Soil Erosion in Britain: Costs, Attitudes and Policies: J. Boardman. Social Audit Paper No 1, Environmental Network for Environment and Development, Brighton, 1990,28pp.

The GlohaI Environment: Technical Fii or Badical Change?: T. Whiston. Social Audit Paper No. 2. Environmental Network for Environment and Develop- ment, Brighton, 1990, 3Opp.

It seems appropriate to review these two slim, but important, volumes together. They come from the same ‘stable’, and both conclude with an identical statement about the Network. This explains that it began in 1987, ‘initiated by a group of people at Sussex University who were becoming increasingly worried by the speed at which global destruction was proceeding, and the slowness of our society to respond.’ The statement provides information about their philosophy, and aims, which include ‘the need to begin to create a reconstructed intelligence’ relevant to the state of the world, and to facilitate its development throughout the education system. Details of network activities are provided and include the publication of a social audit of the environment and development series. These two books are the first fruits of that particular endeavour. Each of the two bears a preface which explains that the papers are written by people with substantial experience, writing within a defined framework for a wide audience. The framework includes advice:

- to consider trends; when and how the specific issue emerged as a serious problem;

- to consider causes and consequences and predict future developments;

- to examine the wider social and political aspects of the issues and discuss the policy or ‘social drift’ implications;

- an undertaking by the author to re-examine the issue after a period of three or four years and report the effects of new policies, technological improvements, etc.

In a way it is surprising that the volume on soil erosion precedes that on the global environment, since the latter sets the scene, and the tone, for the whole series.

John Boardman’s paper includes an adequate amount of technical information about soil erosion, which is readily accessible elsewhere, but nevertheless presented in an attractive, readable and clearly illustrated manner. This would provide an excellent basis for anyone seeking well- researched data to use in the preparation of teaching materials or lecture notes on the subject. The main conclusion of this evidence is the great increase in erosion in Britain over the past 20 or so years due to the intensification of farming, and particularly the increase in winter sown materials.

Possibly of more importance to the committed, environmentally-inclined educator, but less generally

ht. 1. Educafional Developnwnt, Vol. 12. No. 2, pp. 171-174.1992 Printed in Great Britain

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available are the sections which relate to the costs and consequences of erosion, and to attitudes to it in Britain. The latter discussion is particularly fascinating, as it focuses initially on the attitudes of scientists, highlighting the recent trend for some of them to be very critical of government policies and farming practices: using the medium of journals committed to environmental issues. It is suggested that this development has opened up what were previously dry, scientific debates to public scrutiny, as well as airing political and economic issues which had previously been much more obscure.

There is disappointingly little evidence provided on farmers’ attitudes to erosion, indicating an important area for further research. More perturbing still is the section on the ‘official viewpoint’, suggesting that the attitudes of the Government’s regulatory and advisory services are perhaps too complacent altogether. After a brief discussion of conservation measures (a section where more technical detail and some further illustrations might have been appropriate), the paper concludes with a look to the future and an argument for more co-ordination between the various offtcial bodies which are responsible for the direct and indirect effects of soil erosion in Britain. A final ‘ray of light on the horizon’ is the suggestion that there is a greater degree of support for soil conservation amongst European partners, and that British officialdom and farmers may soon have to adopt stronger measures, in line with EEC-wide strategies to protect that most vital of natural resources - the soil.

Tom Whiston’s paper takes a truly global view of environmental issues, and again presents important information in an economic, readable and clearly presented form. The technical section of this book is concerned with the concept of ‘environmental arithmetic,’ and after looking at various approaches indicates the need for an approach to some form of ‘total systems costing’ - with some simple illustrations of how this might be done.

The great concern of this paper is that qualitative concerns may be defeated by quantitative demands and provision. Whiston shows that ‘total world systems demand has to be tailored to an ecologicaUenvironmenta1 equilibration’. The great difficulty is that the 20% of the world’s population living in the rich ‘North’ consumes 10 to 20 times as much energy as the other 80%. Solutions devised by the North (e.g. to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions) are likely to be overtaken all the time by the increasing desire of those in the South to catch up, in terms of consumption.

It is difficult to write a volume like this without morahsing, and Whiston is certainly not immune from this! For instance he lays much of the blame for the present globabl crisis on the greed of the North, but does recognise that there is a long term historical perspective to be faced.

Global problems demand global solutions. He highlights the need for worldwide education, social propaganda, price mechanisms and regulatory framework. He sees

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broad international federations as a possible way forward, but stresses the difficulty in bridging the ‘most pivotal axis . . namely the North-South axis’. He suggests that history will not be reversed by ‘back door diplomacy’ but argues instead for a ‘deeper diplomacy’ to address the two key axes: North-South and Government-Citizen. On the first of these the fundamental problem is seen to be the terms of trade: that the ‘total castings system’ approach to environmental arithmetic must include a computation of the costs to the South of any measures designed to reverse global trends. On the latter there is need for a social contract - western electorates must be persuaded to accept limits to their long term ‘consumer-oriented binge’. There will be no solution to the world’s environmental problems unless they agree to real reductions in a material standard of living which, for one fifth of the world’s population is quite unsupportable let alone meeting the ever-growing demands of the other four fifths!

These two papers then augur well for the future of the Social Audit series. They are both thought provoking and informative; well presented, with commendable brevity, pertinent information and a high quality of presentation. E.N.E.D. are to be congratulated on a good start.

IAN WALLACE University of Reading

Explorations in Higher Education: A South Pacific Critique: David R. Jones, Lynn Meek and John Weeks. The Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne, 1991, 173~~.

In the introduction to this volume it is claimed that the South Pacific is assuming a global significance long delayed by its relative small population, geographical dispersion, and cultural diversity. If the paucity of news about Australasia and the South Pacific, as experienced by this writer on BBC radio and television while on study leave in London during the first half of 1991, is any yardstick, then this statement is a gross over-statement. Nevertheless, for those of use who do live ‘down under’, the socioeconomic problems of Oceania have assumed a growing importance in recent years. The basic problem is an ever-expanding population and a limited resource base. Traditionally many islanders have migrated to Australia and New Zealand in search of work but unemployment, together with a downturn in export prices and the volume of tourism, has generated much soul-searching in their home territories. It was against this background that a group of scholars met at the University of Melbourne in September 1990 to examine the nature and purpose of higher education in the South Pacific. The papers presented constitute the contents of this volume.

The title ‘Explorations’ can cover almost anything and not surprisingly this volume offers a mixed bag of contributions. David Jones, an academic at the University of New England, provides a useful background paper on the origins of higher education in the region. He examines the various university traditions emanating from Europe and North America and the unique characteristics of the University of Papua New Guinea (established 1966) and the University of the South Pacific (established 1968). He concludes that in the future no one national model of a university seems likely to predominate in the region.

‘Western Samoa participates in the University of the South Pacific on the one hand, and is vividly aware of the American model of its neighbour, American Samoa, on the other; at the same time it is firmly committed to adapting these various foreign models to the demands of fa’a Samoa, the traditional philosophy and lifestyle.’

Tupeni Baba, the former Education Minister in the ousted Bavadra Government and now a reader at the U.S.P., writes mainly on the educational problems of small island states together with what seems like an afterthought on their implications for higher education. He highlights the universal preference for academic education on the part of parents and corresponding government-sponsored efforts to diversify the secondary curriculum. In doing so, he shows, perhaps unwittingly, that the educational problems of small island states are strikingly similar to those of their mainland neighbours.

The Tongan scholar I. F. Helu argues strongly that ‘higher education institutions are simply tools for economic development and pawns in international politics’. He argues for a return to the ‘true’ values of education. Of the U.S.P. he writes; ‘As an example of the dearth of things educational at this institution, there is no philosophy course, there is no classical or modern language course, and there is no literature course worth the name’. Faculty members, he claims, are so politicised that they are as good as brainwashed.

Pa’o H. Luteru, a Samoan academic, examines the links between foreign aid and higher education in the South Pacific. He is critical of a system which seems to work more in the interests of the donors than the recipients. He concludes that Pacific Islanders can no longer afford to be complacent in their dealings with the aid community; ‘They must have the courage of their convictions to say no to projects which would obviously mortgage their resources and peoples in the future and be of no real benefit to them.’

Naomi Martin, who presently chairs the Papua New Guinea Commission for Higher Education, provides a brief paper on research methodology in education and indigenous life in Papua New Guinea in which she suggests that the scientific paradigm may have failed to enhance our knowledge of South Pacific cultures; ‘A full understanding of the surface appearance of indigenous life depends’ she claims, ‘largely upon one’s understanding of the ‘secret’ truths and the corresponding pedagogies which often lie outside the boundaries of scientific research.’

Tuingariki and Cecilia Short, both high ranking education officials in the Cook Islands, provide a useful account of current efforts to meet higher education needs in their homeland. Their dream is to make education the common property of all their people but in reality it is a ‘costly, high investment and high consumption business, which many island countries cannot afford nor sustain’. The Cook Islands solution is to develop a sound primary and secondary system of schooling and to meet the needs of higher education by a policy of ‘selected pepper- potting’.

Jacques Borzeix, the President of the newly established French University of the Pacific, provides a detailed factual statement of the aims of the new university, which has campuses situated in Tahiti and New Caledonia, and the courses on offer. His contribution would make a useful entry in a government yearbook but hardly qualifies as a critical commentary on the problems of higher education in the South Pacific.