| Summary: | INTRODUCTION. Environmental decision-making related to policy, often includes an overall objective that advances opportunities for sustainable development. Advancing the concept of sustainable development draws on, and influences forms of governance. The use of the term governance represents an ideological shift from the authoritative control associated with the term “government”. With governance, power is distributed among actors. In practice, this implies a broader collaboration between organizations, associations, individuals and various levels of government, both formally and informally. Overall, governance structures have shifted to embody greater public engagement. The incorporation of participation and engagement in governance is attributed to outcomes that include: acceptance and support of the policy, reduced conflict, broader information resources, and social learning. The dissertation focused on the critical component of sustainable development governance, public participation, in the context of environmental assessment and related decision-making. Specifically, how participation in policy development and environmental decision-making is informed, and limited, based on existing information management capacity. Through case studies, this dissertation examined the development of land use planning policy and application of Environmental Assessments (EA), to identify barriers to, and facilitators of, the public participation process. Three research questions provided a guide to exploring this subject: 1. What does participation look like in land use planning legislation and EA processes, with respect to case specific limitation and challenges? 2. How can information be gathered, managed and shared to build needed capacity and meet community goals? 3. What is an approach to information management that can serve to improve the range of available information, and overcome the existing barriers to accessing technical and academic resources, to support streaming of relevant information into the participatory ...
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