ys to either identify or deal with multiple outcomes:
- Structures and processes within decision making systems can serve to increase understanding of multiple outcomes. This may be done by encouraging prior assessment of likely impacts, through required steps in decision making in statutes, regulations and operating procedures. Alternatively it may be done by ensuring connections between different agencies and interests so that a wide range of relevant perspectives and skills are involved in informing and designing policies and management approaches. This can involve such mechanisms as inter-departmental committees, inter-agency and inter-government processes, multi-stakeholder processes, integrated regional natural resource planning, or strategic environmental assessment.
- Research and monitoring can inform policy and management – the more we know about complex human-natural system interactions, the more likely it is that outcomes will be identified and we will be better able to deal with these.
- More specific assessment and analytical techniques can assist in either identifying or dealing with multiple outcomes:
- the identification of outcomes can be addressed through qualitative approaches, such as conceptual modeling of systems involving multiple stakeholders, or scenario projections. Alternatively, quantitative approaches may be used, such as formal modeling (eg a hydrological-ecological model of a catchment), risk assessment, or life cycle assessment of products.
- when multiple outcomes have been identified, exploration of implications, trade-offs and priorities may be carried out through methods such as multi-criteria assessments or deliberative approaches like a citizens jury.
The above indicates only a few options for addressing multiple and potentially conflicting environmental outcomes. All are valid under different circumstances, and the choice in a given situation will depend on the information available, interests and issues at stake, and especially the time available before decisions and actions are required.
Conflicting outcomes from policy and management responses are inevitable to some degree, due to complexity and uncertainty in human and natural systems, and the need for decisions and actions in the near term. As well as utilizing specific strategies and methods such as those above, an adaptive management approach involving close monitoring of the environment and the impact of policy and management is a more general requirement.
However, no matter how thorough our research and analysis, or how adaptive our management regimes are, there will inevitably be value or political decisions to be made, as conflicting outcomes carry with them conflicting or at least different social values as to what is most important. Rarely can multiple values be integrated to a single metric or measure that tells us a single, right answer. This indicates that transparency and inclusion of interested and affected parties is another general requirement, no matter what process or method is used, so that values, trade-offs and priorities are understood by all involved.
Policy processes and instruments are discussed further in Dovers S 2005, Environment and sustainability policy: creation, implementation, evaluation, Federation Press, Sydney.
Details on a wide range of methods and approaches can be found in the Citizen Science Toolbox: www.coastal.crc.org.au/toolbox/index.asp