THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE PROJECT

ONLINE CONSULTATION

| E-Conference Homepage | Contents |

| Next comment | Previous comment | Previous comment in thread |

Death by a thousand cuts

From: Tim Perry
Affiliation: Consultant, Earthworks Environmental Services, Townsville, Australia
Remote Name: cpe-60-231-35-40.qld.bigpond.net.au
Time: 07:06:55 +0100

Comments

It is unwise to assess many activities in isolation. There should be a precautionary approach taken to the assessment of the risk of undesirable consequences if an activity is repeated. An activity performed once, or very few times may have no easily detected undesirable consequences, but the effects of that activity if it is repeated many times may be very serious. For example the construction of one hotel in an area may have no significant effect on that area’s biodiversity, but the construction of fifty may be catastrophic. One development may, itself have no direct undesirable effects on biodiversity but if that development facilitates or encourages other developments, which in turn may facilitate or encourage further developments, the combined effects may be catastrophic. This is often referred to as “death by a thousand cuts”. In recommending that threats should not be addressed in isolation Guideline 5 does to some extent address application of the Precautionary Principle to this kind of threat. However I feel that it should be expressed more explicitly.