Approaches to Environmental Decision Making through Human-environment Relationship Perspectives
Jeetesh Rai *
University of Delhi, Delhi, India.
Smriti Soni
Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, Delhi, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The environment, in its natural sense, often refers to our biophysical surroundings and man is in continuous interaction with it for its very existence. However, man-environment relationship has many dimensions- physical, social, economic, political, and even temporal- in terms of how we are currently affected by past decisions and how our decisions will affect us and our coming generations in future. When risk assessment was in its infancy in the 1960s, the general assumption was that the major cause of a problem could easily be identified and a solution generated. As time has progressed and society and science have faced new problems, this assumption is no longer applicable to the decision-making process. Thus, society is currently at a crossroads in environmental decision making, and there is a need to carefully examine the current paradigm and think about what our scientists and social scientist can do to improve the way decisions are made. This paper highlights different approaches to environmental decision making and opportunities to improve decision making under complex situations and circumstances.
Keywords: Environmental decisions, participatory governance, citizen participation, policy-making, decision making.