The development debate has been raging in recent times on whether it should entirely be the domain of the planners or the other alternative of a participatory approach in the planning process. Social and environmental activists have long been emphasizing on the need for a participatory process in planning. And the debate has ultimately boiled down to the top-down and bottom-up approach in planning. With regard to environment and development, debate should be an essential part of planning and management. Unfortunately, all too often the politicians tend to avoid thinking through controversial issues and rush to prescribe causes of action with the slightest debate or thought of their long-term impacts. Look at the case of Loktak Hydro-electric project. The public was kept in the dark of its implications and the environmental consequences. The ecology of the lake had begun deteriorating with the coming up of the Ithai barrage the basic function of which was storage of adequate for generation of power by the project. More than 80 thousand hectares of agricultural land vanished leading to an impoverished peasantry, while the ecological cycle was disturbed leading to increase of the area covered by phumdis and traditional methods of fishing becoming obsolete. This in turn led to fishermen resorting to use of pesticides and fishing enclosures in the lake known as Athaphums. This in fact was due to the lack of transparency and debate while formulating projects. Fortunately, today those involved in environment and development-academically, intellectually, and practically are debating the top-down, bottom-up and basic needs approaches. The debate has become so crucial in the whole enterprise of environmental planning and management. The debate typifies three different and contrasting approaches to planning and management. Increasingly the debate is focusing on: ‘which of the approaches is more suitable for use in reversing past environmental degradation and moving human society towards ecologically sustainable use of resources and conserving ecosystems and species by empowering local people-particularly the poorest of the poor and co-ordinating rather than administering their conservation and development activities? The orthodox top-down approach with its modernisation paradigm is discredited but like a chameleon, continues to mutate its colours and shades to prevent the poor of the poorest from escaping from its shackles. While the bottom-up approach may produce more desirable social outcomes in the long-term, and its consequences for environmental planning, management and conservation are less certain, the basic human needs approach appears to assure conservation, in the short-term, with less predictable long-term effects. It entailed decisions about development projects and activities being made at a high level and then being imposed upon a particular location or people. This pattern of development was top-down and its benefits were supposed to trickle down to the poor. Unfortunately, the strategy failed miserably because it did not change the lives and livelihoods of the majority of the people, except for a few employed in the new modern sector. It was also the precursor of much environmental damage since policies and strategies for environmental management were also top-down oriented. It was during the 2nd UN Development Decade that new models of development emerged. With the new models also emerged new slogans of environment and development in the literature. Among the slogans mentioned may be made of basic services, participation, eco-development, development without destruction, basic needs, and bottom up. All the slogans reflected a common concern for ensuring that the poor, unlike before, benefited from development in the short and long-term without having to wait for the benefits of modernisation to trickle down. Moreover, they all focused on the provision of what were called basic needs such as adequate nutrition, water, shelter, education, health and employment, preferably in a bottom-up fashion. The reasoning came to focus on equity: that development should not just benefit the rich, but should reach to all sectors of the population, particularly the poorest of the poor.
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