Environmental Engineering Reference
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sustainable future of the Iraqi marshlands should direct their energies (Karish and
Faris 2004).
PUBLIC POLICY IN ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING
It is worth concluding with a few reflections on the public policy choices that are
available for places like Coiba or the Iraqi marshlands, and the role of research-
ers in trying to contribute to these public policy choices (Karish and Faris 2004).
It is a common misconception that the role of the public policy analyst should be
to come up with perfect public policy solutions based on good ideas. And many
such individuals truly believe that they do come up with a lot of really good ideas,
even brilliant and sophisticated ideas, that are very well elaborated. However, it is
often the case, of course, that many of the people who hear these ideas don't share
the same enthusiasm for them. Certainly a much more effective approach seems
to be to forget this idea of coming up with good solutions, but instead look at what
people are actually considering on the ground and give them a better idea of how to
evaluate the ideas that exist already (Karish and Faris 2004). And the best way to do
this, of course, is to put
all
the ideas out on the table. In evaluating these ideas, the
government of course can't do it alone, and what is needed is an active, engaged, and
motivated populace in order to assist with these ideas. Governments will typically
have very short-term planning horizons barely beyond three to five years into the
future. And this is where NGOs and private organizations can contribute to the pub-
lic policy exercise. The role of researchers is really to make research accessible and
also to foster the development of these constituencies and institutions so that they can
pressure the public policy decision makers, including even making the development
choices part of elections.
The alternative futures framework is so strong and compelling that it is cer-
tainly very worthy of consideration of being applied to planning the restorative
redevelopment of the Iraq marshlands (see chapter 4). Because the analysis can be
accomplished very quickly with a minimum amount of information (Karish 2007),
there is a lot to recommend its adoption. In making public policy choices, it is
often recognized that the science may not always be there in order to answer ques-
tions that society would like to know. However, society often doesn't put that fact
into context, such that the science is also generally far ahead of the public policy.
As a result, the institutions, constituencies, processes, and mechanisms by which
good public policy is made can often be very, very poorly developed. Indeed, one
of the principle measures of economic development is how well these institutions
have developed in order to help make such public policy choices (Karish and
Faris 2004). And the role of research (such as that described in chapters 10 and
12) can be to contribute to fostering a dialogue that can create the constituencies
for change.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Adapted from Karish and Faris (2004).
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