In the last decade, many arguments have emerged for encouraging public participation in environmental policy making and management While some have argued that, in democratic societies, people simply have a right to a participatory role, others base arguments for public participation on the idea that lay people may have access to knowledge which is unknown to officially sanctioned experts. Local people may count as experts about aspects of their neighbourhood or they may have insights into the behaviour of plant operators (...) that is thought to give rise to pollution. This paper reports on a novel empirical approach to analysing and capturing such 'lay' understandings. This technique, developed in ESRC-funded work in the UK, uses community mapping exercises in urban centres to produce spatial representations of local knowledges about air pollution and related problems of noise and odour. In the paper the technique is outlined, presenting data from the three-city case study. The paper concludes by assessing the ways in which participatory modelling can contribute to the local governance of air quality. (shrink)

This paper examines the socio-economic and environmental implications of soy development in Santarém, Pará, located in the Brazilian Amazon. The settlement history of the region contributes directly to the way in which soy agriculture is currently proceeding in Santarém. Government policies and perspectives have been shaped by a history of agrarian colonization of Amazon forests, and the small farmers, or colonos, who are now being bought out by soy agribusiness are also rooted in this history. As a means of ascertaining (...) the current state and interaction of soy actors with the burgeoning soy-based economy in the area, field research was conducted on the role of primary and secondary forests for soy production. Research also included an analysis of valuation discourses – that is, how the differing soy actors (local government, agribusiness, conservation NGOs, and small farmers) assign value to types of forests and their different interpretations of what constitutes environmental degradation. The ways in which these different actors assign such values to forests and how they structure the definition of environmental degradation is a key factor in determining who “wins” and “loses” in the realm of Amazon development. Significant environmental and socio-economic implications of soy expansion, especially for the colonos, are not taken into account because the dominant rhetoric of Amazonian development ignores their contribution to social and ecological diversity. This omission keeps colono communities living at poverty level and even exacerbates colono poverty under the soy development project. The colonos and their representatives are responding by setting forth their own, competing valuations of primary and secondary forests that contrast sharply with state soy growing schemes and NGO plans for “sustainable soy.” These have their roots in local knowledge and best practices. (shrink)