Chapter 7 Review Questions

F (see “Dispute Resolution”)

F (see “Cumulative Environmental Management Association (CEMA)”)

T (see “Adaptive Environmental Management”)

F (see “Collaboration and Coordination”)

T (see “Stakeholders and Participatory Approaches”)

T (see “Degrees of Sharing in Decision-Making”)

F (see “Degrees of Sharing in Decision-Making”)

F (see “Communication”)

F (see “Impact and Risk Assessment”)

F (see”Oil Sands, Alberta”)

Collaboration is different agencies working together in terms of sharing information and resources, enhancing capacity to achieve mutual benefit and realize common goals. Coordination is harmonious adjustment, effectively working together to coordinate activities to achieve goals, often via committees or task forces. Coordination facilitates collaboration. (see “Collaboration and Coordination”)

The strategies of defiance and manipulation are foundations for strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs). SLAPPs try to prevent, hinder, or discourage remarks about public matters. The intent is to restrict protests and to intimidate individuals, groups, or organizations to prevent them from commenting or protesting in other ways. SLAPPs also place pressure on defendants by forcing them to allocate scarce financial and human resources to a legal defence.

(see “SLAPPs: Strategic Lawsuit/Litigation against Public Participation”)

Arnstein’s ladder of participation provides a perspective on power redistribution. It identifies eight levels of involvement: manipulation (committees rubber-stamp political decisions), therapy (power-holders educate or “cure” citizens), information (citizens’ rights and options are identified), consultation (citizens are heard but not necessarily heeded), placation (citizens’ advice is received but not acted on), partnership (trade-offs are negotiated), delegation (citizens are given management responsibility for some or all parts of programs), and citizen control. Many public involvement programs in Canada have used the three rungs of informing, consultation and placation, and more recently that of participation. According to Arnstein, the first three do no constitute true participation and the partnership rung is considered tokenism. Only delegation and citizen control give the public any real degree of control.

(see “Degrees of Sharing in Decision-Making”)

Resource and environmental managers believed that they should make final decisions, because not only were public agencies accountable for resource allocation decisions and expenditure of public funds, but many different public interests existed, often in conflict. Managers felt that giving responsibility for decision-making to citizens could evolve into a form of anarchy. During the 1980s, dissatisfaction with many resource and environmental management decisions arose. Canadians rejected the idea that “technically correct” answers could always be found. Instead, a prevailing view emerged that such decisions should depend on weighing conflicting goals, aspirations, and values.

(see “Degrees of Sharing in Decision-Making”)

Stakeholders are those who should be included because of their direct interest, and include public agencies with prescribed management responsibilities, all interests significantly affected by a decision and parties who might intervene in the decision-making process to facilitate, block, or delay it.

(see “Degrees of Sharing in Decision-Making”)

Partnerships among governments, private companies, and the general public have become increasingly applied. The partnership concept has been implemented through co-management initiatives and other approaches that reflect a genuine reallocation of some power to citizens and away from elected officials or technical experts. Co-management arrangements have been developed particularly with Indigenous people. In these situations, power is allocated to Indigenous or other local people.

(see “Degrees of Sharing in Decision-Making”)

Carpenter’s four communication elements are as follows:
1. Much of the public does not understand science or how scientific research is conducted;
2. Much of the public does not understand “probability” or “risk,” and association and causation are often confused or assumed to be the same;
3. The media do not deal well with the “ebb and flow” of scientific research, which creates confusion and doubt about the authority or credibility of scientists; and
4. Expert court witnesses appear for different sides in a case and present conflicting testimony, but these diverging opinions should be understood as a characteristic of scientific “findings.” Carpenter recommended that when communicating we should ask ourselves the following questions:
1. What do we know, with what accuracy, and how confident are we about our data?
2. What don’t we know, and why are we uncertain?
3. What could we know, with more time, money, and talent?
4. What should we know in order to act in the face of uncertainty?

(see “Communication”)

There is no such thing as the future, but there are alternative possible futures. Which future emerges depends on choices made and actions taken to implement those choices. Under conditions of uncertainty one still must make choices and try to make these choices happen rather hope that they will arrange themselves for the best.

(see “Surprise, Turbulence, and Change”)

Turbulence, or changing conditions, are common and must be adapted to, not resisted, in order to be successful. Events may be surprising and unpredictable. Surprise, turbulence, and change make decision-making a challenge because they promote uncertainty and fear. Doubts are raised about the capability of science, planners, managers, and policy-makers, because decision-makers apparently could not anticipate or adapt to rapid change. Uncertainty can paralyze initiatives and prevent effective choices from being made.

(see”Surprise, Turbulence, and Change”)

Adaptive management is an approach that develops policies and practices that can contend with the uncertain, the unexpected, and the unknown. It approaches management as an experiment from which we learn by trial and error; we learn from our mistakes, and incorporate the lessons learned into management practices. A major challenge for applying adaptive environmental management can be satisfying preconditions.

(see “Adaptive Environmental Management”)

Co-management is primarily concerned with user participation in decision-making and with linking communities and government managers. Adaptive management is primarily concerned with learning-by-doing in a scientific way, to deal with uncertainty.

(see “Adaptive Co-management”)

Risk assessment focuses on determining the probability or likelihood of an environmentally- or socially-negative event of some specified magnitude, and the costs of dealing with the consequences. Risk assessment underlies impact assessment. The precautionary principle states that in order to protect the environment when there are risks of damage, lack of full scientific certainty regarding the extent or possibility of risk should not be used as an excuse for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.

(see “Impact and Risk Assessment”)

In Canada and elsewhere, impact assessments have primarily been conducted for infrastructure projects, especially major capital projects such as dams and reservoirs, nuclear or other types of power plants, oil or natural gas drilling or pipelines, waste disposal facilities, major highways, and runway expansions at major airports. The rationale has been that such development usually has the potential for significant environmental and social impacts, and readily identifiable stakeholders—proponents, people, communities—would be affected.

(see “Types of Initiatives to Be Assessed”)

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is a systematic and comprehensive process for evaluating the environmental effects of a proposed policy, plan, program or other strategic-level initiative. Waiting to conduct an impact assessment until after a policy or program evolves into a project means that the assessment may come too late. At the policy or program level, decisions may already have been taken to preclude or eliminate possible alternatives, and the project may become irreversible.

(see “Types of Initiatives to Be Assessed”)

Public involvement has at least three functions in impact assessment:

1. It helps to make the assessment process fair and enhances credibility.
2. It helps to broaden the range of issues and potential resolutions, and allows the public to share in devising mitigation measures.
3. It can contribute to social change because the public becomes more aware of conditions in their own environment (“social learning”).
   (see “The Nature of Public Involvement”)

Many ecological processes unfold over decades and effects of some ecosystem changes may emerge only slowly. Because of incomplete ecological science, it is often difficult to predict which changes may occur in ecosystem structures or processes as a result of development. If we are to improve our knowledge of the resiliency and recuperative powers of ecosystems, monitoring is essential.

(see “The Development of Monitoring”)

The judicial or litigation has well-established standards for procedure and evidence, and accountability is ensured through appeal mechanisms and the professional certification of lawyers. However, this process is adversarial, time-consuming, expensive, and may encourage participants to exaggerate their private interests, conceal their “bottom lines,” withhold information, and try to discredit their opponents. Courts also do not provide a level playing field between because of varying financial and political resources of opponents. Alternative dispute resolution emphasizes the interests and needs of the parties involved, and the focus is on reparation for harm done and on improving future conduct. The judicial approach emphasizes argument, while the ADR approach stresses

(see “Approaches to Handling Disputes”)

Types of ADR approaches include public consultation, negotiation, mediation, and arbitration.

However, public consultation is not normally considered one of the emerging types of alternative dispute resolution, because all decisions related to the dispute are the exclusive domain of stakeholders in any case.

In negotiation, the parties come together in a voluntary, joint exploration of issues with the goal of reaching a mutually acceptable agreement, and participants can withdraw at any time. The parties strive to identify and define issues of mutual concern and to develop mutually acceptable solutions. The normal procedure is to reach an agreement by consensus.

In mediation, a neutral third party mediator helps the disputants overcome differences and reach a settlement. The mediator has no power to impose any outcome. The responsibility to accept or reject any solution remains with the stakeholders in the dispute. In addition, the third party has to be acceptable to all parties in the conflict.

Arbitration differs from negotiation and mediation because it involves stakeholders accepting a third party with the responsibility to make a decision on the issues in conflict. The arbitrator’s decision is usually binding on the parties, however, in “non-binding arbitration,” the arbitrator makes a decision on the conflict, but the stakeholders may accept or reject it. (see “Types of Alternative Dispute Resolution”)

Resource and environmental managers should be aware of arrangements for regional and land-use planning because work undertaken to create or update a plan is often directly relevant to resource and environmental management and can provide valuable information and insight; regional and land-use plans frequently have a statutory or legislative basis and thus govern activity in an area and; once a resource management plan has been created, it is common for agencies to have responsibility for implementing specific recommendations, but agencies usually have other responsibilities as well, and must determine what priority recommendations from resource management plans should have.

(see “Regional and Land Use Planning”)

Attention needs to be given to:

1. Recognizing the context and developing a custom-designed solution
2. Maintaining a long-term perspective, usually including initiatives phased over time
3. Identifying a vision of the desired future condition to be achieved
4. Establishing legitimacy and credibility for the proposed direction and the means to achieve it, normally through a mix of legislation, policy, administrative arrangements, and sufficient funding
5. Ensuring an initiative has one or more leaders or champions, especially to keep moving forward when obstacles, setbacks, and disappointments emerge
6. Facilitating willingness to share or redistribute power
7. Establishing a multi-stakeholder approach to obtain commitment and buy-in by diverse stakeholders
8. Building capacity for adaptability, learning, and flexibility
9. Monitoring and assessing outputs and outcomes so adjustments can be made
10. Emphasizing effective communication to stakeholders regarding ends, means, and achievements
11. Using demonstration projects to highlight evidence of progress
12. Profiling and celebrating accomplishments and openly acknowledging those who facilitated the accomplishments
    (see “Implementation Barriers”)