Workshop journals

17068553

Workshop Journal

U37722

Reflective journal 1: Environmental Crime (261) The aim of the presentation was to debate on the topic of the relationship between the natural environment and human activity. A large emphasis went to the explanation of the theory of the issue itself, known as an ‘environmental crime’. To me, however, the main question is the reality of putting the theory of ‘environmental crime’ into practise in today’s world. Thus, the main question should be is it actually possible to stop an ‘environmental crime’ today?

The presenting team was strongly arguing against ‘environmental crime’. The following idea was tested by me during my 2 weeks stay in Rio de Janeiro as part of the self-funded Brazil Urban Design Study (BUDS).

Based on my findings I assume that ‘environmental crime’ is an outcome of politicaleconomic problems (e.g. poverty) of the state/country. What is more, the political-economy issues are encouraging an ‘environmental crime’. That means that if an individual is under the poverty line, for example, it makes him/her less willing to protect natural environment.

Thus, the economy and politics are key elements here. At the same time, economical sustainability as well as a social sustainability often correlate negatively with the environmental sustainability (e.g. deforestation; tourism; manufactories). Therefore, it is an endless loop where no right solution can be found.

I believe that ‘the fruits of the Earth belong to us all, and the Earth itself to nobody’. Thus, it is my duty to act in a sustainable way. For instance, I will continue to support and take part in eco- and sustainable tourism that claims around tourism as ‘green economy’.

Reflective journal 2: Environmental Justice (232) The issue of an ‘environmental justice’ in environmental decision making was a main topic of the presentation. To my mind, an ‘environmental justice’ is one of the main catastrophe that our society is experiencing nowadays.

What became conceptualized in the USA as a result of racial inequality, became a major disaster for most of the countries. Although, not everyone is experiencing the catastrophe now, there are parts of the world that suffers a lot. The example of low-lying islands of the South Pacific nation of Tuvalu has shocked me in the sense that their contribution to global 1

warming is tiny, but its impact on them is massive. Based on my personal experience and opinion, i think that the notion of the International and Intergenerational Environmental Justice can become a powerful tool to protect the environment.

Currently, there is little contribution to environmental decision-making by the young generation (e.g. university students). As I have mentioned, the knowledge of the International and Intergenerational Environmental Justice may encourage young people to respond to the current issues.

However, based on the speech by presenting team, there is no standard agreement for assessing an environmental justice on the national (e.g. the UK) and international level. That leads me to the question of effectiveness of the nature of international and Intergenerational Environmental Justice. Is there a point to the theory, if the theory cannot be assessed or compared?

Reflective journal 3: Neo-liberalism and biodiversity (258) It is true that the animal hunting is one of the most effective ways to survive. However, today the movement has become a major catastrophe. The illegal hunting only for the purpose of leisure and trophies destroy the natural environment and biodiversity. However, hunting itself must be discussed from different perspective as can contribute to an ‘environmental stewardship’ and enhance the wildlife. It is important to mention at this point that from the personal and family’s experience, the process of hunting does not only involves animal killing. Instead, legal hunting process is a human activity that involves area conservation and exploration, species control, physical protection from the illegal trophy hunting, etc. The presenting team has clearly showed that the hunting itself can be seen from different perspectives.

Another topic that intrigued me is based around the sustainable tourism, which promoted as ‘win-win’ strategy to resolve the contradiction between continual economic growth and finite natural resources in neo-liberalist society. However, it is worth to mention that what seems to be a sustainable solution can easily overgrowth into the environmental crisis.

The case study on the sustainable tourism to Rwanda shows a positive example of relationship between nature and human activity to solve a range of different issues such as economic benefit ($400 million in 2016), better understanding of mountain Gorillas, and the increased interest from groups to help to protect the biodiversity, etc.

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Overall, the topic of ‘environmental stewardship’ is a contradictive area as it is easy to cross the limits of rationality in the capitalistic and neo-liberalistic society.

Reflective journal 4: Economic environmental valuation (256) The idea of ‘putting a price on the nature’ has been argued by many scholars and experts.

Although, ‘recent calculations of the economic value of nature and ecosystem services have caused many environmentalists to react negatively’, I strongly believe that in order to save the nature we must put a price on it (Tony Jupiter, 2018).

However, I think that environmental valuation techniques are currently not effective enough to achieve the goal. In urban planning, for example, if the company wants to destroy a green field, it can buy absolution by paying the government, to create another green field somewhere else. Consequently, governmental policy becomes a ‘licence to destroy’.

Moreover, based on my personal experience in planning course at university, I came across with situations where I were allowed to compensate the loss of the natural infrastructures by subsidising it with a new one. Based on this I can state that a current ‘policy gap’ allows developers to destroy the nature, while still meeting the government policies.

What is important is that I do not believe that society will find a solution to protect the nature by environmental valuation in the recent days, unless the whole structure of planning will change. In other words, there must be a shift from giving priority to environmental sustainability rather than to economic and social aspects of sustainability. For example, the current planning system in England (the revised National Planning Policy Framework 2018) does enhance the natural environment. Instead, it provides a legal right to destroy the nature for developers.

Reflective journal 5: Public participation (266) It is true that in spite of the increasing popularity of public engagement approaches to sustainable policy making there has not been a major change. Often, experts and authors talk about public participation without clearly defining it. Moreover, Adnan et al. (992) stated: ‘it is difficult to understand whether those talking about people’s participation mean the same thing or simply use the phrase as a kind of magical incantation’.

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The aim of the presentation was about the effect of the public engagement in environmental decision making. It is important to mention, however, a little emphasis was put on discussing the issue from the other perspective. Based on the personal experience from community forums in Eynsham village, there seems to be great argument between different groups of interest. My question is then whether public engagement in environmental decision making is a necessity to deliver a successful scheme.

In my opinion, the exclusion of public participation in environmental decision making often can bring more advantages as there is enough of professional knowledge of expertise.

This journal should not be understood as an absolute opposition to public participation as a tool. However, I think that the existing approach to public engagement should be revised.

Thus, I wish the presenting team discussed the topic of public engagement from different perspectives rather than stating that the public engagement in environmental decision making is a completely necessary element. Even though the presenting team mentioned a list of challenges of public engagement in the decision making, more emphasis should be gone to the public participation in the decision making process as a whole.

Reflective journal 6: personal presentation (244) The aim of the presentation was to explore the topic of computer-based programs in environmental decision making. While the presentation outcomes were generally positive, there were a number of changes that I would make if we are required to do a presentation again. Driven by the desire to increase the productivity of the process, we have equally split roles between all the members of the team. However, the issue of understanding the topic as a whole rather than a deep knowledge in specific areas arose later on. Efficient, yet limiting strategy should be revised by reading the literature on the topic together, and then splitting the roles between the team members.

Secondly, the fact that the team combines students from the different backgrounds (e.g. course, age, culture) led to a series of conflicts and misunderstandings. For example, there is a difference in the way of working between urban design and geography students. Thus, resulted in the low mark of the meeting attendance section in the peer appraisal.

Despite a list of problems, we managed to deliver the issue of computer-based programs in interactive way, concentrating on engaging the audience into the presentation by ‘GIS’ roleplay game.

Further attention should be paid to better co-operation and collaboration with experts before presenting the material. Professional knowledge will increase value of presentation. For 4

example, we could have spent more time on speaking with Dr. Graham Wood to get an independent, professional and unbiased opinion on the topic.

Reflective journal 7: practical exercise The National Park Environmental Decision Making (245)

Decision-making process always includes the debates between different stakeholders and groups of interests. Thus, sometimes a clash of visions may result in a large issue, and there is no democratic solution to the argument.

The National Park Environmental Decision Making role-play game shows the existing inequality between different groups of people. Nowadays, decision makers are driven by economic forces rather than environmental sustainability forces. For example, when the decision maker was deciding upon which project should be taken over in the area, the priorities went to large-scale projects such as new housing provision, new railway station construction and the expansion of the farmland. Small-scale project that were aiming to benefit the minorities such as new toilets/pick-nick/cafes construction were disclosed from the debate and not included in the community forum. Based on the observations, there are questions about the democracy and effectiveness of the decision making process as a whole.

A second question that intrigued me is whether there is a real need for decision making process to be democratic and bottom-up led? We have been always taught that the democratic approach to decision making with high public engagement improve the process.

However, the National Park Environmental Decision Making role-play game shows the opposite. Council, in order to save time and minimize the potential disagreements between different groups of interest, provided a complete top-down approach. In the result, the final decision was accepted by each member of the community discussion even no democratic approach was chosen.

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Reflective journal 8: practical exercise Environmental Management and Decision Making in Business (234) Environmental decision making is a process that involves making decisions and taking actions that are in the interest of protecting natural capital. Businesses are expected to lead in the area of environmental sustainability, as they are considered to be one of the biggest contributors. The practical exercise by the guest speaker clearly showed that even a small change (e.g. the use of reusable coffee cups, instead of the single use of plastic cups) can make a huge difference. However, these small changes are expected by society, to be fulfilled by everyone. When we are thinking about environmental management and decision making in business, we always consider large-scale strategies. The main question here is whether the business itself benefits from environmentally friendly solutions, which often involves a big financial investment.

Surprisingly, based on the results from the game, it is a ‘win-win’ strategy for both sides.

Businesses benefit from environmentally friendly strategies in the long-term, this is mainly, due to them being more energy efficient (e.g. heat, water, light).

However, the benefit (e.g. financial profit) of environmentally friendly decisions can be experienced only in the long-term period. Depending on financial investment in sustainable solutions and the size of the businesses, the period of ‘long-term’ varies from company to company and some cannot afford these changes. Thus, not all developers are ready to wait for such a long time to receive financial profit from the investments.

Reflective journal 9: practical exercise Impact Prediction and Assessing Significance in EIA (255) The aim of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is to generate information on various impacts on the environment likely to result from new, major development proposals.

However, particular stages of the process can be controversial and involve subjectivity: such as impact prediction and assessment of significance.

These existing challenges of EIA lead to the high probability of uncertainty within the process. Thus, questioning the importance and necessity of EIA in the planning system in the UK. The practical exercise that involves visual impact prediction and assessing of significance in EIA and is carried out by Cornwall Energy Recovery Centre, proves the incompleteness of the whole process.

However, the question is whether or not we need to include a visual impact analysis, because if the opinion vary amongst individuals is it truly needed? If so, how do we make a judgement on the visual impacts if there is no set criteria/baseline for the judgement?

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In the case of Cornwall Energy Recovery Centre, based on my personal visual perceptions, the significance of the visual impacts on the environment are considered to be ‘low’.

However, many students in the classroom marked it as a ‘high’ visual impact. Consequently, the assumed right answer would be to take the median between these two answers.

However, does taking a democratic approach to environmental decision making make the EIA process a necessary part of decision-making? To my mind, the current process of visual sensitivity analysis harms the EIA process, as it is based on the biased, subjective and personal opinion of an individual.

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