GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES AND LOCAL CONTEXTS OF ACTION

The effects of environmental change on individuals and societies are r eceiving increasing attention. Local, national and international organ isations are all undertaking research and developing policy on environ mental management and regulation. This level of concern appears, initi ally, to indicate a positive and growing awareness of human-environmen t interactions. However, it is not clear that in developing agenda for action the different parties are in fact referring to the same 'envir onment', nor that the meanings of environmental concepts are understoo d in the same ways by 'experts' and 'non-experts'. The paper examines this issue in two ways. First, the authors consider the diversity of r eferents which accompany the concept of the environment in academic, p olicy, business and lay discourses. Second, they discuss some of the w ays in which individuals who encounter environmental change at the loc al level employ the concept of 'the environment' differently in order to achieve political ends. The discussion and the data upon which it i s based are used to indicate the ways that 'global' environmental conc epts are localised in specific contexts of action. Finally, the author s argue that the complexity of the discursive frameworks, together wit h the absence of enduring, coherent environmental value systems within which to situate perspectives on environmental change, implies that f rameworks for environmental understanding and action cannot be imposed from outside of the contexts in which goals, values and motives are e mbedded.