Thomas Gunton

Simon Fraser University · School of Resource and Environmental Management

Cumulative effects assessment has been a longstanding challenge and is perhaps the most crucial component of project-level impact assessment. Alternative approaches to advance project-level cumulative effects assessment are developed based upon the findings of a literature review and key informant interviews. Alternative approaches are organized ar...

Community benefit agreements have emerged as a popular tool for mitigating conflicts over natural resource development and generating benefits for local communities. While CBAs hold considerable promise as a means of improving resource development, there remains a wide variation in CBA outcomes and considerable uncertainty over their effectiveness....

Impact benefit agreements (IBAs) are an increasingly common tool in resource development. However, the effectiveness of IBAs in achieving community and development objectives can vary widely depending on the negotiating process, the components of the IBA, and implementation and management of the IBA. This paper provides a comprehensive best practic...

The potential contribution of cost-benefit analysis to environmental assessment is assessed through a case study of a proposed Canadian oil project and a comparison of results with those of the method of economic impact analysis. While the latter concludes that the project would generate substantial economic benefits, the cost-benefit analysis conc...

Cost-benefit analysis and economic impact analysis both provide the ability to assess projects’ economic impacts, but through different methodological approaches and perspectives. In Canada and elsewhere, cost-benefit analysis is often eschewed in favour of economic impact analysis in environmental assessment processes. This paper presents a criter...

Most environmental assessment (EA) processes are based on a rational technocratic paradigm, in which experts are expected to review value-neutral scientific evidence and objectively assess project impacts. Critics argue that this model is flawed even with increased public participation because it does not recognize the significant role of subjectiv...

This entry examines the role of natural resources in achieving sustainable development. Dependency, resource curse, and comparative advantage paradigms are assessed and environmental issues associated with resource development are analyzed. The entry concludes that natural resources can provide a significant benefit, stimulating sustainable develop...

This paper analyzes the role of resources in terms of the staple theory of economic growth. The costs, benefits and challenges of natural resource development are assessed in terms of dependency and comparative advantage paradigms and the efficacy of alternative development options are assessed. Environmental issues such as greenhouse gas emissions...

At the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, the world's national governments committed to preparing strategies to achieve sustainable development. This paper describes an evaluation framework for measuring the success of these efforts to achieve environmental goals in sustainable development. The framewor...

This paper outlines a method for evaluating environmental assessment (EA) systems called the environmental assessment system evaluation method. The method consists of five steps: (1) develop an initial list of good practices based on a literature review; (2) validate and adjust the practices by surveying experts and stakeholders; (3) describe the E...

Collaborative resource planning has become the preferred model of resource management in many jurisdictions. It delegates responsibility to stakeholders who engage in face-to-face negotiation to develop plans by consensus. Empirical evaluations show that collaborative resource management is more likely to result in plans that are in the public inte...

Environmental assessment (EA) has emerged in the last five decades as one of the primary management tools that governments use to protect the environment. However, despite substantial theoretical development and practical experience, there are concerns that EA is not meeting its objectives. This article develops a set of good practices to improve E...

This paper evaluates an innovative two-tiered model of collaborative planning designed to increase participation of First Nations in resource and environmental planning in British Columbia, Canada. Like a one-tiered model, the two-tiered model engages stakeholders in face-to-face negotiations to develop a consensus plan. However, to finalize an agr...

This paper describes a new model of sustainable development planning based on a case study of a successful planning process for the Great Bear Rainforest on Canada’s west coast. The planning region is an area of international ecological significance that contains one-quarter of the world’s remaining ancient coastal temperate rainforest. An innovati...

An innovative model of collaborative planning that delegates responsibility for plan preparation to a two-tier stakeholder process to accommodate the special position of aboriginal groups is evaluated based on a participant survey using 25 evaluative criteria. The two-tier collaborative model was comprised of one negotiating table involving all sta...

Sustainable environmental management is contingent on having an effective environmental planning system. A new methodology for designing and evaluating environmental planning systems is described and applied to a case study evaluation of the Canadian environmental planning process. The methodology is based on eight international best practice princ...

Canada is in the process of implementing a new system for integrated marine planning to manage its oceans. This theme issue of Envi-ronments evaluates the Canadian marine planning initiative in the context of recent international developments. Drawing attention to the importance of the marine environment and threats to its well being, this introduc...

This paper discusses the concept of total economic value and demonstrates the importance of using such a framework in marine planning through a case study of the Pacific North Coast Integrated Man-agement Area, in British Columbia, Can-ada. After distinguishing between com-ponents of total economic value – includ-ing use values and non-use values –...

Stakeholder participation in a collaborative, consensus-based negotiation process is a key characteristic of successful marine planning. A prerequisite to a successful collaborative pro-cess is a stakeholder analysis that identifies key characteristics of stakeholder groups to assess whether the conditions for collaboration exist. This paper descri...

Increased pressure on the world's oceans and concern over degradation of the marine environ-ment motivated Canada to adopt a new integrated approach to the planning and management of marine space with the passage of the Oceans Act more than a decade ago. This paper describes and evaluates the federal framework for marine planning in Canada, focusin...

This paper reviews and compares leading marine planning initiatives from around the world, to provide an overview of approaches and identify guiding principles for effective integrated marine planning. Based on the review, the following ten planning principles are identified: inclusive stake-holder participation, high level government lead-ership w...

One of the primary challenges in resource and environmental planning is successful implementation of plans. Plan implementation is a complex process influenced by many factors. This study identifies 19 criteria affecting implementation success and tests the impact of these criteria through a case study of collaborative plan implementation in Britis...

Planners normally perceive themselves as policy experts assisting clients in the decision‐making process. In recent years this conventional view has been criticized as being superficial and inaccurate. The purpose of this paper is to review these criticisms and to identify alternative roles for planners. In all, seven alternative roles are identifi...

Over the next several decades, oil and gas production in Canada is expected to increase to meet growing demand in the United States and the Asia Pacific Region. Currently, eight major pipeline projects are being proposed in Canada to transport increased oil and gas production to market. This paper reviews potential impacts of the pipeline projects...

Protected area designation is a key component of sustainable land use plan-ning. This paper reports the perspec-tives of stakeholders concerning those factors used to select protected areas in an extensive land and resource man-agement planning process in British Columbia. This innovative collaborative planning process doubled the amount of land de...

Evaluation systematically assesses performance of policies in meeting goals. The primary purpose of evaluation is to provide information to help improve programs. There are many approaches to evaluation, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, and many types of common errors in evaluation methodology. Keys to successful evaluation include: usin...

This paper outlines a method for evalu-ating planning processes and tests the method in a case study application. The method is based on 35 evaluation criteria for planning processes. The 35 criteria are divided into three categories: process (13 criteria), outcome (9 criteria), and imple-mentation (13 criteria). The methodology is illustrated by a...

Ontario's Resource Stewardship Agree-ment (RSA) process introduced shared decision making into the management toolbox for land use planning in Ontario's Crown forests. Within the RSA process, resource-based tourism and forestry oper-ators negotiate mutually agreeable solu-tions to forest harvesting and tourism-use conflicts. Policy documents were r...

Planners increasingly rely on collaborative planning models that engage stakeholders to develop plans through consensus-based nego-tiations. While support for using collabora-tive planning models is growing, evaluation of their effectiveness is in its infancy. This paper reports on a case study evaluation, using a multiple criteria evaluation metho...

A major challenge in environmental poli-cymaking in Canada is managing con-flicts between the federal and provincial governments arising from overlapping jurisdiction under the Constitution Act. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of an approach termed "guided federalism" for developing national policy in a decen-tralized federal state. Guided f...

This paper analyses issues in resource rent through a case study of the Canadian coal industry. A model of the coal industry is constructed to estimate the magnitude of rent and distribution of coal rent between government and industry over the 30-year period from 1970 to 2000. Disaggregation of results by coal sector shows that rent varied widely,...

Recent literature on land-use planning proposes the use of innovative collaborative planning (CP) models to resolve planning disputes. This paper uses a participant survey based on 25 evaluative criteria to evaluate an application of CP to land-use planning in British Columbia, Canada. The results show that CP is an effective means of resolving env...

Post-project assessments are essential for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of regional development planning. Unfortunately, assessments of projects involving private sector participants that compare pre-project forecasts to post-project outcomes are rare because the necessary data are usually not publicly available. This paper helps fill...

The role of natural resources in regional development is the subject of a debate between dependency theorists, who argue that natural resources impede development, and comparative-advantage theorists, who argue that resources can expedite development. This debate is assessed by a case study analysis of the impact of resource development on a region...

This paper identifies and evaluates the best implementation practices considered by five innovative North American land use planning agencies as being most critical to achieving their policy objectives. Senior personnel from each agency completed a check-rank-evaluate questionnaire, based on an implementation practices register developed by applyin...

This paper examines the degree to which shared decision making (SDM) principles, guidelines, and outcomes were realized in British Columbia's land and resource management plans (LRMPs) from the perspective of tourism respondents who participated in these LRMP processes. The findings suggest that tourism stakeholders are generally satisfied with how...

This paper assesses the utility of a new civics-based model of planning that delegates responsibility for preparing plans directly to affected stakeholders. The paper traces the origin of this new model, termed collaborative planning (CP) or shared decision making (SDM), and assesses its strengths and weaknesses by reviewing recent theoretical and...

This paper assesses civil society participation in collaborative planning by completing a comprehensive survey of participants in a collaborative land use planning process in British Columbia, Canada. Participant responses are assessed against 25 evaluative criteria to determine strengths and weaknesses of collaborative processes for civil society...

A major initiative was undertaken to move toward ecological, social, and economic sustainability in the rural areas of British Columbia during the 1990s. The paper describes the major institutional changes, the adoption of collaborative planning - called shared decision making in the province - as the basis of conflict resolution, and the history o...

A key to sustainable resource planning is effective implementation of management plans. Despite its obvious significance, planning implementation remains a relatively neglected area of planning research. This paper helps address this gap by reporting results of a case study evaluation of implementation in an innovative collaborative land use planni...

This paper reports on the development and application of a method for establishing environmental priorities. The paper begins by reviewing two common methods for identifying environmental priorities: state of environment reporting (SER) and comparative risk analysis (CRA). The review shows that SER does not provide clear clear priority ranking and...

While the regulation of public utilities is a widely accepted form of government intervention in the market economy, there are few empirical studies of the effectiveness of one of their key components: the setting of an allowed rate of return. Using the Ontario natural gas sector as a case study, this article examines the effectiveness of utility r...

This study develops an economic model for assessing the impacts of a comprehensive wilderness proposal on the British Columbia forest industry. The results indicate that, overall, the impacts are relatively small, involving a 3.5% reduction in the provincial allowable annual cut, with regional impacts ranging from 1.9% to 5.2%. Some ways to offset...

Recently, there has been growing interest in negotiation based methods of conflict resolution. Commonly referred to as alternative dispute resolution (ADR), these methods involve stakeholders in formal negotiations designed to reach consensus. Advocates suggest these methods will improve decisions and reduce conflict. Although these methods have me...

Public land is one of Canada's most important natural resources. Comprising some 90% of the Canadian land base, public land supports ecosystems necessary for a healthy environment and provides a large proportion of inputs for economic production. Public land management in Canada faces serious challenges that threaten to degrade the land base irreve...

This article examines mineral resource management policy in Manitoba and Saskatchewan with a view to determining whether public policy has produced the maximum possible benefits for citizens. The article argues that decisions in Manitoba regarding development of the nickel industry were left to the private sector and particularly INCO, the dominant...

It is argued that for the past 80 yr planning has followed a cycle in which planning activity has been undertaken in response to rapid growth. However, because of the lags between initiation of planning and implementation of policies, planning programs have not been effective until after the problem, which they were intended to mitigate, has change...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of British Columbia, 1981. Includes bibliographical references.