Q method factor analysis of stakeholder social perspectives of the effectiveness of Environmental Impact Assessment public participation in the Western Cape, South Africa

Public participation is an integral part of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), and as such, has been incorporated into regulatory norms. Assessment of the effectiveness of public participation has remained elusive however. This is partly due to the difficulty in identifying appropriate effectiveness criteria. This research uses Q methodology to discover and analyze stakeholder's social perspectives of the effectiveness of EIAs in the Western Cape, South Africa. It considers two case studies (Main Road and Saldanha Bay EIAs) for contextual participant perspectives of the effectiveness based on their experience. It further considers the more general opinion of provincial consent regulator staff at the Department of Environmental Affairs and the Department of Planning (DEA&DP). Two main themes of investigation are drawn from the South African National Environmental Management Act imperative for effectiveness: firstly, the participation procedure, and secondly, the stakeholder capabilities necessary for effective participation. Four theoretical frameworks drawn from planning, politics and EIA theory are adapted to public participation and used to triangulate the analysis and discussion of the revealed social perspectives. They consider citizen power in deliberation, Habermas' preconditions for the Ideal Speech Situation (ISS), a Foucauldian perspective of knowledge, power and politics, and a Capabilities Approach to public participation effectiveness. The empirical evidence from this research shows that the capacity and contextual constraints faced by participants demand the legislative imperatives for effective participation set out in the NEMA. The implementation of effective public participation has been shown to be a complex, dynamic and sometimes nebulous practice. The functional level of participant understanding of the process was found to be significantly wide-ranging with consequences of unequal and dissatisfied stakeholder engagements. Furthermore, the considerable variance of stakeholder capabilities in the South African social context, resulted in inequalities in deliberation. The social perspectives revealed significant differences in participant experience in terms of citizen power in deliberation. The ISS preconditions are highly contested in both the Saldanha EIA case study and the DEA&DP social perspectives. Only one Main Road EIA case study social perspective considered Foucault's notion of governmentality as a reality in EIA public participation. The freedom of control of ones environment, based on a Capabilities approach, is a highly contested notion. Although agreed with in principle, all of the social perspectives indicate that contextual and capacity realities constrain its realisation. This research has shown that Q method can be applied to EIA public participation in South Africa and, with the appropriate research or monitoring applications it could serve as a useful feedback tool to inform best practice public participation.

Impacts of ocean acidification on multiplication and caste organisation of parasitic trematodes in their gastropod host

Ocean acidification is predicted to impact the structure and function of all marine ecosystems in this century. As focus turns towards possible impacts on interactions among marine organisms, its effects on the biology and transmission potential of marine parasites must be evaluated. In the present study, we investigate two marine trematode species (Philophthalmus sp. and Parorchis sp., both in the family Philophthalmidae) infecting two marine gastropods. These trematodes are unusual in that their asexually multiplying stages within snails display a division of labour, with two distinct castes, a large-bodied morph producing infective stages and a smaller morph playing a defensive role against other competing parasites. Using a potentiometric ocean acidification simulation system, we test the impacts of acidified seawater (7.8 and 7.6 pH) on the production of free-living infective stages (cercariae), the size and survival of encysted resting stages (metacercariae), and the within-host division of labour measured as the ratio between numbers of the two morphs. In general, low pH conditions caused an increase in cercarial production and a reduction in metacercarial survival. The ratio of the two castes within snail hosts tended to shift towards more of the smaller defensive morphs under low pH. However, the observed effects of reduced pH were species specific and not always unimodal. These results suggest that ocean acidification can affect the biology of marine parasites and may also impact transmission success and parasite abundance of some trematodes, with possible consequences for marine communities and ecosystems.