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ENVIRONMENTAL CONFLICTS, SOCIAL RESPONSES 89
motivated by profit and would deign to think in terms of development in harmony
with ecological units.
Environmental protection and the distribution of natural resources are special
forms of the emergence and settlement of environmental conflicts. It is not a
difficult issue in diplomacy or in cases that can be solved via negotiation, as the
antagonism normally does not require acute, fundamental intervention. Negotiation
appears to be the solution in the prevention of pollution, steady deterioration or
volume decline, and would also be advantageous for all concerned in cases of
detrimental or allegedly detrimental investments. Alternative solutions can be
worked out, new sites sought, agreements to ensure the safety of the investment
reached. Provided that the investor and the political decision-maker are open, the
issues and concerns raised can be solved in a consensual manner. In such cases, the
investment will not make headlines, except for a brief news item on the shift to a
new site. However, there are several cases past and present in which one party does
not properly inform those concerned about changes caused by a development
project to the environment. Instead, the party acts alone, and uses the resources
in a self-interested manner, reducing or even exhausting their volume. In such
cases, there are also diverse possibilities for those affected to reach a settlement,
but the solution is no longer peaceful. This is the confrontative option when
protestation takes one of diverse forms from collecting signatures and demonstrations
through to violent actions such as blocking roads and causing damage. In
democratic political systems, it is possible — with few exceptions — to initiate
national or local referenda which clearly reveal the local population’s position on
the given issue, even if local referenda are only informative, and even ifa referendum
is invalid. The number of local referenda in Hungary dropped from 15-25 in the
early 2000s to below 10 after 2015 (Radocs 2019: 31). It is to be noted that
political pressure can be exerted on the licensing authorities or the government/
local council without any legal procedure, either directly through social media, or
through traditional media. The most frequent form of protest is to seek legal
recourse, whether it is an international conflict or a local issue.
In a broad sense, all issues that affect the natural environment or its sustainability,
that aim to change it, to expropriate some environmental value or to commercialize
it, are called environmental issues. As such, they have an impact on society, for the
creation, preservation and protection of a healthy environment is everybody’s
responsibility. It can therefore be declared that the interest of the environment is
at the same time the interest of society, too. Why is this not clear to everyone? The
disruption of the ecological balance, environmental pollution and the destruction
of nature have generated entirely new conflicts. By enhancing and artificially
creating demands, the efforts at modernization attain their goals in most cases to
the detriment of the interest of the environment. At present, we are witnessing
the inevitable clash between economic growth and environmental sustainability,
between mutually exclusive social needs, particular interest hierarchies and value
choices. The interest of the environment is a complex and special phenomenon,
a public good, the protection of which is in everybody interest but in nobody's
particular interest. The interest of the environment is articulated through the
environment-related interests of the diverse actors. The roles are given: there are
the investor, the polluter, the aggrieved party, the authorities, the local population
not affected by the damage, civil organizations, and local politicians. It aggravates