The organisation and mitigation of a successful public particpation procedure is not an easy task. Many parties, different kinds of information and different possible ways of involving the public will make the process complex and difficult to predict.

Organisation criteria

Some criteria can be distinguished for succesfully mitigating the process of public participation (ECOM Program, 2002):

• make use of a clearly defined objective declared by the process organiser and shared by its participants;
• prepare and present different alternatives and their impacts to the coastal zone: public hearings are senseless without consideration of well communicated alternatives;
• explicit feedback from public in the final product: analysis of comments and their incorporation into the final decision; it is also the main criterion for a public participation programme efficiency evaluation;
• availability and accessability of adequate information and learning possibilities during the process, including technical support for participation;
• public participation in early stages of project development; involvement of the public at late stages practically excludes the possibility to exercise the principles of optionality and feedback;
• involvement of all parties and stakeholders concerned: nobody can be excluded from the process on any discriminating grounds (i.e.: sex, age, profession, nationality, personal qualities);
• transparency and accountability of the public participation procedure, feasibility of objectives; all proposals, comments and amendments in the project should be reflected in the documents available for the process participants;
• co-ordination of the process in relation to the project scheduling (e.g. in case of areas with difficult access); this implies timely involvement of concerned parties belonging to the local, regional and federal levels;
• location-specific organisation of discussions on the project in the area of its implementation taking into consideration local traditions and possibilities of the locals to participate;
• balance of rights and responsibilities - the party, which does not have sufficient rights cannot carry the responsibility for the process; the extended rights are accompanied by the extended responsibilities for the effects from the taken decision;
• rationality - the use of proven methodological basis for the organisation of public participation processes and checking its results, strict adherence to the legally established procedures.

Southern coast of the Gulf of Finland, Eastern Baltic Sea (© BFN)