Features of Environmental Conflicts

(i) The "jig-saw" pieces shown in the Figure do not always occur in every environmental conflict.

(ii) A fairly simple localized dispute will only impact on some of them.

(iii) But, a complex public interest environmental or global dispute will require information from a very wide range of professional disciplines.

(iv) Public interest environmental conflicts involve multi-stakeholders having competing interests towards development or the environment.

(v) Environmental conflicts require sustainable solutions.

(vi) For sustainable solutions to be achieved, the power

held between those holding competing environmental and development interests must be fairly evenly balanced.

Jigsaw

Shared Responsibility and Joint Action: The New Direction for Achieving Sustainable Development

(a) A sustainable solution requires the multiple and competing objectives of sustainable development - environmental, economic, social and cultural - to be balanced equitably, and to not be weighted in favour of one e.g. economics.

(b) Equity aims to ensure that the ultimate decision is made in the public interest and not to a sectional group.

Public Rally: Protect the Great Barrier Reef, Brisbane, Queensland, August 2013

WHY IS EQUITY A KEY CONSIDERATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT?

Equity aims to minimize the extent to which environmental costs and benefits are shared disproportionately between alliances across all sectors of society that share and interest in the conflict e.g. community, developers and Government.

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