ABSTRACT
One of the central characteristics of attempts to promote sustainability as part of programmes aimed at delivering environmental benefits has been the incorporation of community participation. This can take various forms, but has often been closely linked to schemes with a strong ‘bottom up’ dimension as opposed to government-directed ‘top down’ control. This chapter examines two particular environmental programmes in Canada, one in the Atlantic provinces and one in Ontario, with a view to assessing how the process of ‘bottom up’ planning has worked in these two instances and what lessons may be learned about the long-term sustainability of the actions incorporated within the two case study schemes.
