Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
social objectives. Accordingly, it is not problematic for politicians to make
decisions involving trade-offs between different interests without any
transparency as to how the environment was considered in their deliber-
ations or the basis on which decisions were made. These assumptions are
not tenable in view of our growing awareness of the importance of ecosys-
tem health for our own well-being and of the threats that our activities
present for this.
The question we should be asking is not how law might be adapted
to policy-making processes, but how we would design decision-making
structures and what role law would play in them in light of current knowl-
edge. I suggest that we would expect to see suf
cient structure, system-
atisation and transparency in decision-making to ensure that judgments
made in forming policy take into account, and seek not to impair, the
functionality of ecosystems. We would not opt for an approach in which
decisions are made through a secretive process of interest balancing for
which there is no visibility as to how conclusions have been reached.
The design and enactment of a framework for policy-making would
provide an opportunity to inject the necessary rigour into the process to
ensure that ecological considerations are given priority in policy forma-
tion, that it is conducted transparently, and that policy-makers have
some accountability for the choices they make. As part of this reform,
new institutional structures should also be developed with a view to
overcoming the likely resistance to constraints on political choice and,
ultimately, to promote the cultural change that would lead to acceptance
of ecological protection as a normative objective of policy formation.
I consider in the following sections what reforms would need to be made
to achieve these ends and how the legal framework might be used to
introduce them.
3.4.1 A whole-of-government approach
Ecological policy-making would involve more than the assessment of
policy proposals as they arise. It would require the government to
conduct a periodic review of needs and demand in the different areas
that its responsibilities encompass and of the options for satisfying them.
This would be done with a view to identifying how policies might be put
in place and existing policies revised to reduce the cumulative impacts
of economic and social activity on ecosystem health. An all-embracing
approach is necessary because the ad hoc review of proposed action
would not be suf
cient to drive a reduction in levels of ecological stress.
