Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
ecologically desirable means available to them of meeting their respon-
sibilities and preparing long-term strategies for using them in a move-
ment towards a future that places fewer demands on the natural world.
The proposals should also identify aspects of social-economic function-
ing at the different levels that are incompatible with the system of
governance
s goal of maintaining ecosystem functionality, and explore
pathways that would lead to more sustainable ways of living. The inten-
tion is that the mechanisms for planning will correspond closely to, be
guided by and inform the policy-making processes I propose in
Chapter 3
so that policies can be grounded in, and moulded by, knowl-
edge of the resources available for an ecological transition, of situations
that must be transformed if such a transition is to be achieved, and of
possibilities available for transforming them at different scales.
The allocation of land and resources under the preparation of transi-
tional plans should also be guided by a preference for solutions that are
judged least likely to undermine the resilience of ecosystems. Strategic
environmental assessment, with its objects of enquiry suitably altered to
explore the risks of ecological harm that spatial and natural resource uses
and combinations of them pose, would support this search for ways of
reducing stresses that do not themselves exacerbate ecological deterio-
ration.
63
This would correlate to an extent with Stallworthy
'
'
s description
'
of land use planning
s role at its most proactive as being to divert
.
64
However, the analysis
of available spatial resources and the selection of ecologically preferable
options would, in contrast to the
'
resources into preferred land uses and facilities
'
exibility afforded to planners in
exercising judgment over how the environment should be protected, be
positively required by the introduction of a statutory objective to be
observed in plan formation and implementation.
65
This process may of
course lead to a preference for activities that, whilst they may not be
regarded as the least consequential amongst alternatives in policy-
making, would be seen as such when the ecological conditions of areas
under consideration are taken into account. Decision-making concern-
ing an appropriate balance between different activities and land and sea
uses would fall to the state in conjunction with regional and local
institutions under its coordinating role.
66
Iarguedin
Chapter 3
that the principle of substitution should be
underpinned by a practice of phasing out options that are deemed too
63
Chapter 5,
Section 5.4
.
64
Stallworthy,
'
Sustainability, Land Use
'
,p.102.
65
Chapter 5,
Section 5.3.3
.
66
Chapter 4,
Section 4.4.3
.
