Value articulation in environmental appraisal: which values, whose values, and how valued?

Abstract

Large infrastructure projects, such as ports, dams, highways, and mines, cause major negative environmental impacts, most felt by local communities but affecting other stakeholders as well. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and associated Social Impact Assessment (SIA) are tools that together constitute the core of the concept of environmental appraisal (EA). This concept has been accepted worldwide as the value-articulating institution that both recognizes values and evaluates impacts on them. The values, as in ethical principles, at stake here include values toward nature (instrumental, relational, or intrinsic) and toward people (recognition justice, distributive justice or equity, and procedural or democratic functioning). Drawing upon the literature on the design, practice, and conceptualization of EA, I ask whether there is a lopsided treatment of different values for nature, and in particular an inattention to relational values. I find, however, that, while the EA process may indeed be particularly neglectful of relational values toward nature, there are broader substantive and procedural failures in recognizing and discussing adverse impacts that are largely felt by local, often marginalized, communities. These failures indicate that at the heart of the problem is a deeper neglect of values for people, that is, for equity and democratic decision-making.