this theoretical commitment. The res communis regime of natural resources, which implied impossibility of national appropriation but at the same time freedom of access, exploration and exploitation, evolved into the notion of ‘common heritage of mankind’ in order to establish management mechanisms aimed at guaranteeing equity in the enjoyment and distribution of natural resources (Shaw, 1991: 307). Already in these early attempts to identify and enforce environmental rights the very concept of environment was globalized. The world was presented as ‘a whole’, and this implied that the quest and criteria for environmental
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Mancusi-Materi: Knowledge and Activism on the Web protection needed to be the same all over the planet. The globalization era – marked by the liberalization of trade in agricultural produce,1 the increase in the power of multinational corporations’ (MNCs) interests, and the huge flows of information, communication and worldwide campaigns – has still fostered and spread the view that environmental issues are a global concern. Even if overall current trends concern everyone and action should be taken to hinder worsening environmental distress, in reality environmental changes are perceived and impact differently depending on where people live
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