Discursive Relationships Between Landscape Science, Policy and Management Practice: Concepts, Issues and Examples - Landscape Ecology for Sustainable Environment and Culture - page 223

critical integrity of the deliberative process, deliberation about what should or
could be an outcome needs to be separated from consequential political decisions
about what will be undertaken. The expert role is framed as a scientist or planner,
not a decision maker.
The theoretical logic of separating the science deliberation from decision
making is based upon a desire to ensure that analysis and deliberation is open,
objective and unsullied by power imbalances. However, in expert led processes the
practical effect can be quite the reverse of what is intended. Separation of stake-
holders and decision makers from the process of investigating and analysing
conditions and possibilities can lessen their commitment to the outcomes of this
deliberation. This is exasperated in situations where office holders change during
the process, and newcomers have little sense of 'ownership'.
The presumption of committed but independent scientists providing impartial
advice to the decision-makers also fails to stand up to scrutiny when the evidence
is considered. Analysis of several alternative futures cases suggests instead that
quasi-political decisions are involved throughout the alternative futures modelling
process. Alternative futures planning approaches in practice comprise a series of
discursive moments that involve both deliberation and value based decision
making. The decisions made at each moment impact all subsequent phases of the
planning process, the science upon which it draws, and the eventual planning
outcomes. Hence engagement of stakeholders and communities with the science is
an essential requirement throughout the process, and this inevitably exposes sci-
entists to the value rationality of decision making.
The two case studies upon which we base this argument took place in the US
Mountain West in the latter part of the 1990s and early years of the 2000s
(Fig. 12.1 ). The first case is the San Pedro project (Steinitz et al. 2003 ), located in
the semi-arid region in southeast Arizona and northern Sonora, Mexico and
includes the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area (SPRNCA). Research
Fig. 12.1 Map of western United States showing the location of the two projects in Oregon and
Arizona. The Arizona project also included portions in Sonora, Mexico