Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
7.4 Using structures for decision-making to stimulate
information
ows
In addition to positive requirements for the generation of information,
legal constraints that make decision-making contingent on the quality of
available information could also be used to stimulate its production and
to ensure that provisions for research and monitoring are adhered to.
These, as discussed below, would incentivise or drive efforts to advance
knowledge and understanding of ecosystems by: preventing decisions
from being taken unless adequate supporting information can be pro-
vided; allowing activities to proceed on an exploratory basis until infor-
mation is available to form a view on the full extent of what is proposed;
and preventing activities from proceeding unless a capacity for monitor-
ing their impacts can be shown to exist.
7.4.1 The adequacy of information for decision-making
Mechanisms for generating information would be strengthened by
restricting the ability of decision-makers to authorise a proposed activity
until efforts to obtain prescribed information have been made. As
Doremus notes, prohibitions on uninformed actions can serve as power-
ful incentives for information disclosure.
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They can also encourage the
production of full information and the allocation of appropriate time-
scales for this by those responsible for gathering data in environmental
assessment.
Provisions have been used in the legal regime for protecting Antarctic
ecosystems to restrict the circumstances in which decisions on proposed
activities might be taken and thereby to emphasise the centrality of
information about the protected environment and the effects that
anthropogenic stresses might have on it for the regime
soperation.
Article 3(2)(c) of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the
Antarctic Treaty requires that activities should
'
'
be planned and con-
ducted on the basis of information suf
cient to allow prior assessments
of, and informed judgments about, their possible impacts
.
38
However,
there is no express prohibition of activities for which information is
judged to be insuf
'
cient. Conversely, Article 4(1) of the 1988
Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities
37
Doremus,
2.
38
Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, Article 3(2).
'
Adaptive Management
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