The Construction of Justice: A Case Study of Public Participation in Land Management

Abstract

Productive, just management approaches are more likely to be developed on the basis of an understanding of how people make judgments of justice. We propose that acceptable (just) land‐use management plans are compatible with salient values. Values are created and come to be salient through the process of social construction. Public participation, as a form of social discourse, can be an important element in the social construction process. To realize this potential, changes in the nature of public participation are required. It is argued that public participation (and other practices) that create new, common values that can be used to develop just land‐use management practices should be encouraged. A case study of experiences with a county critical areas ordinance is discussed.

Perceived (In)justice of Public Land Acquisition

“…Holtslag-Broekhof et al (2014) found that feelings of injustice explained why certain landowners were willing to sell their land to the government and others were not. Cvetkovich and Earle (1994) argued that feelings of justice are constructed during planning processes and that public participation can play an important role in shaping landowners' perceptions of justice and in creating shared values and discourses.…”

“…Each person involved in land acquisition processes can have personal and divergent ideas on what constitutes (in)just land acquisition. Just land acquisition is more likely to be developed on the basis of knowledge on the way people perceive the justice of land acquisition (Cvetkovich and Earle 1994). This brings up two relevant questions; firstly, what do landowners and land purchasers perceive as just land acquisition?…”

Environmental justice in Canada: An application to a First Nations' struggle to protect caribou from coal mining in northeast British Columbia.

“…Both a lack of inclusion at key levels in decisionmaking or the lack of capacity to effectively participate in such processes, are prominent examples of the challenges by which minorities are confronted with when attempting to seek justice via public participation processes. As such, the framework "does not always lead to justice" (both for the public in general and minorities in particular), as including people within the process is based on the questionable assumption that participation will result in an acceptable outcome (Cvetkovich and Earle, 1994).…”

“…A long history exists regarding the inclusion of individuals and groups in environmental processes and the decisions that flow from them. Cvetkovich and Earle (1994) (Lauber and Knuth, 1999: pg. 19).…”

“…Mutz et al, 2002: pg. 36) Since the involvement of the public does not include a substantive element such as formal voting on the decision (Cvetkovich and Earle, 1994;Mutz, et al, 2002), there is likely to be both dissatisfied and satisfied participants (Lawrence and Daniels, 1997).…”