Public Participation Principles

Practice Principles & Methods of Public Participation
The international best practice principle of public participation in EIA shown below has been divided into three tiers: Basic Principles, Operating Principles and Developing Guidelines. The basic principles have involved the main stages of the EIA process from screening and scoping to decision-making. The operating principles are applied to the basic principles to enable their operation in different stages (Andre et al., 2006).
Basic Principles Operating Principles Developing Guidelines
• Adapted to the context

• Informative and proactive

• Adaptive and communicative

• Inclusive and equitable

• Educative

• Cooperative

• Imputable • Initiated early and sustained

• Well planned and focused on negotiable issues

• supportive to participants

• tiered and optimized

• open and transparent

• context-oriented

• credible and rigorous •Access to useful and relevant information

• High level involvement and participation in decision making

• Creative ways to involve people

• Access to justice and equity
Source: Andre et al., (2006, pp.2-3)
A range of methods exist for involving the public in decision-making (Petts et al., 1996; Downs, 1997; Environmental Agency, 1998). Public participation encompasses a group of procedures designed to consult,

At this stage, the federal authorities need to determine whether their proposed action will have a significant environmental impact or not (Moorman J.L and Z. Ge, 2006). Upon authority’s fixed decision, an environmental impact report is needed to prepare for the proposed action. In this stage, the announcement of the intention does not positively request public comment, but means the authority provides appropriate contact information for future contacting, and allows the interested public to express their views on the institution (Heather N and Stevenson,