Handling Complex Environmental Issues - Formal Group Modelling as a Deliberative Platform at the Science-Policy-Democracy Interface

摘要

Against a background that the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency had identified poor progress towards the national environmental objectives for the mountainous areas of central and northern Sweden, we performed group modelling with stakeholders over a one year period. A total of more than 40 different stakeholder interests were invited and close to 40 attended the group modelling sessions. In total four modelling sessions were performed. After an initial and short instruction in systems thinking and the use of Causal Loop Diagrams (CLD) as a common language, group modelling was initiated. From a process point of view we noted that: A/ While some stakeholders were not communicating (and in some cases barely on speaking terms) with each other before the first modelling session. Modelling provided a platform for dialogue; B/ As CLD modelling allowed a collective definition of relationships and processes for the modelled area all stakeholders could participate on an equal basis; C/ Modelling efficiently defused old conflicts as focus was shifted towards processes rather than the goals of any given stake holder; D/ All participants, and the Swedish EPA, gained a better understanding of the mountains environment (both in a physical and social sense) and identified new relationships and previously unidentified causes for stakeholder conflicts and poor environmental target achievement. The stakeholders identified factors and processes (social, economic, biophysical and psychological) that affected their life in the mountain area and their relations to the achievement/non-achievement of the national environmental objectives, and their narratives were converted to common system maps as a part of the process. The models were documented and sent to the participants for extended peer review and used in subsequent modelling sessions. The project resulted in: 1/ A joint and in the end uncontested analysis based on CLD-models of the social, economic and environmental dynamics in the Swedish mountains was developed; 2/ A stake-holder based proposal, underpinned by the joint analysis, for a research programme developed during the group modelling sessions; 3/ A publication in the EPA publication series describing the modelling process and its results.