Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
research and development could be used to drive the development of
less-harmful technological variants such as
oating offshore wind farms
to replace the pile driving of turbine foundations into sea beds.
3.3.4 Forming strategic visions of desired futures
Alternatives assessment would enable us to identify which options are
most likely to be compatible with the maintenance of ecosystem func-
tionality. However, it provides no guidance as to how they might be
deployed so that the erosive effects of activities on resilience are reduced.
Nor does it tell us how con
ict with current economic and social practices
that prioritising ecological protection would give rise to might be addressed.
Four further steps are required in the policy-making process to answer
these questions, and, thereby, to provide decision-makers with visions of
feasible futures for use in forming policies that would meet the statutory
obligation of reducing anthropogenic stresses on ecosystems. These
are the envisioning of what a society that prioritises ecosystem health
would look like, the identi
cation of packages of measures that would
move society towards that vision and for managing the consequences
of change, the assessment of economic and social impacts that the
implementation of
strategies would have, and public discussion
and debate of different possibilities for achieving ecologically desirable
change.
In the following paragraphs proposals are set out for a strategic stage
in policy-making which includes these steps, and whose outcome would
be a package of information that decision-makers can use for deciding
on policy contents. The process of strategy formation is central to a
forward-looking precautionary approach in that it directs attention to
how ecological risks might be reduced over different timescales and the
societal and economic changes that would be necessary for this. It also
represents a signi
'
ideal
'
cant departure from traditional approaches to policy-
making under which ways of meeting perceived needs are explored in the
rst instance and environmental effects assessed, if at all, as a secondary
consideration. In contrast, the strategic process is concerned with iden-
tifying the policy solutions that would come closest to meeting the
framework
'
s statutory objectives.
and amending Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from
renewable sources
'
,COM(
2012
) 595
nal, 7.
