Environment and Sustainable Development
This domain tests whether you can balance economic, social and environmental goals, apply sustainability principles and evaluate projects using environmental reasoning. Namibia's water scarcity and biodiversity make the issues concrete.
Core concepts
- The Brundtland definition: development that meets present needs without compromising future generations.
- Three pillars: economic, social and environmental sustainability.
- Renewable resources can regenerate; non-renewable resources such as minerals are finite.
- Externalities are costs or benefits not reflected in market prices, such as pollution.
- Polluter pays and environmental impact assessment (EIA) are policy tools.
- The SDGs integrate poverty, climate, water, energy and ecosystems.
Namibia faces drought, high evaporation, limited arable land and pressures from mining, tourism and wildlife. Community conservancies show how conservation can generate income, but benefits must be shared.
Worked example
A dam is proposed upstream of a wetland. Benefits include irrigation and hydropower; costs include lost downstream grazing, fishing and biodiversity. A narrow financial appraisal counts only construction and revenue. A sustainability appraisal adds externalities, affected livelihoods and intergenerational effects. An EIA can identify mitigation, such as environmental flows or compensation. The reasoning shows that the project may still proceed, but only with fuller accounting.
Traps that cost marks
Treating environment and development as a zero-sum choice; reducing sustainability to pollution only; ignoring social costs; forgetting that future generations cannot bid in present markets.