Participation In Environmental Decision-making Research Articles

From Experiential Knowledge to Public Participation: Social Learning at the Community Fisheries Action Roundtable

Extensive research demonstrates that public participation in environmental decision making can increase understanding of diverse worldviews and knowledge bases, public faith in governance institutions, and compliance with resulting rules. Concerns linger around costs, possibilities of polarization and decreased legitimacy in cases of poorly executed processes, and the ability of newly empowered groups to gain political leverage over others. If participants in public processes can bracket their personal experience to better assess other viewpoints, establishing mutual respect and understanding through deliberative exchange, they increase the likelihood of maximizing participatory benefits and minimizing risks. Such reflexivity indicates double-loop social learning, change undertaken through collective discussion and interaction. A capacity-building workshop program aims to foster such learning within the Maine fishing industry. Case material draws primarily on participant observation and interview data, using a grounded theory approach to qualitative analysis. Evidence indicates that in social contexts removed from the norms of daily life and the frustrations of past fishery management confrontations, harvesters acquire knowledge and skills that facilitate more strategic and productive behavior in formal and informal marine resource decision venues. Suspensions of longstanding spatio-temporal assumptions around the prosecution and management of fisheries comprise key learning moments, and yield corresponding changes in industry attitudes and actions. With heightened appreciation for a diversity of experiences and management priorities, harvesters can better mobilize a broad spectrum of local knowledge to develop viable regulatory proposals and collaborative decision processes.

The application of information technology and environmental protection

The Aarhus Convention became a part of the Serbian legal system through the adoption of the Law on Ratification of the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters in May 2009. Although the legislation in Serbia, prior to the ratification of the Aarhus Convention, pointed, to some extent, to the realization of ideas promoted by it, following the ratification, there was the formal possibility of the consistent application of rights stipulated by the Convention. This article analyses the role of information technology (IT) in providing public access to environmental information. There are three basic ways IT may be applied in environmental protection. First, through the use of IT for environmental matters, the public can be informed about the general condition of the environment. In the legal system of Serbia, the Agency for Environmental Protection is obliged to collect environmental information from local government and compile annual reports on the environment that should be presented on the Agency website. This article analyses the information systems of the Serbian Agency for Environmental Protection and the further possibilities of using these. Second, IT can be used as a way of regular communication between government and citizens. In accordance with the principle of transparency, government bodies are obliged to provide an adequate way for the public to have an insight into their work. In addition, the authorized person is responsible for the accuracy of this information and for providing public access within a reasonable timeframe. In this sense, the article analyses the legal framework of e-access to environmental information and the relevant practice of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection. Third, the application of IT in environmental matters can promote public participation in environmental decision-making. If there were a legal framework, the public would be able to participate in procedures, such as environmental impact assessments, by submitting their opinions as e-documents. This article points out the relations between the application of IT and the level of public awareness about the environment, and the impact these relations have on environmental protection. Points for practitioners The article examines whether there is a possibility of using IT as a means of achieving daily communication between government and citizens in matters of the protection, preservation and improvement of the environment in Serbia, how the application of information technology achieves wider public participation in environmental decision-making, and whether the application of IT can eliminate deficiencies in the assessment of environmental impacts which occur in practice. The article provides an overview of environmental legislation in Serbia, which regulates the possibility of using IT in environmental protection and administrative practice.

Sacred Land or National Sacrifice Zone: The Role of Values in the Yucca Mountain Participation Process

Local participation in environmental decision making is a fundamental tenet of environmental justice. This essay examines the participation process for nuclear waste siting decisions and suggests that the lack of a viable means for discussion of competing values is a flaw in the currently used model of participation. Through analysis of the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste site in the USA, I show how the lack of discussion of values occludes participation by marginalized American Indians. In particular, I examine the incommensurability between American Indian nations that value Yucca Mountain as sacred land and the federal government that values Yucca Mountain as a national sacrifice zone. I argue that Yucca Mountain acts as a polysemous value term in the controversy. My findings suggest that an environmentally just model of participation in environmental decision making must include a way to account for incommensurable values and cultural differences. Further, I highlight the lessons we can learn from the Yucca Mountain project as we deliberate about what to do with nuclear waste.

Governance by Evaluation for Sustainable Development – Institutional Capacities and Learning

Contents: Preface 1. Governance for Sustainable Development, Evaluation and Learning: An Introduction 1 Michal Sedlacko and Andre Martinuzzi PART I: LEARNING THROUGH EVALUATION 2 The Politics of Sustainability Evaluation: Analysis of Three Austrian Strategies for Sustainable Development Michael Pregernig, Karl Hogl and Ralf Nordbeck 3. Tools for Learning-oriented Environmental Appraisal Mans Nilsson PART II: INSTITUTIONALISING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT CONCERNS IN EUROPEAN POLICY MAKING 4. Integrating Sustainable Development into Impact Assessment: How Effective is the European Commission? Jennifer Franz and Colin Kirkpatrick 5. Monitoring the Expected Impacts of the 7th EU Framework Programme on Sustainable Development - a Case Study on Governance by Evaluation Andre Martinuzzi 6. From an European Court of Auditors' Report to a Learning Process? The Challenge to Integrate the Environment into the European Community's Development Assistance Axel Johannes Olearius, Iola Leal Riesco and Sally Nicholson PART III: DEALING WITH MULTI-STAKEHOLDER CONTEXTS 7. Evaluation of Public Participation Towards Sustainable Water Management: An Institutional Perspective Gul Ozerol 8. Dynamic Decision Analysis for Monitoring and Facilitating Stakeholder Participation in Environmental Decision Making: Results from the Dutch Costa Due Stakeholder Dialogue on Sustainable Energy Kirsten Hollaender and Frans Stokman 9. Participatory Livelihoods System Appraisal - a Learning-oriented Methodology for Impact Assessment Martin Strele 10. Towards a Process for Eliciting Criteria Weights and Enhancing Capacity of Stakeholders in Ex Ante Evaluation of Climate Policies Stelios Grafakos, Dimitrios Zevgolis and Vlasis Oikonomou PART IV: DEVELOPING LEARNING CAPACITY IN ORGANISATIONS 11. Assessment of Outcome Mapping as a Tool for Evaluating and Monitoring Support to Civil Society Organisations Steve Powell, Joakim Molander and Ivona Celebicic 12. Development of a Learning-oriented Monitoring System for Sustainable Agriculture Chain Development in Eastern Indonesia Steff Deprez 13. Process Monitoring of Impacts and its Application in Structural Fund Programmes Richard Hummelbrunner 14. Participatory Ex Ante Evaluation of Long-term Infrastructure Plans as a Policy Learning Process Eckhard Stormer and Bernhard Truffer PART V: REFLECTING EVALUATION TOOLS - PERSPECTIVES AND PITFALLS 15. The Role of Visualisation Within Sustainability Evaluation Processes Harald Wilfing and Ulrike Bechtold Index

Research Article: Three Tools for Evaluating Participation: Focus Groups, Q Method, and Surveys

To enable successful public participation in environmental decision making, practitioners need to know what works, but evaluation of proposed and existing processes is often lacking. We tested thre...

Gauging levels of public acceptance of the use of visualisation tools in promoting public participation; a case study of wind farm planning in South Wales, UK

There is an increasing interest in the use of IT-based tools to encourage public participation in environmental decision making. Typically, this has involved the development of (predominantly prototype) systems applied in workshop scenarios with those stakeholders with an immediate interest in the planning issue in hand. Increasingly, however, the Internet is being used to explore the use of online visualisation and mapping tools, with evaluation often taking the form of feedback questionnaires that are used to refine such techniques. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how innovative visualisation techniques can enhance existing methods of information provision and public participation in a renewable energy setting. Specifically, we are concerned with examining participant opinions on the use of such tools to promote participation in relation to a proposed wind farm in South Wales. Our findings suggest that survey participants are generally optimistic regarding the potential for such software and overall give strong support for the development and implementation of these technologies in a real-world planning context. However, we suggest that such techniques need to be carefully tailored to the types of public engagement being sought in order to link particular tasks to specific technology types.

Introductory Remarks by Scott C. Fulton

Twenty years after the Rio Earth Summit, the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) offers an important opportunity to consider anew the challenge of sustainable development and to provide guidance and inspiration for the path ahead. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is among the discussants within the U.S. government effort led by the U.S. State Department to advance a positive and constructive intervention at the Rio+20 conference. This includes advancing the discussion to pursue effective environmental governance, particularly at the national level, within the arrangements component of the Rio+20 agenda. This will serve to highlight the critical importance of effective governance and will help catalyze an international effort to more fully operationalize ideals, objectives, and commitments through government systems and modalities that are fully functional. Within this context, the World Congress on Justice, Governance and Law for Environmental Sustainability, which will immediately precede the Rio+20 conference, is expected to bring together judges, attorneys general, auditors general, and others integral to effective implementation of environmental law. They will share ideas, best practices, challenges, and successes in a way that, if projected forward, should enhance environmental governance, reflecting its nature as a system of interrelated and mutually reinforcing parts. (1) This discourse is integral to shifting focus from the need for environmental legislation to the quality of implementation of that legislation at the national level. Without effective implementation, there can be no protection from global pollution, and no level playing field for international commerce, including green commerce. This premise is based on the need for a basic floor of environmental protection that can be experienced around the world. This floor will rest upon the rule of law as its foundation. Successfully implemented, it will be the heart of a governance structure that makes science and environmental data the primary language of environmental protection, guarantees participation in environmental decisions by affected communities, ensures true accountability by government and industry alike, eliminates institutional inefficiency and confusion, and brings swift and meaningful justice to environmental grievances and disputes. We have learned from experience that without these interrelated and mutually reinforcing parts working in harmony, environmental laws on the books will not produce health and environmental benefits in reality. Taken together, these are the precepts that are integral to effective governance: effective laws, disclosure, participation, accountability, coherent institutional arrangements, dispute resolution, and environmental public integrity. The end state of sustainability is absolutely dependent upon these precepts. These are the ingredients that lift the world of law off the page and propel it into action. (2) In order for environmental laws to be effective, they should be clear, even-handed, implementable, and enforceable. Laws and regulations should provide a clear roadmap for translating general legal mandates to facility-specific requirements and ensure that the vital interests and views of all stakeholders are considered. Furthermore, laws and regulations must be implemented and enforced in order to achieve desired environmental results. Environmental information should be collected and made accessible to the public through disclosure. Routinely disclosing available environmental information to the public enables civil society to take an active role in ensuring accountability while fostering community engagement. Public access to environmental compliance data reported by the regulated community or amassed by government through tools like Pollutant Release and Transfer Registries can encourage businesses to pay more attention to polluting activities, expose waste in production processes, and help them make adjustments towards more efficient materials management. …

E. Iceland

Three issues dominated 2012: first, the climate issue; second, the conservation of biodiversity and nature; and, third, a proposal for a new Icelandic constitution including provisions on environmental rights and sustainable development. As a result of an open procedure begun in 2010, a proposal for a new constitution containing environmental provisions, including principles on environmental rights and sustainable development, was submitted to the Althingi. According to Article 33(3) of the proposal, all citizens shall by law be ensured the right to a healthy environment, fresh water, clean air, and unspoiled nature. According to Article 33(4), the use of natural resources shall be managed so as to minimize their depletion in the long term with respect to the value of nature and interests of future generations. Moreover, Article 36(1) and (2) of the proposal put forth the public’s right to environmental information, participation in environmental decision making...

A Modest Contribution to Environmental Democracy and Justice in Transboundary Contexts: The Combined Impact of the Espoo Convention and Aarhus Convention

The Espoo Convention with the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Protocol and the Aarhus Convention reduce the impact of State borders for participatory rights in environmental decision making with transboundary reach. While confirming the sovereignty of States, these treaties set out minimum standards for public participation in environmental decision making, to be applied also in transboundary contexts, and prohibit any discrimination as to citizenship, nationality or domicile in providing for public participation. In a modest way, they thus also promote environmental democracy and justice considerations across State borders. However, this potential is not yet used to the fullest extent possible.

Implementation of the Aarhus Convention in Serbia

The Aarhus Convention has become a part of the Serbian legal system with adoption of the Law on Ratification of the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters in May, 2009. The largest share of laws in Serbia which regulate the right to access information, public participation and legal protection in environmental matters was adopted prior to ratification of the Aarhus Convention. However, after the ratification came amendments to certain laws for the sake of accordance with the norms of the Aarhus Convention. This paper analyzes the existing legal provisions in Serbia and the extent thereof on its accordance with the norms of the Aarhus Convention. In addition, the paper points out the relevant practice of administrative authorities and the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection relating to cases of access to environmental information and the right of public participation in environmental decision making as well as major court decisions on right to judicial review.

Environmentally Just Technology

Abstract This article argues that technology should be considered to be among the structures of environmental injustice. Explaining that technology can be inherently just or unjust—that is, that the material artifacts that comprise technological infrastructures can be more or less compatible with environmentally just social arrangements—it suggests that most existing technology is relatively incompatible with environmental justice. It then offers a list of design features that would help make technology inherently more compatible with fair distribution of environmental risks and benefits, equitable enforcement of protective environmental regulations, the ability of marginalized communities to build social and economic capacity, and meaningful public participation in environmental decision making. Recognizing the role that technological design plays in structuring environmental injustice should help environmental justice practitioners recognize and advocate for technology compatible with a just world.

Environmental justice in Cuba

‘Environmental justice’ refers to the human right to a healthy and safe environment, a fair share of natural resources, access to environmental information and participation in environmental decision-making. Some analysts have argued that environmental justice is undermined by the political economy of capitalism. This paper builds on this analysis by evaluating the environmental justice situation in Cuba, a country where there is little capitalist influence. Evidence is based on participant observation and interviews in Cuba, as well as secondary quantitative data. The research findings suggest that Cuba fares relatively well in terms of environmental justice, but still faces a number of challenges regarding the quality of its environment and some aspects of the environmental decision-making process. However, many of its ongoing problems can be attributed to global capitalist pressures.

Slapp Suits: An Emerging Obstacle to Public Interest Environmental Litigation in South Africa

The constitutional project of South Africa depends on public interest litigation to ensure that rights in the Constitution are protected and fulfilled. The dialectic of promoting socioeconomic rights while concomitantly promoting other constitutional interests remains a big challenge. A case in point is the protection of environmental rights, which poses a greater challenge given the tension between development and environmental protection. Among other strategies, the environment can most effectively be protected through public interest environmental litigation supported by democratic participation in environmental decision-making. However, emerging threats to such litigation include strategic litigation against public participation (SLAPP suits). SLAPPs were first identified in the United States. In the US, particularly in California, targeted legislation has been used to deal with SLAPP suits and South Africa may have to consider taking this route to forestall this threat to public interest litigation. In the absence of such targeted legislation, however, courts should use existing procedural and substantive legal tools to protect litigants faced with SLAPP suits.

Transition in public participation in Chinese water management

In recent years, the Chinese central government has expressed the goal of working towards a civil society. However, there are great challenges in a transition to participatory decision-making in water systems management, and this paper aims to analyse the difficulties in the Chinese context. The development of Chinese water systems is summarised, with a focus on the characteristics of water management framework and its underlying values. The initiation of public participation in environmental decision-making is tracked, as well as its scope in the planning process of three water-related projects. Finally, the participatory mechanisms and capacity in China are briefly discussed from different perspectives. This paper argues that effective public participation in China is substantially hindered by current participatory mechanisms and capacity. Improved decision-making would result from: amendments to legal requirements on compulsory participation and broadening environmental information disclosure; developing sufficient relevant monitoring systems towards evidence-based planning and decision-making; inclusion of all relevant stakeholders under transparent planning and decision-making regimes; and building institutional capacity with the emphasis on developing a feasible procedural framework for participation and for assessing the effectiveness of the participatory process.

Public participation in environmental decision making, With special reference to project in Rajasthan

Development is a continuous process and is essential to enable the population to attain a better standard of life. But it should not be at the cost of the environment. The challenge of a development pattern striving to harmonize economics with social and environmental needs requires active citizen participation in public issues. Public participation in decisions about development is fundamental to achieving lasting and possible solutions. Using case study from Rajasthan, this paper identifies the procedure followed for public hearing, its deficiencies and outcomes. The research argues that it is the right of citizen on the part of people to participate and the utmost duty of the authority (project proponent) to help conduct a successful public hearing in accordance with laws and in benefit of the society.

The doing and un-doing of public participation during environmental impact assessments in Kenya

Mechanisms that restrict public participation during environmental decision-making in Kenya still exist almost a decade after the inception of the Environmental Management and Co-ordination Act (EMCA) of 1999. This paper analyses the current situation concerning public participation during environmental impact assessment (EIA) and strategic environmental assessment (SEA). It presents the barriers that may impede effective public participation in environmental decision-making in Kenya and draws attention to possible solutions, including the potential of SEA as a bridge to better public participation.

Science and Public Participation: An Analysis of Public Scientific Argument in the Yucca Mountain Controversy

While they make valuable and significant theoretical moves, new models of public participation in environmental decision making may not help publics navigate within traditional models of public participation. In this essay, the author builds from Kinsella's (2004) concept of public expertise and examines what she calls public scientific argument. Through an examination of the Yucca Mountain site authorization public comment period, the author analyzes how non-scientist citizens attempt to engage in scientific argument in current technocratic models of public participation. This essay not only calls our critical attention to providing practical resources for citizens faced with current technocratic models of public participation but also challenges new models to more fully consider citizen abilities to engage in scientific argument as a form of technical competency.

Principle of public participation in environmental law of the Russian Federation

This article addresses normative acts, decisions of the courts, practice and public relations in the field of public participation in environmental decision-making. The purpose of the present article is to develop measures for strengthening the principle itself in law application and improvement of environmental protection as a whole. Open and private data bases, content analysis methods, comparative law, formal, logic, and statistical methods were used during this work. This article offers a selection of main terms, a short description of domestic sources, a survey of several cases and practical problems. The review enables a general overview to be gained of the past, present and future of this problem in the context of Russian environmental legislation.

Tools of Environmental Justice and Meaningful Involvement

Environmental justice policy goals encompass the fair treatment and the meaningful involvement of all people in environmental policy formation and implementation. Few studies consider how new environmental justice programs foster meaningful involvement; this study addresses this gap by examining seven years of an environmental justice small grants program implemented by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). We frame our research in the theory of environmental discourses, dividing policy implementation among adherents with a managerial, pluralist, or communitarian perception of remedies to environmental injustice. We hypothesize that EPA awards will emphasize the managerial and pluralist discourses. Our study's empirical foundation included a content analysis of documents on 736 small grant awards. We supplemented this data with 23 interviews of grant recipients and four interviews with EPA officials. During seven years, more than half of the grants (58%, or 501) funded programs to primarily increase environmental justice information in the recipient community. Grants for technical capacity came in a distant second (21%, or 186) of the programs funded by EPA. Organizational efforts were the third most frequent award, representing 14% of all grants. Finally, only 7% of awards funded an initiative to expand public participation in environmental decisions. The EPA policy objectives included the goal of building participatory capacity in the design and implementation of local environmental decisions; however, funded programs emphasized efforts to generate and disseminate information, instead of building civic capacities for citizens to use information in meaningful ways. We conclude that environmental justice practitioners should better balance technical and informational efforts with “civic-minded” capacity-building programs.Environmental Practice 10:152–163 (2008)

Governing atmospheric sinks: the architecture of entitlements in the global commons

This article revisits key works on the management of common-pool resources under common property arrangements, in order to elicit a broader notion of collective ownership for analysing institutional arrangements that govern the use of large-scale environmental resources such as biodiversity and atmospheric sinks. The article proposes a model for analysing the institutional design of governance solutions which draws attention to 1) tiers and levels, 2) organisation of generic governance functions, and 3) formulation of specific institutional rules. The article exemplifies these analytical solutions by examining the emerging governance framework for global atmospheric sinks. The article indicates how crucial parts of the institutional framework for governing atmospheric sinks are still missing, a shortcoming which maintains the ‘‘tragedy of the commons’’ in their use. The article suggests that a workable governance solution for global atmospheric sinks has to 1) cap the use of atmospheric sinks; 2) provide for a more equitable benefit sharing; 3) provide for compensation of climate change impacts and assistance for adaptation to climate change impacts; and 4) create institutional solutions for enhancing participation in environmental decisions in order to guarantee progress in and legitimacy of the governance framework.