Keeping stakeholders involved

Even if all conceivable groups of stakeholders have been identified, individuals may (have to) set for themselves priorities other than to become actively involved in the decision making process. There are sound economic and social reasons for such priority setting, as active involvement commonly has to take place during people’s leisure time. Most social groups do not have the opportunity to become involved during the time they earn their livelihood

or follow other social activities. Active participation and actively seeking involvement is commonly associated with certain kinds of social disposition and cannot be taken for granted. However, the decision making processes, in order to adequately reflect the interest of all groups, have to sample the views of those who cannot, or do not want to, actively participate.

The development of a ‘this is not my problem’ attitude among potential stakeholders is often observed in the context of complex decision making problems. This essentially affects all parties concerned with the development of stewardship plans. It may be due to a relative distance from the problem, or simply related to the fact that the site is not actually visible to the individual/

community. It is most prevalent in situations where the implications or issues associated with a project are too complex for an individual, or a community, to comprehend. This effect has obvious implications when communicating and consulting with potential stakeholders.

Loss of interest, even by key activists, along a lengthy decision making and implementation process can also seriously undermine the diversity, effec-tiveness and credibility of public participation programmes [60].

Maintaining and enhancing transparency in the long term stewardship programme and traceability of records and decisions are factors that can influence the level of interest of stakeholders in the programme. Transparency implies that the decision making process be well documented (including a clear and comprehensive synthesis of the bases for decisions) and available to all stakeholders in the programme. In addition, all documents are readily retrievable and can be easily understood by all interested parties. Policy and technical considerations must be clearly differentiated; for instance, a statement of intent and rationale behind each stage and decision needs to be developed and tested for understandability and then broadly publicized to stakeholders. To improve transparency (and auditing), it is also valuable to ensure that key information is not buried in a surfeit of less relevant infor-mation. Transparency creates the basis for a dialogue among the implementer, regulator, external review bodies and stakeholders.

Responsiveness to stakeholder feedback is a further incentive to maintain stakeholder involvement. Responsiveness requires that the agency imple-menting the long term stewardship programme seeks, acknowledges and acts on new information and on inputs from other stakeholders in a timely fashion.

Schedules need to be planned to allow timely integration of new knowledge into decision making and to include the time to implement changes responding to newly acquired information. This phased approach to stewardship allows the implementing agency to integrate lessons learned from prior stages and stakeholder feedback, and to plan for future stages.

Finally, trust in the institution implementing long term stewardship is essential to involve and maintain the interest of stakeholders. Trust in the institution implies integrity, for example, carrying out agreed actions. For all decisions, all uncertainties, assumptions and indeterminacies are identified and labelled as such. Technical results are accurately and objectively reported and placed in context at each stage. The applicability and limitations of data remain openly acknowledged. All relevant results, including those offered by external parties, are also incorporated into the decision making process [48].

From the point of view of stakeholders, the success of a long term stewardship programme is measured in terms of public participation. The participants in a workshop on long term stewardship some years ago identified the following seven items as the basis for successful stewardship programmes [61]:

(1) Acceptance of the responsibility for long term stewardship of contami-nated areas;

(2) Development of a (national) policy on stewardship;

(3) Establishment of a legal mandate for funding stewardship activities separate from remediation funding;

(4) Development of a better understanding of the trade-offs and relationship between cleanup and stewardship;

(5) Development of guidance for site specific stewardship plans;

(6) Involvement of stakeholders in stewardship planning, oversight and review;

(7) Establishment of information systems (e.g. databases and permanent markers) designed for use by future generations.

While some of these items simply reflect the demand for good practice and the call for a decisive political will to take on long term commitments, others pose a serious technological challenge.

6.8. RESEARCH NEEDS

The main societal challenges related to long term stewardship can be summarized as:

— Balancing management and technical issues with public values and beliefs;

— Involving stakeholders in the decision making process effectively;

— Retaining the interest of stakeholders;

— Communicating risks in an effective way.

However, predicting the future development of society has long been a subject for research (and speculation). Research to address these challenges could include items such as:

(a) Long lived societal structures in order to learn more about the properties that have helped to maintain them, and make predictions about future developments;

(b) Techniques for societal monitoring to detect changes in stakeholder attitudes or confidence in the performance of long term stewardship programmes, as well as monitoring trends in public acceptability and in stakeholder participation mechanisms;

(c) Mechanisms for stakeholder involvement and for monitoring their effec-tiveness;

(d) Mechanisms for effective public communications and their impact on programmes;

(e) Mechanisms for incorporating stakeholder feedback into long term stewardship programmes;

(f) Mechanisms for improving the transparency of long term stewardship programmes and for monitoring public perception of the programmes;

(g) Improvement of empowerment processes (e.g. the education of young people) as to how society could deal with problems;

(h) Ideological balance, and work towards resolution of ethical questions/

issues.