Water under the Bridge: Fairness and Justice in Environmental Decision-Making

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.