TOWARDS A SYSTEMIC STRATEGY FOR RK&M PRESERVATION

6.5. RK&M preservation is a participatory process

Interand trans-disciplinarity (see Section 4.6) are crucial when designing, developing and implementing a systemic RK&M preservation strategy, both with regard to its content and its methods. A participatory process is believed to support diversity and redundancy by eliciting various perspectives on how the fundamental objectives of protecting humans and the environment and supporting informed decision making can best be translated, and by enabling RK&M to be carried by as many and various actors as possible. This has an ethical grounding related to intraand intergenerational justice (see also Chapter 2 and Section 3.4), but is also supported by substantive arguments.

A first substantive argument for developing and implementing RK&M preservation as a participatory process is that the more people know about and are involved with RWM in general and disposal projects in particular, the higher the chances are that RK&M preservation and oversight will be developed and maintained. This contains an element of redundancy; if one actor fails, others can still continue. But participation also creates an opportunity for the respective actors to add value to RK&M preservation, which will add to its endurance (see also NEA, 2015b). Information can be useful beyond its original purpose. For example, data about the tides used to be collected by fishermen, but also became useful for specific sports and today proves useful for climate scientists. The more people have use for data, the more people will invest in its preservation.

Secondly, in order to preserve RK&M in a manner that optimally serves the aims of protecting and informing over time, it is recommendable that those who are addressed are also involved to the highest degree possible. The time gap between the producer and the receiver cannot be addressed directly, but a multidisciplinary and participatory process can at least serve as an access “pilot test” in the present. It is, for instance, recommendable to have actors such as communication specialists, teachers and non-professional locals involved in the preparation of documents for a wide audience, “to avoid (nuclear) specialist jargon and actively pursue the language of daily life” (E. Van Hove in NEA, 2015a: p. 106; see also NEA, 2019).

In light of the extended time frames of RWM, a third pragmatic function of developing and implementing RK&M preservation in a participatory manner, as discussed in the section on planning responsibilities (Section 3.3), is that responsibilities for RK&M preservation and oversight are most likely to change over time, and one should not expect actors that were never involved in RWM to suddenly take over and feel responsible. Early involvement beyond the currently responsible RWM actors is therefore recommended.

6.6. Illustration: Two fictional examples

This section offers two fictional examples of what an RK&M preservation strategy could look like. They are meant to illustrate the possible use of the “toolbox” of approaches and mechanisms, keeping in mind the earlier guidelines for developing a systemic strategy. Acknowledging the relatively early stage of conceptual planning for RK&M preservation and the context-dependency of any actual RK&M strategy, these examples should by no means be understood as a rigid recipe for developing and implementing a RK&M preservation strategy. They serve to outline what a systemic strategy could look like in practice, and, in line with the entire report, are meant to initiate reflection and to illustrate and inspire, rather than to determine and prescribe.

For the examples, the following classification has been made among the proposed approaches and mechanisms:

•Compliance activities: needed to comply with the international and national regulatory framework. Any RK&M system that does not comply with these legal requirements is likely to be judged to be incomplete or non-compliant.

•Best practice activities: which can be regarded as “core mechanisms” and should therefore attract priority funding.

•Supporting activities: to optimally reach diversity and inter-connectedness among approaches and mechanisms, and to optimally support contextual adaptability.