“A Kiss Here and a Kiss There”: Conflict and Collaboration in Environmental Partnerships

Multistakeholder collaboration in the environmental realm has been increasing steadily over the past decade. This trend is responding to several stimuli, including dissatisfaction with current regulatory regimes, a liberal economic climate emphasizing global competitiveness and short-term returns, and the growing roles of the business and nongovernmental organization sectors in the environmental policy arena. This paper grows out of ethnographic research conducted between 1994 and 1998 with four environmental partnerships in Europe and the United States. The research found all of these partnerships to be marked by practices of conflict minimization and diffusion. Drawing upon illustrative data from one of these case studies, a European Union level initiative aimed at enabling sustainable development in Europe, the paper asks why this was the case, especially given the diverse political and economic interests at stake and the history of contentious relations between the sectors in other venues. Employing a theoretical perspective highlighting the sociohistoric factors involved in these processes, the paper suggests that this proclivity toward nonconfrontational behavior stems in part from two sources: a prominent cultural model that conceptualizes the partnership process as fundamentally nonconflictual in nature, and the promotion of the discourse of ecological modernization over other competing discourses. The paper explores some of the implications of this finding and concludes that environmental partnerships characterized by such nonconfrontational practices risk inadvertently encouraging the delegitimization of conflictual approaches to environmental action and engendering a retreat from radical thinking and innovative environmental solutions.     

Building Trust in Natural Resource Management Within Local Communities: A Case Study of the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie

Communities neighboring federally protected natural areas regularly weigh the costs and benefits of the administering agency’s programs and policies. While most agencies integrate public opinion into decision making, efforts to standardize and formalize public involvement have left many local communities feeling marginalized, spurring acrimony and opposition. A significant body of research has examined barriers to effective public participation as well as strategies for relationship building in planning processes; many of which point to trust as a key factor. Trust is especially tenuous in local communities. This paper explores perceptions of trust, expectations for management, as well as constraints to building trust. In-depth interviews were conducted with 21 community members and USDA Forest Service personnel at the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie in northeastern Illinois. The interviews revealed that trust is perceived as important to effective management. Distinct expectations for management outcomes and processes emerged, including the values, knowledge, and capacity demonstrated in management decisions and actions and opportunities provided for communication, collaboration, and cooperation within the agency-community relationship. The case study identified several constraints to building trust, including competing values, knowledge gaps, limited community engagement, and staff turnover.     

Developing a collaborative model for environmental planning and management

Methods for involving the public in natural resource management are changing as agencies adjust to an increasingly turbulent social and political environment. There is growing interest among managers and scholars in collaborative approaches to public involvement. Collaboration is conceptually defined and elaborated using examples from the natural resource management field. This paper then examines how collaboration theory from the organizational behavior field can help environmental managers to better understand those factors that facilitate and inhibit collaborative solutions to resource problems. A process-oriented model is presented that proposes that collaboration emerges out of an environmental context and then proceeds sequentially through a problem-setting, direction-setting, and structuring phase. Factors constraining collaboration are also specified, including organizational culture and power differentials. Designs for managing collaboration are identified, which include appreciative planning, joint agreements, dialogues, and negotiated settlements. Environmental managers need new skills to manage collaboration within a dynamic social and political environment. Further research is needed to test the propositions outlined here.     

The typography of environmental impact statements: Criteria,evaluation, and public participation

Guidelines for implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act state that environmental impact statements (EISs) shall use “appropriate graphics.” We examined one component of graphics, typography, identifying applicable criteria from the literature and applying them to 150 EISs prepared by seven agencies. We found that the EISs ranged widely in typographic quality. The average EIS met fewer than seven of ten criteria; 12% were considered unreadable. The results suggest that weak typography may seriously limit public review of EISs. Agencies are encouraged to make typography a serious component of their public participation programs.     

Factors influencing private and public environmental protection behaviors: results from a survey of residents in Shaanxi, China

Currently one of the largest and most rapidly developing countries, China also has some of the world's most severe environmental problems. China will most likely need to use all of the potential major strategies currently available to solve the country's huge environmental challenges, including promoting individual conservation behavior through educational campaigns and encouraging public environmental advocacy. This paper summarized the findings of a survey of 347 residents of Shaanxi province on environmental attitudes and behaviors. The survey found generally high levels of environmental knowledge and high recognition of the seriousness of environmental issues, moderate levels of individual actions supporting environmental resource conservation and low levels of public environmental behaviors, particularly for organized public advocacy. Further analysis indicated that the perceived importance of environmental protection is the most important factor influencing individual environmental resource conservation, but not public advocacy behaviors. Implications for environmental campaigns are discussed.     

Conflicting energy and environmental policies: The portsmouth oil refinery

This case study presents the series of decision-making processes surrounding a current environmental issue—the Portsmouth oil refinery in Virginia. Crude oil must be refined before it can be used as fuel. Additionally, some oil must be desulfurized for use other than as gasoline. In 1977, the nation imported about one million barrels of oil a day. Although the US Department of Energy has emphasized the critical need for greater east coast refinery capability, the east coast is to supply only 25% of its refined oil needs. In the same year, the east coast met its demands for petroleum products from three sources: (a) refinery production, 22.7%, (b) product imports, 28.0%, and (c) products from the Gulf Coast, 49.3%.¹ The energy program after the Arab oil embargo has an objective of encouraging the construction of oil refineries and petrochemical plants in the United States rather than abroad. The tariff is higher on imports of refined oil products than of crude oil, and new refineries are allowed to import a large proportion of their requirements tarifffree.The US federal government does not directly regulate the locations for oil refineries or methods of desulfurization. The oil import program, however, does influence decisions concerning location of desulfurization facilities and refineries, and air and water pollution standards affect methods of refining, besides making desulfurization necessary.The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Department of Defense.     

Questioning the local: environmental regulation,shale gas extraction,and the politics of scale

ABSTRACT

The exploration and potential extraction of shale gas – better known as fracking – has emerged as one of the most contentious dimensions to local environmental politics in the UK. Local residents and environmental activists have raised concerns about health, noise, ground water contamination, seismicity, environmental amenity, and other impacts of the industry on communities. Despite the complexities of shale gas extraction, an emphasis on the local has shaped key dimensions of the debate around the appropriate location for well pads to the relative exclusion of other issues. This paper draws on fieldwork in Lancashire, UK, to reflect on the political construction of scale in order to explore how an emphasis on “the local” can restrict political debate over shale gas to narrow concerns with land-use planning thereby obviating a fuller engagement with wider questions concerning risk, energy policy, and climate change. It is concluded that a more nuanced conception of scale is necessary for understanding how concerns with shale gas are diminished rather than strengthened through the current planning policy and regulatory regime operating in the UK.     

A system dynamics model to facilitate public understanding of water management options in Las Vegas,Nevada

Water managers increasingly are faced with the challenge of building public or stakeholder support for resource management strategies. Building support requires raising stakeholder awareness of resource problems and understanding about the consequences of different policy options. One approach that can help managers communicate with stakeholders is system dynamics modeling. Used interactively in a public forum, a system dynamics model can be used to explain the resource system and illustrate the effects of strategies proposed by managers or suggested by forum participants. This article illustrates the process of building a strategic-level system dynamics model using the case of water management in Las Vegas, Nevada. The purpose of the model was to increase public understanding of the value of water conservation in Las Vegas. The effects of policies on water supply and demand in the system are not straightforward because of the structure of the system. Multiple feedback relationships lead to the somewhat counterintuitive result that reducing residential outdoor water use has a much greater effect on water demand than reducing indoor water use by the same amount. The model output shows this effect clearly. This paper describes the use of the model in research workshops and discusses the potential of this kind of interactive model to stimulate stakeholder interest in the structure of the system, engage participant interest more deeply, and build stakeholder understanding of the basis for management decisions.     

Benchmark Criteria: A Tool for Selecting Appropriate Models in the Field of Water Management

A milestone in the field of European water protection policy is the European Union’s Water Framework Directive (WFD), which came into force in December 2000 and which integrates the management of European waters in many ways. In this study, we start by focusing on management issues connected to the implementation of the WFD and pose a question: “what type of models would be the most suitable for use in the context of the WFD?” With this question in mind, we aim to establish a set of operational and functional selection criteria for (computer) models whose application is intended to support decision-making related to a particular water management issue. These so-called “benchmark criteria” should help water managers and other model users in choosing appropriate models, e.g., for the WFD implementation purposes. We first describe models and their use in general and then propose an approach for setting the benchmark criteria for models, basing it on the concept of uncertainty management, while keeping firmly in mind the important role of citizens and citizen organizations in water management. The suggested benchmark criteria are in the form of 14 questions through which each model can be evaluated. Finally, the process for testing and refining the benchmark criteria is highlighted.     

The Decision Analysis Interview Approach in the Collaborative Management of a Large Regulated Water Course

There are always conflicting goals in the management of large water courses. However, by involving stakeholders actively in the planning and decision-making processes, it is possible to work together toward commonly acceptable solutions. In this article, we describe how we applied interactive multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) in a collaborative process which aimed at an ecologically, socially, and economically sustainable water course regulation policy. The stakeholders' opinions about the alternative regulation schemes and the relative importance of their impacts were elicited with the HIPRE software. Altogether, 20 personal interactive decision analysis interviews (DAIs) were carried out with the stakeholders. Our experience suggests that the DAIs can considerably improve the quality and efficiency of the collaborative planning process. By improving communication and understanding of the decision situation in the steering group, the approach helped to develop a consensus solution in a case having strong conflicts of interest. In order to gain the full benefits of the MCDA approach, interactive preference elicitation is vital. It is also essential to integrate the approach tightly into the planning and decision-making process. The project's home pages are available to the public at http://www.paijanne.hut.fi/.     

Toward Integrated Environmental Management for Challenges in Water Environmental Protection of Lake Taihu Basin in China

Lake Taihu is the third largest freshwater lake in China. It serves many social, economic, and ecological purposes in the drainage basin. Unfortunately, the water has been heavily polluted due to rapid industrialization and urbanization during the last two decades. Notwithstanding great efforts made so far to improve the water quality, the environmental situation is still far from being optimistic. The basin and the lake are facing a range of severe environmental challenges: rapid socio-economic development continues to place great pressures on the environment, current pollution control projects have many problems from the viewpoint of effectiveness and efficiency of their implementations, and the non-point sources of pollution such as agricultural fields, for which control is more difficult than for industrial point sources, have become the main contributors to serious eutrophication of the lake. Considering the characteristics of the environmental challenges and problems confronting the basin and the lake, we focus on integrated environmental management (IEM) as a promising and effective approach to overcome these predicaments. Current practices and problems of environmental management in the basin are examined, and potential future developments are discussed. Three aspects of the IEM are emphasized: institutional cooperation, public participation, and internalization of environmental externalities. We think these are the most critical for not only the basin but also for the whole of China to achieve a sustainable society.     

The practice of participatory research and gender analysis in natural resource management

Stakeholder participation is expected to improve the efficiency, equity, and sustainability of natural resource management research and development (R&D) projects by ensuring that research reflects users’ priorities, needs, capabilities, and constraints. Use of participatory methods and tools is growing rapidly; however, there is little systematic evidence about what participation actually means in practice, or about what difference it makes. Based on an inventory of 59 self‐described participatory R&D projects in the area of natural resource management, this article characterizes the typical project and analyzes how stakeholders are selected, how they participate in the research process, and what their involvement means for project costs and impacts. The results suggest that, while projects are generating a range of direct and indirect benefits for participants, more careful attention needs to be paid to achieving equitable impacts. Current practices may lag behind best practices in key areas, such as power sharing and participant selection, and may therefore be missing important contributions from women and other marginalized groups.     

Participants and non-participants of place-based groups: an assessment of attitudes and implications for public participation in water resource management

Policy-makers and public participation analysts face the question of who should be involved in environmental decision-making. Participants are often representatives of organized groups who share similar demographic and other characteristics. This raises concerns about the degree to which the interests and opinions of others are represented. The research presented here investigates the nature and degree of differences in environmental attitudes, specifically those toward water resource management efforts, among people who do and do not participate in place-based groups in metropolitan Portland, Oregon. Neighborhood associations and a watershed council were the focus of this research due to their involvement in land-use planning and resource activities. Thirty-four individual attitudinal judgments were evaluated, along with four indices representing attitudes toward resource protection goals, government, regulations, and economic measures. Survey findings revealed watershed council participants were more supportive of resource protection compared to others on all attitudinal dimensions except anthropocentric goals. In contrast, neighborhood association participants are relatively representative of non-participants except for heightened support for economic strategies. Participants in both groups exhibited higher socioeconomic status than non-participants. Written survey comments highlighted the perceived value of on-the-ground projects incorporating local input and feedback while interviews provided insights on how to expand participation in place-based groups and resource protection efforts.     

Territorial politics and the success of collaborative environmental governance: local and regional partnerships compared

The paper explores the role local governments and territorial proximity play in the efficiency of collaborative environmental governance. It develops the hypothesis that the representatives of local authorities involved in partnerships possess resources to diminish the pitfalls of sustainable governance, facilitate coordination, and contribute to the success of shared policy-making. Four French and English partnerships are presented. They include a diversity of stakeholders such as fisheries, ports, farmers, yachting associations, environmental NGOs, or local authorities. Thereby, the paper develops whether and under which conditions local governments play a positive or negative role, as well as comparing territorial levels of implementation and the effects of geographical proximity. It is shown that collaboration at the regional level prevents the integration of decision-making in organisational networks, the inclusion of citizens, and the development of social responsibility for stakeholders – the partnership acting as a formalisation of pre-existing lobbying. Locally, governments assume inter-organisational leadership and do contribute to the institutionalisation of the new forums. Yet, local successes of partnerships answer logics of social, rather than environmental, regulation. The local attenuation of usage conflicts does not necessarily reduce the negative effects of those usages on the environment. By stressing a collaborative definition of environmental problems, the partnerships tend to sideline substantial policy changes, and possibly conflict with the goals and long-term temporality of sustainable governance.     

Environmental Values and Popular Conflict over Environmental Management: A Comparative Analysis of Public Comments on the Clinton Forest Plan

/ Public participation in environmental management decisions has frequently led to conflict. This paper examines the role of environmental values in fueling these conflicts, based on a data base and sample content analysis of written public comments solicited in 1994 regarding the highly contentious Clinton Forest Plan (also known as Option 9) proposed for management of federal forests in the US Pacific Northwest. The analysis considered whether those respondents favoring more versus less environmental protection than was offered in Option 9 held entirely different values, identifying which antagonistic values appeared to be most fundamental and where (if at all) values consensus occurred. It also compared values emanating from respondents within and outside the affected region, although few major differences were detected in this regard. Results suggest that strong values differences did exist among those preferring greater versus less environmental protection, in particular as concerned the extent, form, and spatial and temporal scope of justification of their positions, their ideas of forests, and the appropriate role of people in forest management. Disagreement concerned far more than purely environmental values: a major point of difference involved human benefits and harms of the proposed forest plan. Indeed, both sides' positions were overridingly anthropocentric and consequentialist-a values orientation that almost inevitably spells conflict in light of the commonly differentiated social impacts of environmental management decisions. Although public involvement in environmental management thus cannot be expected to lead to a clear and consensual social directive, the Pacific Northwest case suggests that viable environmental management solutions that take this range of values into account can still be crafted.KEY WORDS: Environmental values; Public participation; Clinton Forest Plan; Pacific Northwest     

Participatory GIS and its application in governance: the example of air quality and the implications for noise pollution

Abstract

Participatory GIS (geographic information systems) is designed to use community mapping exercises to produce spatial representations of local knowledge. The ideals of Participatory GIS revolve around the concept of public participation in the use of spatial data leading to increased community involvement in policy-setting and decision-making (Weiner et al., Community participation and geographic information systems, in: Craig et al., Community participation and geographic information systems, London: Taylor & Francis, 2002). This paper reports on findings from two case studies, one relating to assessments of air quality and how Participatory GIS has been used in the UK to improve local government policy, and the second on assessments of noise pollution. It concludes by discussing a caveat on the use of Participatory GIS for environmental governance, which is that, ideally, only issues on which participants are likely to have direct experiential knowledge should be targeted.     

Environmental Policy in Russia: Economic,Legal, and Organizational Issues

/ Despite the suspension and closing down of many pollutingindustrial facilities and corresponding expectations of positive change inthat field, it is argued that the environmental situation in Russia in thefirst half of the 1990s has not improved. To corroborate this point, thelatest available data are presented and the deep roots and complexities ofthe current socioeconomic and political situation in the country areanalyzed. Using analogies and "component accounting" approaches,the original economic assessments of environmental damage in the recent pastand current period in Russia are offered for comparison with similar datafrom a selection of developed countries. A model of a new environmentalstrategy and policy is developed and its economic, legal, and organizationaldimensions are examined.KEY WORDS: Damage; Environmental costs; Policy; Pollution; Publicparticipation; Risk; Strategy     

Design of an institutional decision-making process: the case of urban water management

Urban water infrastructure expenditures cause a major financial burden to municipalities. In the opinion of many policy-makers, public funds may alleviate this burden and facilitate environmental policies. However, practice has shown that despite ambitious policies, funding often follows traditional cost-dominated thinking. In Austria, national policy-makers were interested in new guidelines for funding that increase the transparency of the planning, ensure the adequate treatment of ecological problems, and foster stakeholder involvement, but keep the process as simple as possible, and require minimal changes of the current guidelines. An interdisciplinary project team conducted such a study. Its outcome was tested in two pilot projects. Based on these experiences, policy-makers finally implemented the recommended guidelines for the funding of communal urban water infrastructure projects. A general observation about the policy-making process was a conservative attitude of policy-makers. They prefer simple constraints (precautionary principle) and flexible negotiations (delegation) to complex assessment and decision-aid methodologies.     

Managing Public Forests: Understanding the Role of Collaborative Planning

/ As federal land management agencies such as the USDA Forest Service increasingly choose to implement collaborative methods of public participation, research is needed to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the technique, to identify barriers to effective implementation of collaborative processes, and to provide recommendations for increasing its effectiveness. This paper reports on the findings of two studies focused on the experiences of Forest Service employees and their external partners as they work to implement collaborative planning processes in national forest management. The studies show both similarities and differences between agency employees and their partners in terms of how they evaluate their collaborative experiences. The studies reveal that both Forest Service employees and external partners are supportive of collaborative planning and expect it to continue in the future, both see the trust and relationships built during the process as being its greatest benefit, and both see the Forest Service's organizational culture as the biggest barrier to effective collaborative efforts. The groups differed in terms of evaluating each other's motivation for participating in the process and in whether the process was a good use of time and resources, with external partners seeing it as too drawn out and expensive. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy implications and changes necessary to increase the effectiveness of collaborative efforts within the Forest Service and other federal land management agencies.KEY WORDS: Public land management; Collaborative planning; National forests; Public participation