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Newsletter and Technical Publications CHAPTER 4. PUBLIC AWARENESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION 4.1. Summary and Introduction In this chapter, the importance of satisfactory public participation in the decision-making processes on lake and reservoir management, is recognized. Public participation is basically concerned with involving, informing, and consulting the public in planning, management, and other decision-making activities which can be considered part of the political process. It is that part of the process which provides opportunities and encouragement for the public to express their views. Development programmes on environmental protection risk fail if they do not take into account the experience of the people to whom they are designed to benefit. It is necessary to listen to the people to understand their behaviour towards natural resources and to involve them in the decision-making process. To achieve active public participation in the decision-making processes regarding lakes and reservoirs protection against pollution, the public environmental culture should be promoted through measures, such as the following:
It is emphasized that raising environmental public awareness is the strongest way to build up the public support for the implementation of environmental action plans. There is no doubt that public awareness issues and concerns about the quality of the environment has triggered several forms of public participation to protect the environment. Perhaps the most important and common form of participation is through the activities of environmental groups. Tools for raising public awareness, such as environmental educational programmes and public communication, are discussed in detail. A list of tools which can be used for public awareness and education is presented. The most effective tools are recommended to help the decision-makers understand and manage the problem of public involvement in the lakes and reservoirs management considering a number of different aspects of these activities. The role of the freedom of public access to information on the environment is emphasized as a basic step to achieve the effective public participation in the decision-making processes. The effectiveness of public participation depends on the behaviour of different individuals. The role of public participation, as well as the means of screening and selecting stakeholders and the role of public members, committees, commissions, and non governmental organizations, are discussed in the context of environmental education and public awareness. The special role of women, young people, and the media in the public active participation is emphasized. Relevant existing examples on the environmental educational programmes and campaigns, as well as on the public participation experiences from some developing countries, are provided. The existing funding practice of the environmental education and public participation issues are presented. The main concern is that these issues are too often related to external donors and the contribution of the government is very low. Recommendations come through and specific attention has to be rendered in order to ensure that it will become part of the national agendas of government and pressure from donor agencies. The information given in this chapter is closely related to the other chapters in this publication. Increasing environmental and health hazards due, to increasing degradation of surface water quality, are not caused entirely by lack of appropriate economic and environmental policy or technical and technological solutions. The analysis of reasons for occurrence of certain unfavourable phenomena in aquatic ecosystems, in particular the eutrophication process, places this problem in an ethic category as well. The aquatic environment affects the quality of human life, being at the same time directly dependent on the behaviour of individual members of the community. Everyone, whether resident of a town or a village, wants to drink healthy water, breath clean air, and enjoy the beauty of the landscape. Therefore, they must also assume responsibility for the quality of their environment. Decisions concerning the protection of lakes and water reservoirs should result from a selection of solutions made by experts in the given field in consultation with, and upon approval of, the public. Even highly sophisticated and technically effective action plans cannot be successful if they are not understood and accepted by the community and then implemented by joint effort. An active public, whose members are aware of the effects of human activity on the quality of the environment, including the aquatic environment, and understanding the role they should play in the protection of the environment, may induce positive reactions from politicians and decision-makers and stimulate them to take the appropriate decisions. Activities included in environmental protection programmes often cause public tensions, either due to insufficient information, misinterpretation of a problem, lack of consultation, or different social and cultural habits existing within a given local community. They may result from a conflict of interest between various social groups or, most frequently, from all these reasons simultaneously. The requirement for rapid behavioural change by citizens or even the making of sacrifices for the protection of the environment can also lead to public frustration. A continuous heightening of public concerns about the environment is the way to avoid conflicting situations arising from differences in attitudes and systems of value recognized by various community groups. Some of the community's concerns may be eliminated by training of professional public relations staff. However, finding solutions to some environmental problems requires changes in the behaviour of millions of people by raising the awareness of individuals to make them feel responsible for the Earth's natural resources which should last for future generations. The principle of public involvement in the decision-making process regarding environmental protection, should be implemented by establishing institutional and legal facilities enabling the participation of individuals, social groups and non-governmental organizations in the whole process of environmental protection and management. This should be done by environmental education, raising the environmental awareness and sensitivity, and by creation of a new ethic of behaviour towards the environment. This is a challenge facing societies which are willing to and should participate in the protection of natural resources, the societies for which the 21st century must become the "century of ecology". The United Nations has taken up these challenges, establishing the foundation for an international dialogue on joint - global, regional, and local activities for environmental protection and management. The United Nations Conference on "Environment and Development", the so-called "Earth Summit", held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, constituted a milestone in the implementation of the dialogue. Basic documents approved by the Earth Summit, the Rio Declaration, and Agenda 21 emphasize the key role of environmental public awareness. The international dialogue, which has been in progress for several years, has created a new philosophy for understanding strategies of environmental protection focused on socio-economic transformations and not on single, separate investment projects. On 25th of June 1998, the first international convention on citizens environmental rights was formally signed in Aarhus, Denmark, by environmental ministers and senior officials representing 35 countries and the European Community at the fourth "Environment for Europe" conference. The Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the "Aarhus Convention") - guarantees freedom of access to information on the environment, gives citizens a right to participate in environmental decision making, and provides for recourse to legal redress in cases where these rights are denied by governments or public authorities. Providing access to information will not automatically lead to a significant increase in the degree of public participation in environmental decision-making. A bridge needs to be built, linking the information pillar with the participation pillar, to stimulate the involvement of the civil society in the decision-making process. If the public is well-informed about environmental issues, properly consulted and encouraged to participate in decision-making, it is likely to accept the need for change quickly - and, in doing so, support the action of governments or force them to act.
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