Justice Frameworks to Environmental Decision-Making

Water under the Bridge: Fairness and Justice in Environmental Decision-Making by Catherine Gross Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the Australian National University February 2010 ii Candidate's Declaration This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university. To the best of the author’s knowledge, it contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made in the text. Catherine Gross Date: iii Acknowledgements This thesis is the culmination of six enjoyable years of research and study in the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University. I offer my sincere thanks to David Dumaresq, for his support, encouragement, guidance and crystal-clear perspectives, first in supervising my Masters research and then as chief supervisor for my PhD. To Val Brown and Steve Dovers, my two PhD panel supervisors, my sincere thanks for your highly valued guidance and support all the way through and your readiness to discuss different aspects of my research at any time. Many others at the Fenner School have contributed: thanks to Sue Holzknecht, Rob Dyball, Peter Kanowski, Janette Lindesay, and Richard Greene for support from the early stages of my studies through to my PhD. For technical assistance with computing and software I thank Karl Nissen, Steve Leahy and John Boland, and likewise I thank Clive Hilliker for his assistance with diagrams and cartography. I also appreciate the support and assistance of many academic colleagues, administration staff and fellow students from the Fenner School and other research institutions for reading papers, discussing ideas and for a variety of helpful suggestions. I particularly acknowledge and thank my case study interviewees in NSW, Victoria and the ACT for their contribution to my research. Their thoughtfulness, openness and insights brought this research to life and gave me the inspiration and motivation to tell their stories. I also appreciate my friends from Nature and Society Forum for their encouragement. In particular, I thank Stephen Boyden for many enjoyable and thought- provoking conversations on a wide range of topics. Funding from Land & Water Australia and the Australian National University made this research financially possible and the provision of voice recognition software from the ANU Disability Unit made this research practically feasible. I am most appreciative of this financial support. Finally, I thank my family and many friends (including the four-legged variety) who were there for the long haul and gave me continuous support, friendship, ideas, and distractions along the way. iv Abstract Concepts of justice and the distribution of public resources have been an important aspect of social debate for centuries. Finding fair and just allocations of natural resources remains a major preoccupation for national governments and their constituent communities. Yet Australian governments, despite their long history of dealing with resource use conflicts, have largely failed to establish lasting legal or institutional frameworks in which resources are allocated in ways that are seen as equitable, fair and just. Where such allocations or decisions are perceived as unjust, underlying social tensions can emerge and result in social conflict. This study examines two such social conflicts in which communities expressed dissatisfaction with government plans and decisions through organized protests. The first case study explores community reactions to a 2006 NSW government action to cut a water allocation in the Murray Irrigation District. The second investigates community reactions to the Victorian government’s North South Pipeline and Food Bowl Modernisation Project initiated in 2007. This study investigates these conflicts from a justice perspective, concentrating on notions of fairness and justice. Using a transdisciplinary investigative framework the thesis explores these notions through stakeholder perceptions of procedural justice and distributive justice. Procedural justice is concerned with the fairness of elements of the decision-making process and distributive justice with the outcome or decision. The study aims to find out how people perceive fairness and justice within the social context of the decision-making process and how these perceptions contribute to their acceptance of an outcome. The study also explores how better outcomes might be achieved. The study finds that justice and fairness are critical in determining people's acceptance of, or opposition to, a decision. Participants discussed conceptions of fairness or a sense of justice invoked when they perceived unfairness or injustice to themselves or others. The study also finds that people distinguish between the terms fairness and justice, with the former being concerned with how individuals treat each other on a day-to-day basis and the latter with the legal system and outcomes. The importance of injustice in any consideration of fairness and justice is shown in the way people felt they were treated during the decision-making processes and in the proposed or actual outcomes. Stakeholders experienced a variety of ways in which the process or outcome affected their lives: these included material, social and personal effects. A diversity of motivations for seeking justice emerged, including protection of livelihood and property rights, protection of community interests, maintaining environmental integrity, and justice as a means of valuing people’s contribution to society. The thesis relates these findings to justice theories. Distinctions between justice and injustice are discussed: the thesis argues that justice can be conceptualised as an active process which prevents or remedies perceived injustice. The thesis explains why justice is important, not only to those directly affected by a decision, but also to those indirectly affected or onlookers. The thesis finds that in order for resource allocation decisions to be perceived as fair and equitable the three constructs of justice—distributive, procedural and interactional—are all required. A principal finding is that procedural justice and interactional justice are important in determining the acceptance of outcomes because they deliver things that people feel they are entitled to, such as respect, information and recognition of their right to be involved in a decision-making process. The thesis suggests the development of analytical tools based on justice constructs that can be used in decision-making processes in a proactive way to increase the acceptance of the outcome: theories of justice can be seen as a means and an end. Finally, the thesis explains why a theory of justice is required in decision-making within natural resource management. v Table of Contents Candidate's Declaration ..................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iii Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents ................................................................................................................ v List of Figures ................................................................................................................. vii List of Tables .................................................................................................................. vii List of Boxes ................................................................................................................... vii List of acronyms and abbreviations ................................................................................ vii Glossary and Terms Used in Water Resource Management .......................................... viii Chapter 1: Searching for fair and equitable solutions .................................................... 1 1.1 Sharing natural resources: perspectives and problems ............................................ 2 1.2 Fairness in natural resource management ............................................................... 5 1.3 This study: justice in natural resource management ............................................... 9 Chapter 2: Theories of Justice ......................................................................................... 15 2.1 What is justice? ..................................................................................................... 16 2.2 Outcomes, processes and interpersonal treatment ................................................. 20 2.3 Theories and questions about why people are concerned with justice .................. 24 2.4 From theories of justice to a theory of injustice .................................................... 32 2.5 Justice research: status, reflections, and distinctions ............................................ 36 2.6 Summary: from theory to practice ........................................................................ 40 Chapter 3: A holistic and adaptive research methodology ........................................... 42 3.1 Environmental philosophy and the setting of boundaries ..................................... 44 3.2 A holistic and adaptive methodology ...................................................................

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