SLIDE 1
Good Morning Everyone,
Today our group will be presenting our 2nd paper review on the paper titled “Public
participation in environmental impact assessment: why, who
and how?” a collaborative literature review done by Anne N. Glucker, Peter P.J. Driessen,
Arend Kolhoff ,Hens A.C. Runhaar
SLIDE 2
To begin with
In the Introduction the authors introduce how public participation came to be introduced
through the EIA guidelines established by NEPA
Then it was further emphasized in the
 1992 Rio Conference on Environment and Development
 Aarhus Convention 1998
They also mention how multiple EIA centric Scientific Literatures mention the importance of
public participation in EIA.
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However upon doing an in depth research into these papers they found 3 main questions
around which EIA practitioners are conflicted upon:
 What is public participation in the context of EIA?
 What objectives of public participation in EIA can be distinguished?
 Who should participate in EIA and why?
The main AIM OF THE ARTICLE is To address the academic debate that surrounds
these questions above.
SLIDE 4
 The very first question What is public participation in the context of EIA?
Here the authors talk about how EIA practitioners often debate about the definition of
public participation itself.
Some believe that the definition concerns any party being impacted by the project or
has interest in the project, which doesn’t clarify the extent of development. While
another expert believes that it is a tool for influential decision making for all those who
are being affected by a proposed project.
There is also the interchangeable use of the terms participation and consultation, which
is questionable since these are two completely different words
Then there are some experts who believe that since public participation covers such a
various range of activities, these need to be categorized as we can see here :
 Information provision
 Consultation
 Shared decision making
However even conflict is seen here since some experts argue that by differentiating the term
into categories, we are saying that they are not inter-related. Which is not the case, since
effective information provision will lead to better consultation and shared decision making
automatically.
SLIDE 5
Then we see arguments about creating a hierarchy for different public participation processes
The experts who are against it justify it by saying that such processes should differ according to
the goals and objectives of the project.
While the ones who support it state that such a hierarchy is needed because it will help find the
lowest forms of public participation processes which they believe is informal public
participation. This form includes, protests, rallies or meetings held by the public.
They believe such forms extensively increases power of the public over project decisions while
reducing that of the decision makers and proponents.
Even this some experts refute on saying that informal public participation can be deemed to be
more effect that its formal counterpart, however there is no backing for this.
The last argument surrounding this question is the lack of clarity about public participation not
only in academic literatures but also in application of EIA.
This is mainly created due to different set of expectations. The EIA project experts may deem a
certain public participation procedure feasible but this can be ineffective in the eyes of the
public. The authors suggest here that to resolve this the experts must rely on input from the
public regarding this.
SLIDE 6
Now onto the second question WHAT ARE THE OBJECTIVES OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION?
The authors found multiple EIA literature mentioning different types of objectives. But they
managed to compile those and boil it down to 9 overarching objectives under 3 sets of
rationales
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Starting off with the Normative rationale that talks about objectives which hold a very
democratic viewpoint and promotes empowerment of the underprivileged.
The 4 objectives are:
 Influencing decisions
 Enhancing democratic capacity
 Social learning
 Empowering and emancipating marginalised individuals and groups
SLIDE 8
Then we delve into the substantive rationale that is much more driven with the goal of
producing a quality, with 3 objectives which are:



Harnessing local information and knowledge
Incorporating experimental and value-based knowledge
Testing the robustness of information from other sources
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Finally, we have the third rationale which is the instrumental rationale with 2 objectives:
 Generating legitimacy
 Resolving conflict
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So what are these objectives trying to say?
To begin with the normative rationale objectives tells us how public participation is not only a
step in EIA but a goal in itself.
The substantive rationale tells us how public participation in EIA is one of many platforms for
the public to raise their voice.
Whie the instrumental rationale tells us how public participation plays an instrumental role in
achieving the goals and objectives of EIA.
SLIDE 11
The arguments that arise here is that, these mentioned objectives are never clearly categorized
in any EIA literature and neither is it used to choose the correct public participation procedure
which the authors emphasize should be done.
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Now onto the last question which is
WHO SHOULD PARTICIPATE?
This question addresses the debate experts have regarding who exactly is being addressed
when the word “public” is being used. Some believe the term public involves any and all who
are being affected by the project while others believe the term should be made broader and
include any and all who are interested to participate in a certain projects decision making.
Furthermore there is also the interchangeable use of the words public, citizens and
stakeholders. Which should not be the case since these are completely different words.
Another argument that arises is whether the public is homogenous or heterogenous. A
homogenous public entity has one single unified opinion.
This is highly argued upon since public involvement will always create division of opinions due
to the diversity it carries. Hence most experts believe the public to be heterogenous as there
will be diversity in opinions and expectations.
This challenges the democratic objectives laid out by the normative rationale since, it promotes
the inclusivity of the public.
But given the public is heterogenous, the more public involved in numbers the greater the
variety of opinions hence more variance of expectations to be met. This will create pressure on
the proponents and can lead to unnecessary expenses. Or as was seen in the case of Costa Rica
and Nicaragua, a lot of the expectations were unable to be met and this further demotivated
the public in participating in future EIA projects.
SLIDE 13
Lastly in the Conclusion the authors states how majority EIA literature fails to portray the real
benefits of Public participation since the topic itself is not clearly defined.
Furthermore this theoretical debate was rather challenging for them since EIA literatures
accounted for all focused on different aspects and objectives of Public Participation.
In the end they emphasize how they hope this paper will help EIA practitioners realize the
importance of taking input from the public and outlining their objectives clearly when choosing
the best possible public participation procedure.
Thank you