Ecological planning - Ecological Governance - page 171

the formation of proactive strategies for stress reduction. Third, knowl-
edge of existing economic and social activities and their location is
required to enable consideration of the cumulative impacts that subse-
quent development proposals may have.
Finally, knowledge of ecosystems and the places that, on our current
understanding, seem likely to be of importance for their functionality,
should be gathered. This information would serve two purposes. The

rst is to identify current practices that should be discontinued because
they represent a threat to places of ecological value. This analysis, which
links in with the gathering of data on existing economic activities, would
provide an equivalent process to that of sunsetting in policy-making.
Even those practices which would be judged ecologically preferable in
the abstract should be discontinued where their conduct in particular
circumstances would be ecologically harmful. The second is to provide
for ecologically rational planning both in the allocation of space in
planning processes and in decision-making on development consent
applications. In this regard, the ecological analysis would support a
genuinely strategic planning process in that knowledge of environmental
conditions would feed into consideration of how, and the extent to
which, preferred resources can be exploited without causing harm. 95
In emphasising the importance of gathering information in several
spheres for the effective conduct of ecological planning, I am conscious
that I may appear to be calling for a knowledge-intensive approach of the
type that I criticise in Section 5.2 .However,myintentioninmakingthis
criticism is not to denigrate efforts to advance scienti ccomprehension

of ecological behaviour. A concerted effort to increase our understand-
ing of ecosystem behaviour, of the importance of places and species to
ecosystem functionality, and the effects of activities on ecosystems, is, as
Iarguein Chapter 7 , important for our ability to regulate activities
effectively including by directing them to places where their ecological
impact would be minimal. It is the weight placed on that information
and the expectation that clear dividing lines can be established between
human activities and the natural world which some of the limits-based
concepts convey that is of concern. In contrast, the acquisition and
analysis of information I propose is intended to serve precautionary
decision-making frameworks whose structures re ect an appreciation

of the extreme dif culty of establishing, with any exactitude, the present

95

I consider the role of environmental analysis in the planning system further at Chapter 5,
Section 5.3.4 .