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on communities that participants are part of and the places they inhabit
would stimulate the type of public engagement that is required if people
are to become actively involved with an ecological transition, to develop
an understanding of why this is necessary, and, ultimately, to review and
revise their own values and behaviours towards the environment.
There are two main reasons for this. The
rstisthatitissimplymore
practical than attempting to generate signi
cant levels of public interest
in, and re
'
everyday lives. People are more likely to give their time and to contribute
meaningfully when decision-making concerns issues of direct relevance
to them. Lipschutz recognises the importance of a close connection between
the subject matter of deliberation and matters of tangible importance to
participants in arguing that peoples
ection on, issues which seem far removed from peoples
'
willingness to act collectively is greater
'
when their personal experiences and surroundings are implicated in a
process than when they are expected to respond to governmental directives
from a distance or abstract predictions of future dislocations
.
112
The second is that decision-making processes which invoke a sense of
place are more likely to have an impact on how people see themselves in
relation to the environment than those which are concerned with issues
that are remote from participants. Studies of public reaction to changes
in land use demonstrate that the sense people have of places signi
'
-
cantly in
uences their attitudes towards proposed development of
them.
113
People assign meanings to the places which they inhabit and
experience, derive meaning in their own lives from a sense of belonging
to and identifying with them, and develop emotional bonds with their
environments.
114
In view of this, involvement with processes that raise
participants
consciousness of the threats that ecological degradation
may present to the environmental quality and the future viability of
the places that they live in, work in and enjoy may encourage them to
re
'
ect on their own values and to take the importance of a healthy
environment for their well-being and that of the communities they belong
112
Lipschutz,
,p.106.
113
M. A. Davenport and D. H. Anderson,
'
Bioregionalism
'
Getting from Sense of Place to Place-Based
Management: An Interpretative Investigation of Place Meanings and Perceptions of
Landscape Change
'
'
(2005) 18 Society and Natural Resources, 627; A. M. Brandenburg
and M. S. Carroll,
Your Place or Mine? The Effect of Place Creation on Environmental
Values and Landscape Meanings
'
'
(1995) 8 Society and Natural Resources, 395; B. Norton
in
A. Light and J. M. Smith (eds) Philosophy and Geography III: Philosophies of Place
(Lanham: Rowman and Little
eld Publishers, 1998).
114
Woolley,
and B. Hannon,
'
Democracy and Sense of Place Values in Environmental Policy
'
'
Trouble on the Horizon?
'
,230.
