Contested Country: Local and Regional Natural Resources Management in Australia

Local and Regional Natural Resources Management in Australia

Contested Country E d i t o r s : M a r c u s L a n e • C at h y R o b i n s o n • B r u c e tay l o r

CONTESTED C O U N T RY

This volume is dedicated to Professor Geoff McDonald; teacher, mentor, friend.

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© CSIRO 2009 All rights reserved. Except under the conditions described in the Australian Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, duplicating or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Contact CSIRO PUBLISHING for all permission requests. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Contested country: local and regional natural resources management in Australia / editors, Marcus Lane, Cathy Robinson, Bruce Taylor. 9780643095861 (pbk.) Includes index. Bibliography. Natural Heritage Trust (Australia) Environmental management – Australia. Environmental policy – Australia. Sustainable development – Australia. Environmental protection – Australia. Biodiversity conservation – Australia. Lee, Marcus B. Robinson, Cathy J. Taylor, Bruce. 333.720994 Published by CSIRO PUBLISHING 150 Oxford Street (PO Box 1139) Collingwood VIC 3066 Australia Telephone: Local call: Fax: Email: Web site:

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Contents

1

Part 1

2

3

4

List of contributors

ix

Introduction: contested country – regional natural resource management in Australia Marcus Lane, Bruce Taylor and Cathy Robinson

1

Policy, promises and practices of regional resource management and governance

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From government to governance: explaining and assessing new approaches to NRM Brian W Head

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Invest, divest or empower: interpretations and practices of regionalisation in Australia’s savannas Bruce Taylor

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Can community-based NRM work at the scale of large regions? Exploring the roles of nesting and subsidiarity Graham R Marshall

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Will Regionalisation achieve integrated Natural Resource Management? Insights from recent South Australian experience 59 Marcus Lane, Anna Haygreen, Tiffany H Morrison and Jill Woodlands

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Interrogating devolved natural resource management: challenges for good governance Julie Davidson and Michael Lockwood

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Accounting for performance: public environmental governance in the shadow of the future Tabatha Wallington and Geoffrey Lawrence

91

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Part 2 8

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Part 3 13

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Community engagement, local participation and regional capacity

109

Seeing Engagement Practitioners as Deliberative Hinges to improve Landholder Engagement Toni Darbas, Timothy F Smith and Emma Jakku

111

Community engagement in natural resource management: experiences from the Natural Heritage Trust Phase 2 Megan Farrelly

129

Landcare bowling alone: finding a future in the ‘fourth’ phase Erlina Compton, Katrin Prager and Bob Beeton

147

Indigenous natural resource management: overcoming marginalisation produced in Australia’s current NRM model Rosemary Hill and Liana Williams

161

Decentralised governance for natural resource management: capacity challenges in Australia and Canada Lisa Robins and Rob de Loë

179

Learning and adapting from regional and national experiences

199

On a learning journey to nowhere? The practice and politics of evaluating outcomes of natural resource management in northern Queensland regions Cathy Robinson, Bruce Taylor and Richard Margerum

201

Reviewing adaptive management through a wicked lens Catherine Allan

215

Lessons from the Australian experiment 2002–08: the road ahead for regional governance Tiffany H Morrison

227

Contents

Part 4

Conclusion

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The changing and contested governance of Australia’s environmental heritage Cathy Robinson, Marcus Lane and Bruce Taylor Index

241 243

247

vii

List of contributors

Catherine Allan

Institute for Land Water and Society, Charles Sturt University, Albury, NSW. RJS (Bob) Beeton

School of Integrative Systems, University of Queensland, Qld. Erlina Compton

School of Integrative Systems, University of Queensland, Qld. Toni Darbas

Social and Economics Sciences Program, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, St Lucia, Brisbane, Qld. Julie Davidson

School of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tas. Rob de Loë

Department of Environment and Resource Studies, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada. Anna Haygreen

Social and Economics Program, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Canberra, ACT. Megan Farrelly

School of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University, Melbourne, Vic. Brian W Head

Institute for Social Science Research, University of Queensland, Qld. Rosemary Hill

CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Cairns, Qld. Emma Jakku

Social and Economics Sciences Program, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Brisbane, Qld. Marcus B Lane

Social and Economics Sciences Program, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Brisbane, Qld.

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Geoffrey Lawrence

School of Social Sciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld. Michael Lockwood

School of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tas. Richard Margerum

Department of Planning, Public Policy and Management, University of Oregon, USA; Visiting Researcher, CSIRO, St Lucia, Qld. Graham R Marshall

Institute for Rural Futures, University of New England, Armidale, NSW. Tiffany H Morrison

School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld. Katrin Prager

Department of Agricultural Economics and Social Sciences, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. Lisa Robins

The Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT. Cathy J Robinson

Social and Economic Sciences Program, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, St Lucia, Brisbane, Qld. Timothy F Smith

Sustainability Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, Qld. Bruce Taylor

Social and Economic Sciences Program, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, St Lucia, Brisbane, Qld. Tabatha Wallington

Social and Economic Sciences Program, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, St Lucia, Brisbane, Qld. Liana Williams

Social and Economics Sciences Program, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Canberra, ACT. Jill Woodlands

NGO NRM Facilitator, Conservation Council of South Australia, Adelaide, SA.

1

Introduction: contested country – regional natural resource management in Australia Marcus Lane, Bruce Taylor and Cathy Robinson

The management of the Australian landscape has occupied a central position in Australian politics since the re-settlement of this continent over 200 years ago. Environmental management, long recognised as technically complex and challenging, has also been contentious and controversial. The issues associated with coping with lingering droughts, the prospects of significant climate change, and stemming soil erosion on agricultural lands are now of broad, popular interest. As Australian governments, industry associations and civil society have wrestled with these problems, significant experiments in environmental planning and management have been undertaken. This book offers a critical analysis of the most significant aspect of the environmental planning experiment that has occurred in Australia – the re-scaling of governance that has involved communities and non-government actors in the design and implementation of sustainable development policies and programs. This radical restructure has been catalysed by the Natural Heritage Trust (henceforth the ‘Trust’ or NHT) program. In global terms, the NHT represents a paradigm shift in environmental planning at a time when the public, commercial and academic salience of these issues has never been higher. In Europe, programs that encourage regional development or sustainable management of river basins through devolved modes of regional planning and governance have been promoted and critiqued (Böcher 2008; Boonstra and Van Den Brink 2007; Vigar 2006). In North America there is also considerable scholarly attention on collaborative watershed management initiatives as a mechanism for providing consensus-oriented forums to address environmental degradation (Conley 2003; Margerum and Whitall 2004; Michaels 2001). Curiously, the re-scaling of natural resource planning in Australia has not widely been the subject of academic examination or interrogation (see Lane et al. 2005). As the chapters in this book highlight, environmental planning and decision-making now place a greater reliance on decentralised arrangements and processes where central governments increasingly act through actors and institutions at regional and local scales. In some cases this decentralisation stems from local actors, within a supportive policy environment, self-organising around an issue, identity or geography at sub-national scales. In other instances sub-national activity occurs as a result of ‘top-down’ directives from central governments that divest administrative or management responsibilities to lower levels of organisation. This trend of re-scaling management has paralleled a shift from government to governance where actors from civil society and the market are participating more directly in policy formation and implementation alongside the state, which increasingly recognises its inability to act in 1

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isolation to resolve complex and contentious environmental problems. At the same time there has been a convergence of policy discourses on environmental sustainability and sustainable development, which in the Australian context has arguably seen the reframing of environmental policy within the agricultural concerns of sustainable land and water management. We will return to these trends later in the chapter to frame the overall structure and individual contributions to this volume. However, it is worth noting here that although pervasive these trends are by no means benign or inconsequential. In particular, they raise important questions for scholars, policy makers and environmental managers alike: ●

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Who is included and who is excluded in decentralised environmental governance? How do models of community-based environmental management cope with power relations, and with material and symbolic contests at the local level? How is accountability to be maintained? Are recipients of funding accountable to government, or to the wider communities in which they are embedded? Does the scale of bottom-up management efforts match the scale of environmental problems? How is scientific and technical fidelity in environmental management to be maintained when significant activities are devolved to and controlled by local communities? Does decentralised environmental governance privilege parochial concerns over strategic visions?

These questions point to very real structural, procedural and conceptual arenas of contestation on the ‘best’ way to design and implement environmental policy. The ‘country’ therefore that is ‘contested’ then, under policy regimes such as Australia’s Natural Heritage Trust, is ideological, geographical and political. In this book we offer what we believe to be the first comprehensive effort to review critically the regionalised model of natural resource management in Australia; to learn what worked, identify flaws, and reflect on decentralisation of governance. Instead of the uncritical advocacy that sometimes accompanies experiments in (environmental) governance and policy, this volume will provide a dispassionate, critical and empirical review in an effort to deepen understanding. In doing so we adopt a similar posture to Gleeson in his review of new regionalism that: … fixes critically on one important and singular regional policy framework and considers its implications for Australia’s multi-level governance system. The premise is that Australian regional policy debates would be best informed by critical reflection upon practice in particular policy domains rather than by appeal to the assumed nostrums of a ‘new regionalism’. (Gleeson 2003 p. 222) The premise of this book is that a critical and reflexive exposition of programs such as the NHT, and its efficacy is overdue. Our intent is to build a coherent understanding that can contribute to the debate on local and international practice in policy implementation. Our enquiry also coincides with the view of authors of a national discussion paper which set the foundations of the regionalised delivery model under the Trust who noted at the time, ‘in the next 10 to 15 years … regions will build their capacity … to assist in developing and implementing strategies for sustainable natural resource management’ (NNRMTF 1999 p. 35). In the process of reviewing this national initiative we are conscious of Judith Tendler’s insight that ‘it is difficult to be engaged in characterising a whole country as good or bad, on the average, and at the same time to be curious about the variation between good and bad experiences within that same country and the lessons to be learned from it’ (Tendler 1997 p. 3). As such we seek to balance a national picture with understanding of diverse experiences between regions and jurisdictions.

Introduction

By way of setting the tone and providing suitable background for the book we briefly outline the four major trends and trajectories in environmental policy as we see them from an international and Australian perspective. We then describe the program context or case for the book – the Natural Heritage Trust – its origins, goals and assumptions before describing the contributions to this volume in light of the major questions we raised above.

Global and national trends in environmental policy The trends in natural resource management and environmental policy that we explore in this volume are both enmeshed within and reflective of similar changes experienced globally. These major trends include a greater emphasis on civic participation, decentralisation of activity to the regional scale, the shift to governance, and the re-framing of environmental policy are discussed below in turn. Community participation As the first major trend, community participation, at least in terms of policy rhetoric, has made an important comeback. ‘Bottom-up’ approaches to environmental planning and management have been widely advocated as being both more functional and more democratic than ‘topdown’ governance (Li 2000, Gray et al. 2001, Kellert et al. 2000). There is growing body of policy ready research on institutionalising stakeholder participation in broad scale implementation of environmental policy, for example, of the European Water Framework Directive (Newig, PahlWostl and Sigel 2005; Tippett et al. 2005). Borrowing from commentaries on other discourses the interest in North America on more argumentative, inclusive and dialogical modes of stakeholder participation, has even been referred to as a “deliberative turn” in natural resource management (Parkins and Mitchell 2005). Early commentary on the Australian experience with policy-mandated inclusion drew considerable lament about the methods used and sincerity of community engagement (Whelan and Oliver 2005). Community engagement, re-emergent as a critical part of the machinery of NRM, is receiving increasing attention in the literature (Broderick 2005; Farrelly 2005; Farrelly and Conacher 2007). More recently there have been counter positions made that local participation in environmental management does not meet expected assumptions about important factors such as representativeness (Rockloff and Moore 2006) and democracy more broadly (Wallington and Lawrence 2008). Participation of landholders and local communities is often argued to be central to claims of legitimacy and effectiveness of policy implementation. Amongst the wave of inclusiveness with which planning and policy processes are now awash, there remains fundamental obstacles to the meaningful participation of Indigenous Australians in these collaborative initiatives (Lane and Williams 2008). Government to governance A second major shift has been in the role of government in environmental policy and the move towards new modes of policy implementation. Scholars around the world have been talking about the ‘shrinking state’ and the shift from government to governance (Jessop 1998; Rhodes 1996; Rhodes 2007; Stoker 1998). Traditionally discussed in urban contexts, the concept is now well established in debate surrounding sustainable development and natural resource management in rural and regional settings (Cheshire et al. 2006; Connelly et al. 2006; Goodwin 1998; Marsden and Murdoch 1998; Pero and Smith 2006) and explicitly in environmental management (Lemos and Agrawal 2006). An important change has been the extent to which environmental civil society and community-based organisations are now deeply enmeshed in the machinery of governance: in the process of developing and implementing environmental policy (Hamilton and Maddison 2007) with implications for a robust democracy and modes of associational governance (e.g. Putnam, Leonardi and Nanetti 1993).

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As part of the machinery of these new governing arrangements there has been a retreat from environmental regulation and a concomitant rise in the use of incentives – through the application of market based instruments – as a key means of implementing policy yet with little critical scholarly attention debate about these changes. Underpinning this market-oriented approach and paralleling the shift to governance within the Australian context has been neo-liberalism with its dogma on the individualisation of responsibility, self help and the emergence and promotion of ‘performance based’ modes of regulation (Sabel et al. 2000). Rescaling environmental planning and management The region as a favoured territorial unit of economic, administrative and political organisation is still pronounced and in a period of re-birth. There is however growing scholarly attention offering a more critical perspective (Sagan and Halkier 2005). Some scholars note this intention to govern through regions is linked to assumptions of cohesive regional identity that are persistent as they remain unchecked (Paasi 2009). Others have noted concern over the capacity of the regional model to genuinely advance spatial planning capability, and provide a suitable intermediate scale between national and local actors (Allmendinger and Tewdwr-Jones 2000). Regional geographers in the United States note that the region in many cases improves the connection between managing landscape and land use change. The process by which regions form however is highly contextualised and has even been described as ad hoc (Hamin and Marcucci 2008). Political and economic geographers have repeatedly noted that efforts to provide regionally-scaled economic and demographic development have dovetailed with efforts to decentralise or at least ‘de-concentrate’ governance in regional Australia. Not all of these commentators however suggest the region has provided the panacea to long-term social and economic development problems (Sorensen et al. 2007). These efforts have waxed and waned over the past 100 years. Coinciding with a global interest in redefining territories of politics and policy over the last decade Australian environmental policy has renewed interest in a regional architecture for the delivery of NRM. Proponents of management geared to the regional level assert that it allows consideration of both local and national interests whilst developing priorities and actions that make sense at landscape and ecosystem scales (e.g. Dore and Woodhill 1999). Australian regionalisation for natural resource management is also predominantly river basinbased. This method of delineation of management boundaries has been challenged with suggestions that an ‘eco-civic’ approach that incorporates regional perspectives avoids the pitfalls and excesses of local parochialism and over-centralisation, resulting in improved power sharing, negotiation and more robust, locally-relevant solutions incorporating diverse types of knowledge. While there is significant, venerable literature which deals with regionalism, regional planning and regional development, the scholarly literature which critically and empirically examines the operation of regionalised NRM is thinner and somewhat sporadic (Farrelly 2005; Lane et al. 2004; Lawrence 2005). In Australia, regional governance has been embraced by governments, particularly in rural or non-metropolitan regions (Everingham et al. 2006). It has been in rural settings in particular that regionalisation has been suggested to be the site of convergence between development and sustainable natural resource and environmental management agendas (Morrison and Lane 2006). There have been concerns in the scholarly community raised about the efficacy of regionalisation to achieve intended environmental policy objectives, at least without consideration of alternative or complimentary institutional mechanisms at other scales (Jennings and Moore 2000; Lane et al. 2004). Governments too appear to have been somewhat halfhearted in their embrace of re-territorialisation as new formal layers of government. Whilst willing to devolve planning and, to some degree, investment decisions on resource management to regional boards and committees, governments are less willing to establish another

Introduction

layer of elected government. As such the role of the region is often viewed, from above, as a unit of administrative decentralisation to deliver program or portfolio-specific outcomes, to tailor these to ‘local’ conditions, on defined guidelines and time-limited funding periods. Reframing of environmental policy There has also been a shift from environmental policy being framed in terms of ‘environment’ (that is, an encompassing, holistic ecological conception in which the natural environment has both inherent and utilitarian value) to a much narrow and mostly utilitarian concept of NRM. Some think of this as the triumph of the brown issues (salinity, soil erosion, etc.) over the green (biodiversity). When this shift is considered in concert with greater community participation and moves to governance, it asks the question of what the intended outcomes are, who sets the criteria of success and who then measures against these.

The Natural Heritage Trust in Australia 1996–2008: anatomy of a national experiment The decentralised arrangements and experiments under the Natural Heritage Trust Program provide the empirical focus for contributions to this volume. The Trust in geographical coverage and scope is the most significant publicly funded commitment of its kind in Australian environmental policy to date. Further it represents a formal cooperation between Federal and State levels of government to re-scale NRM intervention to the ‘region’, which in turn supports the exploration of the consequences of regionalisation of community-based natural resource management in Australia. In order to provide some background to the analysis in following chapters, below we briefly sketch the origins, goals, structures and assumptions of the Trust and its constituent programs such as the National Action Plan for Salinity and Quality. The origin and metamorphosis of the Trust occurred over two distinct phases, each discussed below. A local response to a national crisis From the late 1980s through the 1990s the Australian Government promoted a local response to a national crisis through voluntary, self-organising Landcare groups of farmers and community members. These groups were encouraged to apply for short-term funding to ameliorate the affects of land and water degradation in ‘their own backyards’. Under Landcare, rural communities increased their awareness about environmental degradation and achieved some propertylevel improvements in sustainable agriculture. Yet progress beyond a rural social movement to address the magnitude of land and water degradation was increasingly debated (Curtis 2000; Lockie 1999). By the mid- to late-1990s, a new emphasis in catchment scale and multi-stakeholder based cooperation under the banner of Integrated or Total Catchment Management programs was encouraged in most Australian jurisdictions (Robins 2007). These models sought to foster a more strategic and integrated management framework. These tentative moves to more cooperative, inclusive, landscape scale management saw some of the larger catchment entities elevated to non-statutory ‘Regional Strategy Groups’ in some jurisdictions and statutory Catchment Management Authorities, in others. Banking on regions Towards the completion of the investment period under the first tranche of the Trust, the Commonwealth released a national discussion paper, Managing Natural Resources in Rural Australia for a Sustainable Future (National Natural Resource Management Task Force 1999). It outlined the then proposed approach that was to form the foundations of the regional model adopted under the second tranche of the Trust. The political and programmatic consolidation

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of the regional delivery model rested on principles of a more strategic and cooperative community-led response at the regional scale, through some 56 contiguous regions. When the second phase of the NHT was introduced in 2002, it sought to deliver improved environmental management through ‘regional empowerment and ownership through integrated regional planning’ (Farrelly 2005 p. 396). This was to be underpinned by the best available science and, a commitment to building the management capacity of landholders, communities and governments to address NRM problems. Pivotal also to this was stronger bilateral cooperation – including co-investment - between Federal and State and Territory Governments coded in intergovernmental and bilateral agreements. Central elements of these agreements were the establishment of ‘regional NRM bodies’ as the focal organisational unit for investment at the regional scale. This investment was to be framed by the development of regional NRM plans, with a 25 year planning horizon, prioritisation of critical natural assets, and measureable resource condition targets, agreed by government, industry, Indigenous and community interests in the region. Again both the structural configuration and capacity of these regional groups was diverse with some supported by State-level legislation (South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales) and some not. This latter group of regions in the States of Queensland, Tasmania, Western Australia, and, initially, the Northern Territory were left to operate in an uneasy middle ground between being an instrument of government funding and the product of local organisation and even self-determination. The first major program of investment under the reinvigorated, regionalised Trust was in 2000 the announcement of the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (NAPSWQ). The NAPSWQ was deigned with the express intention of targeting investment to 21 priority investment regions across Australia where immediate actions were required to: ●

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‘prevent, stabilise and reverse trends on dry land salinity affecting the sustainability of production, the conservation of biological diversity and the viability of our infrastructure, and improve water quality and secure reliable allocations for human uses, industry and the environment’.

Some two years later the Commonwealth announced their extension of the Trust more broadly whose funds serviced all 56 regions. Over a five year investment period the Trust sought several equally ambitious outcomes including: ●

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‘the conservation of Australia’s biodiversity through the protection and restoration of terrestrial, freshwater, estuarine and marine ecosystems and habitat for native plants and animals; the sustainable use and management of Australia’s land, water, and marine resources to maintain and improve the productivity and profitability of resource-based industries, and community capacity-building and institutional change’.

The latter specifically highlighted the intent to support individuals and communities with skills, knowledge, information and institutional frameworks to achieve the goals of the program. Collectively the first and second phases of the Trust from 1996 to 2008 provide over a decade of experience in national environmental policy initiatives promoting government support for, and participation in community-based NRM. By March 2008 when the workshop informing this volume was held in Brisbane, considerable uncertainty persisted over what model the ‘next phase’ of investment would adopt. Subsequently in 2008 the next version of that national initiative ‘Caring for our Country’ was announced, yet neither nether regional NRM bodies nor State Governments were clear on the proposed investment logic or structures under the new Rudd Labor Government. It is at these transitional phases that a critical

Introduction

contribution to assessing the strengths and limitations of the last decade of experience is required. The following section outlines the contributions to this objective and to the major conceptual and observed shifts discussed earlier.

Overview of contributions The body of this volume is arranged in three major parts. The first suite of contributions gathered in Part 1: Policy, promises and practices of regional resource management and governance, focus on two major trends outlined above; that is the rescaling of environmental management to the region, accompanied by the shift from government to governance. Here the contributions examine the intersection of these trends, in particular, the underlying expectations and assumptions of the policy delivery model and their translation into practice. Brian Head’s chapter provides an appraisal of the broader policy choices available to, and frameworks evoked by, the national-level government in the natural resource management field, situating his analysis of the new governance arrangements within the mix of market and regulatory instruments currently in play seeking to resolve complex problems. Bruce Taylor then considers how implicit and often competing policy objectives of investment, divestment and empowerment, embedded in government calls to regionalise, are interpreted and implemented across different State and Territory jurisdictions in northern Australia. The following two chapters similarly examine expectations of governing NRM at the regional scale. Firstly, Graham Marshall notes that governments expected the ‘regional delivery model’ to be effective in motivating farmers to adopt conservation practices, which, he states, was backed by little reasoning or evidence. In his chapter, Marshall examines how these expectations might be pursued more systematically, by explicitly incorporating principles of nesting and subsidiary. Secondly Marcus Lane, Anna Heygreen, Tiffany Morrison and Jill Woodlands examine the promise of improved levels of institutional integration – a key rationale for regionalisation of NRM. Drawing on evidence from two South Australian regions, they ask if this integration has actually been achieved, and point towards dialogic pathways rather than structural solutions to resolve problems of institutional complexity and fragmentation. Julie Davidson and Michael Lockwood critique decentralisation to regions as a neo-liberal mode of rule in Australian natural resource governance. Adopting an analytical perspective of ‘technologies of governing’ the authors highlight some of the shortcomings, tensions and even paradoxical effects of central governments trying to steer actors at a distance. They point specifically to risks associated with democratic legitimacy, accountability and representation. In the final chapter of this section, Tabatha Wallington and Geoffrey Lawrence sharpen this focus to look at vertical and horizontal accountability ‘regimes’ within these new forms of hybrid governance which they test against the idealised requirements of control, integrity and performance. In doing so the authors challenge us to re-conceptualise public accountability both in theory and in practice. In Part 2, Community engagement, local participation and regional capacity, the focus drops down a scale to the local, or perhaps more accurately to the social, political and operational space between regional and local NRM activity. It examines both the fortunes of local natural resource management groups and networks under the ‘new’ regionalised planning and investment arrangements. Charting experience of local and regional actors over the last 10 years, it critically examines how the success of the regional model relies on both a local capability and interactive capability between these scales. In the first chapter of part two, Toni Darbas, Tim Smith and Emma Jakku adopt an analytical frame of reflexivity to examine the role of engagement practitioners in linking resource management agencies and individual land manager aspirations in both agricultural and peri-urban settings. Megan Farrelly’s contribution continues with the theme of community engagement but with a focus on the

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participation of local and sub-regional stakeholders in the formative processes of developing the regional plan and setting priorities in Western Australia’s Northern Agricultural Region. Anecdotal and scholarly claims have been advanced that locally-focused Landcare initiatives, had born the brunt of a move towards more strategic, regionalised NRM. Erlina Compton, Katrin Prager and Bob Beeton assess some of these impacts of this shift from a social capital perspective using cases from Tasmania and central Victoria. Rosemary Hill and Liana Williams draw on experiences from the wet tropics and the Kimberley regions of northern Australia to illustrate, amongst other factors, how the construction of ‘participation’ under national programs such as the NHT denies genuine involvement of Indigenous people. While much of the intent and rhetoric of regional NRM was to build capacity of stakeholders in regions to manage more effectively, in the final chapter in this section, Lisa Robins and Rob de Loë call for governments to invest more into developing ‘strategic capacity’ of the regional bodies themselves to deliver this principally participatory-based management mandate. Drawing on international comparisons between Australian and Canadian experience the authors apply a framework of institutional, social, human and economic capitals to propose some improvements in the regional model. It is this institutionalised capacity for policy-makers, regional groups, and local stakeholders to adapt and improve which is the subject of Part 3, Learning and adapting from regional and national experiences. At the heart of this capability however are some difficult challenges in this plural and decentred planning context, such as what constitutes a desirable outcome, who defines it and how ought the effectiveness of these programs to be judged? Cathy Robinson, Bruce Taylor and Richard Margerum focus on the politics and practice of how regional outcomes are negotiated, judged and reported to meet both government program requirements and community priorities. Their examination of these processes from north Queensland regions, constructs the intent and impact of the regional model under the Trust in the eyes of investors at different scales. Catherine Allan then exposes us to the difficulties inherent in institutionalising adaptive management for NRM, specifically drawing on experiences in the implementation of collaborative projects in the Murray-Darling Basin. As a major public policy development in Australia and many countries around the world, in the final chapter in this section Tiffany Morrison asks what lessons are we to take from this extended experiment? Amongst other offerings, Morrison suggests that improvement will result from balancing robustness of the regional model with revisability, that is, providing sufficient levels of continuity in the structural and administrative arrangements whilst retaining flexibility in response to important changes in the policy or physical environment. Policy and planning arrangements for community-based NRM in Australia are currently in transition from the second phase of the Trust under the coalition liberal-national government, to its reformation as ‘Caring for our Country’ program under the national Labor Government. As such it is a propitious moment to develop a critical understanding. The efficacy of ‘Caring for our Country’ will depend significantly on the ability of Regional NRM Bodies to undertake effective and ‘new’ approaches to natural resource planning at the regional scale in partnership with governments. It is these diverse experiences from many regions within Australia, and some international comparisons, to which the remainder of this volume is devoted.

References Allmendinger P and Tewdwr-Jones M (2000). Spatial dimensions and institutional uncertainties of planning and the ‘new regionalism’. Environment and Planning C-Government and Policy 18, 711–726.

Introduction

Böcher M (2008). Regional governance and rural development in Germany: the implementation of LEADER+. Sociologia Ruralis 48, 372–388. Boonstra WJ and Van Den Brink A (2007). Controlled decontrolling: involution and democratisation in Dutch rural planning. Journal of Rural Studies 8, 473–488. Broderick K (2005) Communities in catchments: implications for natural resource management. Geographical Research 43, 286–296. Cheshire L, Higgins V and Lawrence G (2006). Guest editorial: rural governance in Australia: changing forms and emerging actors. Rural Society 16, 231–235. Conley A and Moote MA (2003) Evaluating collaborative natural resource management. Society and Natural Resources 16, 371–386. Connelly S, Richardson T and Miles T (2006). Situated legitimacy: deliberative arenas and the new rural governance. Journal of Rural Studies 22, 267–277. Curtis A (2000) Landcare: approaching the limits of voluntary action. Australian Journal of Environmental Management 7, 19–27. Everingham JA, Cheshire L and Lawrence G (2006). Regional renaissance? New forms of governance in nonmetropolitan Australia. Environment and Planning C-Government and Policy 24, 139–155. Farrelly M (2005). Regionalisation of environmental management: a case study of the Natural Heritage Trust, South Australia. Geographical Research 43, 393–405. Farrelly M and Conacher A (2007). Integrated, regional, natural resource and environmental planning and the Natural Heritage Trust Phase 2: a case study of the Northern Agricultural Catchments Council, Western Australia. pp. 309–333. Routledge. Goodwin M (1998). The governance of rural areas: some emerging research issues and agendas. Journal of Rural Studies 14, 5–12. Gray G J, Enzer MJ and Kusel J (2001). Understanding community-based forest management: an editorial synthesis. In Understanding Community-Based Forest Ecosystem Management. (Eds GJ Gray, MJ Enzer and J Kusel) pp. 1–23. Hawarth Press Inc., New York. Hamilton C and Maddison S (Eds) (2007). Silencing Dissent: How the Australian Government Is Controlling Public Opinion and Stifling Debate. Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest. Hamin EM and Marcucci DJ (2008). Ad hoc rural regionalism. Journal of Rural Studies 24, 467–477. Jennings SF and Moore SA (2000). The rhetoric behind regionalization in Australian natural resource management: myth, reality and moving forward. Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning 2, 177–191. Jessop B (1998) The rise of governance and the risks of failure: the case of economic development. International Social Science Journal 50, 29–45 Kellert SR, Mehta JN, Ebbin S and Lichtenfeld LL (2000). Community natural resource management: promise, rhetoric, and reality. Society and Natural Resources 13, 705–115. Lane MB, McDonald GT and Morrison T (2004). Decentralisation and environmental management in Australia: a comment on the prescriptions of the Wentworth Group. Australian Geographical Studies 42(1), 102–114. Lane MB, McDonald GT and Morrison TH (2004). An agnostic view on regionalism, decentralisation and other silver bullets: a response to Thom. Australian Geographical Studies 42, 398–403. Lane MB and Williams LJ (2008). Color blind: Indigenous peoples and regional environmental management. Journal of Planning Education and Research 28, 38–49. Lemos MC and Agrawal A (2006). Environmental governance. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 31, 297–325.

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Li TM (2002) Engaging simplifications: community-based resource management, market processes and state agendas in Upland Southeast Asia. World Development 30(2), 265–83. Lockie S (1999). Community movements and corporate images: ‘Landcare’ in Australia. Rural Sociology 64, 219–233. Margerum R and Whitall D (2004). The challenges and implications of collaborative management on a river basin scale. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 47, 409–429. Marsden T and Murdoch J (1998). Editorial: the shifting nature of rural governance and community participation. Journal of Rural Studies 14, 1–4. Michaels S (2001). Making collaborative watershed management work: the confluence of state and regional initiatives. Environmental Management 27, 0027–0035. Morrison TH and Lane MB (2006). The convergence of regional governance discourses in rural Australia: enduring challenges and constructive suggestions. Rural Society 16, 341–357. National Natural Resource Management Task Force (1999). ‘Managing natural resources in rural Australia for a sustainable future: a discussion paper for developing a national policy’. Standing Committee of Agriculture and Resource Management, Canberra. Newig J, Pahl-Wostl C and Sigel K (2005). The role of public participation in managing uncertainty in the implementation of the Water Framework Directive. European Environment 15, 333–343. NRM Ministerial Council (2003). National Framework for Natural Resource Management Standards and Targets. Australian Government. Paasi A (2009). The resurgence of the ‘region’ and ‘regional identity’: theoretical perspectives and empirical observations on regional dynamics in Europe. Review of International Studies 35, 121–146. Parkins JR and Mitchell RE (2005). Public participation as public debate: a deliberative turn in natural resource management. Society and Natural Resources 18, 529–540. Pero LV and Smith TF (2006). Facilitating multi-sector dialogue for natural resource management: examples of rural governance in two Queensland regions. Rural Society 16, 236–253. Putnam RD, Leonardi R and Nanetti RY (1993). Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ. Rhodes RAW (1996). The new governance: governing without government. Political Studies 44, 652–667. Rhodes RAW (2007) Understanding governance: ten years on. Organization Studies 28, 1243–1264. Robins L (2007). Major paradigm shifts in NRM in Australia. In Special Issue on Researching the Environment: Papers from the 10th Environmental Research Event held in Sydney, Australia during 10–13 December 2006. pp. 300–311. Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Robins L and Dovers S (2007). NRM regions in Australia: the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. Geographical Research 45(3), 273–290. Robinson CJ and Whitehead P (2003). Cross-cultural management of pest animal damage: a case study of feral buffalo control in Australia’s Kakadu National Park. Environmental Management 32(4), 445–458. Rockloff SF and Moore SA (2006). Assessing representation at different scales of decision making: rethinking local is better. Policy Studies Journal 34, 649–670. Sagan I and Halkier H (Eds) (2005) Regionalism Contested: Institution, Society and Governance. Aldershot, Ashgate.

Introduction

Sorensen T, Marshall N and Dollery B (2007). Changing governance of Australian regional development: systems and effectiveness. pp. 297–315. Routledge, London. Stoker G (1998). Governance as theory: five propositions. International Social Science Journal 50, 17–28. Vigar G (2006). Deliberation, participation and learning in the development of regional strategies: transport policy making in north east England. pp. 267–287. Routledge, London. Wallington TJ and Lawrence G (2008). Making democracy matter: responsibility and effective environmental governance in regional Australia. Journal of Rural Studies 24, 277–290. Whelan J and Oliver P (2005). Regional community-based planning. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 12, 126.

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PART 1 POLICY, PROMISES AND PRACTICES OF REGIONAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND GOVERNANCE

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From government to governance: explaining and assessing new approaches to NRM Brian W Head

Introduction Since the 1980s governments in Australia, as well as in many other developed societies, have undertaken serious reconsiderations of their approaches to sustainable development and sustainable natural resource management (NRM). The political volatility of these issues remains high despite ongoing attempts to forge more consensual approaches, both in relation to longterm goals and to more immediate actions. Although the evolution of policy approaches has been uneven, it is possible to discern an overall framework for the design, implementation and review of NRM policy in Australia (Head and Ryan 2004; Stewart and Jones 2003 p. 12). This emergent framework increasingly centres on the role of the Federal Government in national environmental policy. The Federal Government, in conjunction with the States, has moved gradually towards a flexible mix of strategies across seven broad categories: ●

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a national framework of goals, principles and core strategies agreed by governments (national strategies and inter-governmental agreements); prescriptive regulation of standards or processes, increasingly reserved for critical matters; focus on ‘appropriate regional scale’ for planning and strategic action, with a focus on the ‘meso’ level which links local and national issues; devolved and networked arrangements for planning and implementation, relying where possible on stakeholder groups and local/regional consultation; market-based measures and trading schemes to facilitate economic adjustment; voluntary approaches to behavioural change by producers and consumers, based on stakeholder consultation, engagement and commitment, and investment in research to provide the information and reporting base for core issues of sustainability.

Some of these elements are more prominent in certain policy domains than in others, and there have been variable patterns across different industry sectors (e.g. forestry, mining, horticulture, pastoralism). Nevertheless this new NRM framework has a degree of structured coherence as well as flexibility of application.

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This chapter focuses on policy frameworks and policy choices, including the processes and structural arrangements underlying recent developments. For the purpose of this chapter, ‘governance arrangements’ are taken to include the patterns and processes for setting goals and priorities, information and communication processes, managing implementation, accountability requirements and evaluation (Head 2005a). Governance issues arise across the three sectors of government, business and community organisations. However, in recent years there has been an apparent turn towards a more collaborative and inclusive approach to addressing complex long-term issues, and new conceptual approaches have been discerned and debated.

New governance? This more inclusive and networked approach has sometimes been described as the ‘new governance’ approach to collective problem-solving (Rhodes 1997; Kettl 2002; Imperial 2004; Kjaer 2004; Pierre and Peters 2005; Howlett and Rayner 2006). Such an approach requires the informed involvement and commitment of all levels of government (‘multi-level governance’) together with substantial involvement by diverse industry and community sector organisations (‘participatory governance’: Lovan et al. 2004). Collaborative processes are assisted by development of a solid independent knowledge base rather than simply relying on trade-offs between sectional interests. Inclusive processes are intended to enlist support for broad longterm goals, strategic frameworks and well-targeted outcomes, thereby reducing the risk of stalemate arising from unproductive conflicts and ritualistic adversarial behaviour. The ‘new governance’ approach has been especially attractive in attempts by government to tackle complex and contested areas of policy, not only in environmental and NRM areas but also in some aspects of social policy, human services, infrastructure provision, urban planning and economic development. The approach correctly assumes that sole reliance on regulatory prescription (and attendant regimes of compliance/enforcement) can be unwieldy, expensive and ineffective in changing the mindsets and behaviours of many stakeholders. The evolution of this approach to NRM in Australia has been interpreted in two very contrasting ways. On the one hand, the positive and optimistic interpretation suggests that the regional and devolved model creates major opportunities for tackling Australia’s major NRM issues in a more coherent and better informed way. Planning at an appropriate regional scale is important for understanding and responding to the specific challenges in each bio-region, and goes well beyond the older planning regimes based on administrative boundaries (AFFA 1999). The negotiation of broad inter-governmental agreements on goals and directions is seen as a positive achievement. The capacity to draw on a wider range of policy and regulatory instruments to achieve results is generally welcomed (PMSEIC 2002). Attempts to broaden the dialogue, educate the community and engage business and other stakeholders in constructive action can be seen as desirable steps, not only towards the ideals of civic participation, but also as potentially delivering better on-ground results. On the other hand, the actual implementation of the ‘new governance’ approach to regional NRM has been queried at several levels, elaborated below and in other chapters. First, the apparent commitment to genuine participation and sharing of devolved power with stakeholders and citizens (democratic legitimacy) has been strongly questioned (Moore 2005). Secondly, the degree of alignment among the three levels of government in Australia remains weak, so that the implementation of national agreements is often marked by poor coordination, inconsistent planning regimes, and patchy funding. Thirdly, the experiment in allocating significant responsibilities to regional NRM planning bodies has not yet proven to be effective across the wide range of bio-regions (Lane et al. 2004). In many cases the new bodies lack the capabilities,

From government to governance: explaining and assessing new approaches to NRM

resources and powers to undertake the necessary tasks of planning and consultation, and to influence broader patterns of investment (Robins and Dovers 2007). Fourthly, there are ongoing issues concerning the ‘right’ mix between regulation, market and voluntary measures for a number of key outcomes (e.g. water supply and quality, land degradation, biodiversity protection) and there is some concern that greater reliance on market and voluntary approaches could actually delay rather than expedite improvements in environmental assets. Thus, even though community awareness may have been enhanced, the state of the environment continues to deteriorate on most indicators (Australian SOE Committee 2006). In short, the ‘realist’ critique might be that there are multiple and confusing accountabilities and little overall responsibility for improving NRM outcomes. Taking account of these perspectives, this chapter considers five underlying themes for explaining and assessing the new approaches to NRM in Australia. We do not provide a detailed assessment of the design and implementation of recent NRM programs, or questions of democratic participation, which are the subject of several other chapters in this book. Rather, we focus on the following themes: federalism and public sector coordination; collaborations and partnerships; regulatory trends; adaptive adjustment and learning; and managing ‘wicked’ problems. We then conclude with some observations on the problem of building both a learning culture and a performance culture in the organisational arrangements for NRM in Australia. This entails a brief discussion which raises fundamental questions about the future effectiveness of complex NRM programs.

Federalism and public sector coordination The history of federal/state relations is a story of distrust and inequality as much as a story of cooperation. Viewed downwards from the national level, the States have often been seen as wilful, recalcitrant and unreliable, hence there has been a predisposition for the Federal Government to develop and implement initiatives in a manner which bypasses the states and funds local or regional programs directly (Head 2007a). Environmental and NRM issues in Australia involve legislative responsibilities that are shared across the federal and state levels. A ‘national’ approach to addressing the major NRM issues facing the country requires the whole public sector to be well organised and coherent. This has three dimensions: agreed national strategic policy directions; vertical (multi-level) alignment on programs and regulations; and horizontal coordination across agencies within each level of government. The first two (vertical) dimensions are addressed through the forging of national policy frameworks, regulatory harmonisation, and inter-governmental agreements. There have been several dozen significant agreements achieved since the 1980s between the Federal and State Governments. The forging of national agreements in recent decades has been greatly assisted by the financial strength of the Commonwealth (i.e. its capacity to provide major funding incentives), and also assisted by the expansive interpretation of federal constitutional powers by the High Court (on those rare occasions when the States have challenged the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth). The Federal Government has slowly, and sometimes reluctantly, forged a stronger presence in environmental policy (Papadakis 1993) over the last 25 years. Ministerial Councils have also been instrumental in progressing strategic policy agreements, and in promoting regulatory harmonisation. The regular meeting of heads of government, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), has become the main forum for national policy agreements. Another useful development was the establishment of a Natural Resource Management ministerial council in 2001 to manage better the complex intersecting issues across land, water and biodiversity issues.

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In recent years, the most notable NRM national programs and agreements have arguably been: ●

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the national Landcare program which commenced in the late 1980s, with limited federal funding for demonstration and educative activities (Curtis and Lockwood 2000; Curtis 2003). This was complemented by Catchment Management programs in the early 1990s; both of these had their origins in previous state-level initiatives; 10 Regional Forest Agreements were negotiated in four states in a series of bilateral deals commencing in the mid-1990s (Dargavel 1998; Mobbs 2003). These are 20-year plans for the sustainable management of native forests, built on an intensive process of scientific study and consultation with industry and community interests; the Natural Heritage Trust (NHT) program was established in 1996-97 and revised in 2001 (Crowley 2001; Head and Ryan 2003) building on and superseding the national Landcare and Catchment Management initiatives; the NHT was rapidly applied across all regions of the nation, and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (from 2001) targeted 21 catchments identified as higher-risk areas for salinity and water resource problems. However, this program, along with the NHT program, were replaced in 2008 by the new Labor Government’s ‘Caring for our Country’ program.

The negotiation of inter-governmental frameworks is only part of the challenge. Improving horizontal coherence and coordination within each level of government is also important for achieving clarity in the delivery of complex programs. This type of coordination has been advanced under the flag of ‘joined-up’ government (Bardach 1998; Bakvis and Juillet 2004; Lindquist 2004; Bogdanor 2005). The Commonwealth has understood this as a serious management issue that requires constant attention and improvement (MAC 2004; Jackson 2003; Morrison and Lane 2005). This ‘whole-of-government’ coordination challenge has a similar set of debates and concerns within each of the state governments. Among local and regional bodies there is sometimes a perception that state agencies with NRM-related roles (e.g. agencies concerned with planning approvals, biodiversity protection, water quality, business development) are not consistent or well aligned with each other. In particular, there is an apparent lack of coordination between NRM planning and other land-use planning mechanisms. To the extent that the administrative intent of public sector agencies at any level is confused or problematic, the achievement of agreed national and state objectives could be undermined.

Collaborations and partnerships Proponents of ‘collaboration’ and ‘partnerships’ generally claim that inclusive processes may increase information, reduce adversarial behaviour, broaden responsibility for identifying and solving difficult problems, and channel conflict into considering effective and affordable strategies for achieving agreed long-term goals (Gray 1989; Wondolleck and Yaffee 2000; Innes and Booher 2003; Lovan et al. 2004). Collaboration is favoured in issues of intense conflict or jurisdictional complexity, which no other approach can handle adequately. Critics of state-sponsored collaboration, however, note that the rhetoric of community collaboration often obscures the power relations, contexts and goals of joint activities. There is scepticism about whether power is really devolved (Head 2004a; Moore 2005). Recognition of power relations is fundamental to understanding the dynamics of organisational forms. This perspective is important in understanding the true character of recent governance literature that gives prominence to ‘partnerships’ and ‘collaboration’ (Osborne 2000; Mandell 2001; Stewart and Jones 2003). Concepts such as ‘community partnership’ are notoriously vague

From government to governance: explaining and assessing new approaches to NRM

entities. In considering the actual relations embedded in new governance arrangements, it is important to note the relative power of the actors, the extent to which they contribute resources to the shared forum, and the extent to which they agree to be bound by any negotiated outcomes (Kernaghan 1993 pp. 62, 74). Government-sponsored forms of partnering and collaboration are likely to be strongly directive and likely to maintain inequalities of power. As with several other policy domains, NRM partnerships occur ‘under the shadow of hierarchical authority’ (Scharpf 1994 p. 41). The paradox of centrally-sponsored participation is that stakeholders are enabled to become more involved on important NRM issues, but within a highly structured frame. At the regional level, there is a tension between the logic of expert planning and the logic of community-based deliberation (Dryzek 2000). This translates into debates about whether it is preferable to appoint experts or sectoral representatives to regional bodies (Bellamy, Ross et al. 2002). Some suggest the lack of democratic process may undermine the valuable ‘deliberative’ character of devolved bodies (Moore 2005; Wallington et al. 2008). As described elsewhere in this volume, 56 ‘regional bodies’ were designated or established to undertake planning and consultation under the NHT and NAPSWQ programs from 2001. In some States, the existing NRM regional bodies were utilised to avoid disruption; in others were created afresh. The Commonwealth program rhetoric has insisted on using the language of partnership. But who are the ‘partners’ who might share power and responsibility under these arrangements? On the one hand, the Federal and State Governments which signed the intergovernmental agreement and associated Bilateral agreements might be the ‘real’ partners, since they control the funding and policy settings (albeit the Commonwealth ultimately holds the purse strings). However, there are several other important players who might think they should be part of any genuine partnership. One is the local government sector, distributed throughout all regions but not formally part of the decision-making processes within the vast majority of regional bodies. Local authorities are neglected by other levels of government. The other players are the regional bodies themselves, some of which are created by State legislation and regarded as lacking independence. The Federal ministers, side-stepping the States, have often spoken rhetorically of the regional bodies and especially the ‘regional communities’ as special partners in improving the ecological and productive assets of the bush. Federal ministers have also managed to retain control over competitive grants programs for local groups. Despite the rhetoric of partnerships, Federal public servants believe their agencies (and ministers) are fundamentally responsible for designing and oversighting the complex NRM program arrangements, and the Federal Auditor continues to hold them accountable for any failures in getting results (ANAO 2004, 2008). We conclude that the current forms of ‘partnerships’ between organisational levels are likely to involve substantial inequalities, scepticism or distrust, and mixed expectations. Despite the widespread language of devolution and community empowerment, there has been little evidence of transferring power or devolving control of resources to regional bodies. Successful partnering requires respected leadership across levels, shared objectives, mutual trust, and power-sharing. It is doubtful whether senior public servants have the capacity (or the permission) to develop trust and to share power with non-government actors.

Regulatory trends International research (e.g. Gunningham et al. 1998; Parson 2001; Weidner and Janicke 2002; Kettl 2002; Berkhout et al. 2003; Durant et al. 2004) confirms a long-term trend since the 1980s away from a principal reliance on prescriptive command-and-control regulation (e.g. licensing and monitoring polluting firms, prescribing and enforcing acceptable levels of emissions) towards broader and more varied approaches (including new ‘tools’ such as market

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instruments, voluntary codes and self-regulation). The trends in regulatory approaches have varied across different countries, and across industry sectors (e.g. mining, forestry, fisheries, agriculture, manufacturing). In general, however, the major trend in NRM has been towards greater reliance on voluntary compliance within high-level frameworks that identify priority targets and directions for changed behaviour. This is consistent with two major trends in regulatory theory and practice. First, the conceptual view that regulatory effectiveness depends on problem-context, including industry structure, stakeholder strength and the credibility of sanctions (Ayres and Braithwaite 1992; Grabosky 1997). Second, the development of a broader array of relevant instruments for the regulator to deploy for specific types of problems, including financial incentives and self-regulatory options as well as more traditional standard-setting and enforcement/policing. The increased resort to market-based instruments (Gumley 2001; Whitten et al. 2004), and the extensive use of voluntary codes of practice at industry level (Gunningham 2003) can be understood from three perspectives. On the one hand, these trends reflect a neo-liberal preference among key decision-makers in government and industry for ‘light-handed’ regulation (Jordan et al. 2003; Papadakis and Grant 2003) and use of market mechanisms to allow for individual choice and to facilitate adjustment. Secondly, their increased usage reflects the incapacity of the public sector to set and enforce precise standards in all areas. The knowledge base needed for detailed and effective standard setting is not available, and the resources that would be needed for effective enforcement of such standards (e.g. across enterprises in all industry sectors) would never be forthcoming. Moreover, the overwhelming complaint of industry is that regulations are too complex and the corporate compliance costs are thus too high, hence the widespread preoccupation with ‘red-tape reduction’. Thirdly, the desired new NRM outcomes require stakeholders to understand the challenges and change their attitudes and their behaviours, rather than simply be motivated to avoid negative sanctions. This is partly why the more inclusive and educative approaches to tackling large-scale NRM issues have become more attractive to government as a complement to markets and sanctions. To the extent that industry and community stakeholders can be brought together in considering new strategies and in implementing agreed priorities, the costs of change can be reduced. However, the reliance on market mechanisms and voluntary codes would be unsatisfactory and even dangerous if the knowledge base for problem identification was poor, and if the planning process for setting key priorities and strategies was correspondingly weak. Markets work best when participants have access to full information and reasonable clarity about the context in which choices are made. In other words, markets can best perform their clearing house function when there is good information, and where there are clear institutional signals about long-term strategic directions and timetables (Whitten et al. 2004). Similarly, voluntary codes are insufficient for protecting environmental values unless there is a solid evidence base for tracking outcomes in the relevant areas.

Adaptive adjustment and learning An important new paradigm of adaptive ecosystem management has evolved since the 1980s (Walters 1986; Lee 1993 Ch 3; Cortner and Moote 1999; Dietz et al. 2003). The broad approach represented by adaptive management emphasises ‘learning by doing’ in a collective context. Learning is both a means and a substantive goal (Keen et al. 2005). According to Dovers, the new NRM institutional arrangements in Australia can succeed only if they exhibit the principles of adaptive management, which he takes to include: ● ●

persistence – stability and robustness over time; purposefulness – driven by widely supported goals;

From government to governance: explaining and assessing new approaches to NRM

● ● ●

information richness – evidence, monitoring, evaluation; inclusiveness – stakeholder involvement, and flexibility – learning and adapting (see Dovers and Wild River 2003 p. 6).

Learning emerges from the ‘experimentation’ embodied in designing, implementing and evaluating interventions and programs. There are important aspects of uncertainty concerning the evolution of complex environmental systems, and correspondingly there are risks inherent in modeling the effects of attempted interventions. Given that rigorously controlled experiments are not usually possible at a large scale, it is necessary to acknowledge and embrace risk and uncertainty. The adaptive management approach recognises that multiple perspectives are valuable, and that new understandings are best developed through joint discussion, agreed action, and feedback. This process of debate and evaluation is then used to determine and refine the best management strategies, not in a definitive sense but through ongoing iterative adjustments. Processes for establishing such arrangements do not emerge spontaneously. They have to be designed into the governance arrangements. Importantly, this ‘adaptive management’ pathway rejects two other available approaches to problem solving that are widespread in current political and policy practices. The first is sole reliance on the politics of mutual adjustment, which involves trade-offs and bargaining between the interests and/or opinions of lobby groups. This deal-making can produce a degree of consensus but it could also involve ‘lowest common denominator’ outcomes for the environment. The second approach to be rejected is the appeal to a single best solution. Such solutions are often based on values, ideologies, or simply management fads. According to the adaptive management approach, we need to ‘go beyond panaceas’ (Ostrom 2007), regardless of whether these recipes for success are focused on a specific tool (e.g. markets), or a specific institutional type (e.g. decentralisation). Adaptive management is more than a celebration of dialogue and collaboration (Rammel et al. 2007; Allan et al. 2008). It requires building a more systematic and rigorous knowledge base through the information gathered by the monitoring and learning processes in which many stakeholders are involved. Results are to be evaluated regularly, and management actions should be adjusted on the basis of what has been learned. If the feedback and learning process is rigorous, new knowledge may sometimes call into question the ways in which problems had previously been defined and remedies developed. New thinking based on this evaluation loop (‘double-loop learning’) may lead to the emergence of new paradigms for problem-solving. Scientific expertise is not a seamless web of uncontested knowledge, since there are always uncertainties, risks and disputes. Science cannot fill all the gaps in knowledge to a high level of reliability. Nor can science directly steer policy action, since it must co-exist with other forms of political and practical knowledge (Head 2008). The knowledge bases for adaptive management should include economic, socio-political, and ecological understandings, not only to make sense of complex social and ecological realities, but also to ensure that the full range of mechanisms and motivations required to promote sustainability are addressed (Berkes et al. 2003). In Australia there has been a much greater level of investment in scientific research, monitoring and evaluation including direct funding of government research bodies (e.g. Land & Water Australia, CSIRO), co-funding with industry bodies (e.g. Cooperative Research Centres), special reports (e.g. state of the environment) and strategy initiatives (e.g. inquiries into trading models). The new NRM models in Australia have relied on encouraging regional involvement in sustainability planning and in local projects aimed at risk reduction and remediation. In principle, this elevates the role of local knowledge and stakeholder participation. However, the network of sparsely funded regional bodies has not had the capacity to play a pivotal role in adaptive management. The regional bodies have accrued diverse responsibilities for planning,

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using scientific and other information, prioritising projects, consulting, liaising, managing the organisation, ensuring compliance and substantial reporting. However they have not had the requisite authority and resources to do the job well. Hence, questions arise about the skills and capacities available in regional bodies and their stakeholder constituents, and their abilities to undertake consultation and corporate reporting (Head 2005b; ITS 2006; Keogh 2006; Robins 2007; Robins and Dovers 2007). The linkages between NRM regional planning conducted through these bodies, and the broader planning regimes operated by state and local governments are often obscure and not well integrated. Other issues arise as to whether the learning which occurs within local and regional groups can effectively influence higher-level governmental decisions (Schusler et al. 2003), and whether learning can be effectively shared and translated across regions and across scales of complexity (Allan and Curtis 2003).

Managing ‘wicked problems’ Environmental and NRM problems are inherently complex and inter-related. The nature of the problems seems to evolve over time, and the range of intervention programs also changes in response to perceived risks and debates about prospective solutions. Some problems are not clearly recognised for many decades (e.g. over-extraction of water at the expense of environmental flows) and thus lack an assigned ‘problem-owner’ to take responsibility. Other problems may well be identified as important, but resist an agreed pathway towards solutions (e.g. biodiversity protection in areas of urban encroachment). These aspects of problem/ solution deficit arise from several factors such as knowledge fragmentation, diverse interests, power inequalities and cultural biases. Thus some problems, even though complex, seem able to be ‘managed’ while others resist solutions. This impasse is sometimes described as the dilemma of ‘wicked problems’ (Rittel and Webber 1973; APSC 2007; Head and Alford 2008). To summarise very briefly, complex problems are ‘wicked’ if: ● ● ● ● ● ●

problems are inherently difficult to define clearly; they contain many interdependencies and multi-causalities; the problems are socially complex with many stakeholders; entrenched value differences are significantly involved ; the problems may be unstable and keep evolving, and the knowledge base for defining the nature of problems and the scope of possible solutions is patchy and disputed.

In response to such difficulties, governments have taken three types of responses. The first option is the political choice to ignore or deflect the problem (e.g. by denying its significance, or by shifting responsibility to non-governmental actors, or by attributing blame to overwhelming external forces such as laws of nature). The second response is to reach for a simple solution or panacea (Ostrom 2007) such as a new technology, a new market mechanism, or an ideological nostrum. This is often undertaken with the aim of fixing ‘bite-sized’ pieces of the problem rather than attempting to address the whole ‘jigsaw’. The third response is to take a more holistic approach (APSC 2007) which is adaptive and participatory (rather than the comprehensive blueprint approach of rational expert planning). The participatory turn in NRM policy and planning assumes that a pooling of knowledge is necessary to make sense of complex realities (Healey 1997; Innes and Booher 2003; Weber 2003). This applies equally to the scoping of problems, consideration of key goals, agreeing on priority actions, and gaining support for implementation. In these processes, multi-stakeholder partnerships and collaborative dialogue are seen as necessary. Adaptive management techniques, involving feedback loops and iterative approaches, require investing enough time

From government to governance: explaining and assessing new approaches to NRM

to engage seriously with stakeholders, otherwise the engagement is tokenistic (Head 2007b). While adaptive and participatory approaches are increasingly associated with searching for consensus on the possible next steps to address intractable issues, there is no guarantee that better outcomes for the environment will be achieved in the short term. This is the modern dilemma. Understanding requires a confluence of viewpoints and fields of knowledge, but purposeful actions to improve outcomes need to start now. We seem to know more about processes for conflict mitigation and consensus formation (Innes and Booher 1999; Hemmati 2002) than about informed action to redress major ecological problems that extend beyond local and regional boundaries. The ‘new governance’ models need to be buttressed by an improved cross-disciplinary information base, improved leadership skills at all organisational levels, new capacities to build trust and cooperation between stakeholders, and decisive action to achieve targeted improvements.

Conclusions: accounting for results Performance audits (ANAO 2001, 2004, 2008) have emphasised the need for tighter financial controls, clearer focus on specific outcomes, and improving the capacity of regional bodies. From a bottom-up perspective, research is needed to document not only the governance and implementation challenges recognised by regional participants (Robins and Dovers 2007), but also to suggest how these could be incorporated in program review and development (e.g. leadership skills, scientific information needs, community consultation methods, long-term funding needs, development of trust, and complex accountability processes). Formative evaluation, during the early years of a complex interactive program, requires understanding the stakeholders’ perceptions of strengths, weaknesses and potentialities as well as compliance issues (Bellamy et al. 2002; Head 2004b). Stakeholders have to make new processes work, so their perceptions of impediments, risks and opportunities are crucial for success. Identifying and strengthening new capacities, improving communications and key linkages, are just as important in the early years as gathering ‘hard’ data around performance outcomes. A reasonable time frame for expecting solid NRM outcomes in a new program might be five to seven years, but governmental reporting/auditing and political imperatives often require tighter time frames for demonstrating results. Over time, and after some experience of ‘what works’, a tighter focus on medium-term targets and ultimate goals becomes meaningful. Good results may be interpreted differently by central agencies, auditors, businesses, and conservation groups. The arguments for sustainability have many voices. Treasuries and performance auditors tend to focus on efficiency and compliance, and have a preference for precise measurable actions and indicators in annual business plans. However, to the extent that small regional bodies bear a high burden of accountability for spending public funds, this can be seen as onerously bureaucratic and indicative of mistrust. Yet the public sector focus on accountability is fundamental and unavoidable. Therefore, as the programs evolve, intermediate goals and actions need to be found which will improve the ecological balance sheet, satisfy the auditors and central agencies, and still be achievable through the regional framework. Australia’s new regional approach to NRM is supposed to be about collective joined-up action to protect and improve ecological values (Stratford et al. 2007). The success factors for building both a learning culture and a performance culture across these new arrangements are not yet clear. Macro questions have not been properly addressed about the right mix of regulatory standards, market mechanisms, and consensus-based community initiatives (noting that there will necessarily be a hybrid and multi-pronged approach). There is ongoing inter-governmental negotiation to achieve greater clarity in assigning federal, state, regional, and locallevel responsibilities (noting that this will be driven by political dialogue, and that the practical

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coordination challenges remain unanswered). While there are signs that enlightened sections of business may begin to take a more creative role in contributing to regional sustainability, the steering role of government and the watchdog role of community stakeholders will continue to be central.

Acknowledgements This analysis was partly funded by Australian Research Council grant DP0987727.

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Dargavel J (1998). Politics, policy and process in the forests. Australian Journal of Environmental Management 5(1), 25–30. Dietz T, Ostrom E and Stern PC (2003). The struggle to govern the commons. Science 302(5652), 1907–1912. Doern GB and Johnson R (Eds) (2006). Rules Rules Rules Rules: Multilevel Regulatory Governance. University of Toronto Press, Toronto. Dovers SR and Wild River S (Eds) (2003). Managing Australia’s Environment. Federation Press, Sydney. Downes D (1996). Neo-corporatism and environmental policy. Australian Journal of Political Science 31(2), 175–190. Durant RF, Fiorino DJ and O’Leary R (Eds) (2004). Environmental Governance Reconsidered. MIT Press, Cambridge. Dryzek JS (2000). Deliberative Democracy and Beyond. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Ewing S (2003). Catchment management arrangements. In Managing Australia’s Environment. (Eds S Dovers and S Wild River) pp. 393–412. Federation Press, Sydney. Felkins PK (2002). Community at Work: Creating and Celebrating Community in Organisational Life. Hampton Press, Cresskill NJ. Fiorino DJ (2001). Environmental policy as learning. Public Administration Review 61(3), 322–334. Goldie J, Douglas B and Furnass B (Eds) (2005). In Search of Sustainability. CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne. Grabosky PN (1997). Inside the pyramid. International Journal of the Sociology of Law 25(3), 195–201. Gray B (1989). Collaborating. Jossey Bass, San Francisco. Griffin CB (1999). Watershed councils: an emerging form of public participation in natural resource management. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 35(3), 505–518. Gumley W (2001). The role of economic instruments in promoting sustainable land use. Australasian Journal of Natural Resources Law and Policy 7(2), 137–167. Gunningham N (2003). Voluntary and negotiated agreements in agriculture. Australasian Journal of Natural Resources Law and Policy 8(1), 1–28. Gunningham N, Grabosky P and Sinclair D (1998). Smart Regulation: Designing Environmental Policy. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Head BW (2004a). From Corporatism to Community Partnerships? Trends in ‘State-Sponsored’ Integrated Governance. Presentation to Monash University conference on Integrated Governance, Prato, Italy, October. Head BW (2004b). Regional NRM planning arrangements: evaluating through the state lens. In Evaluating Australia’s regional NRM arrangements. (Ed. J Bellamy) pp. 19–26. CSIRO, Brisbane. Head BW (2005a). Governance. In Ideas and Influence: Social Science and Public Policy in Australia. (Eds P Saunders and J Walter) pp. 44–63. UNSW Press, Sydney. Head BW (2005b). Participation or co-governance? Challenges for regional NRM. In Participation and Governance in Regional Development. (Eds R Eversole and J Martin) pp. 137–154. Ashgate, Aldershot. Head BW (2007a). Taking subsidiarity seriously: what role for the states? In Federalism and Regionalism in Australia. (Eds AJ Brown and J Bellamy) pp. 155–170. Canberra, ANU e-Press. Head BW (2007b). Community engagement: participation on whose terms? Australian Journal of Political Science 42(3), 441–454.

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Head BW (2008). Three Lenses of Evidence-based Policy. Australian Journal of Public Administration 67(1), 1–11. Head BW and Alford J (2008). Wicked problems: the implications for public management. Presentation to International Research Society for Public Management Conference, Brisbane, March. Head BW and Ryan N (2003). Working with non-government organisations: a sustainable development perspective. Asian Journal of Public Administration 25(1), 31–56. Head BW and Ryan N (2004). Can co-governance work? Society and Economy 26(2–3), 361–382. Healey P (1997). Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies. Macmillan, LondonHemmati M (2002). Multi-Stakeholder Processes for Governance and Sustainability. Earthscan, London. Howlett M and Rayner J (2006). Convergence and divergence in new governance arrangements. Journal of Public Policy 26(2), 167–189. Imperial MT (2004). ‘Collaboration and performance management in network settings’. Report for IBM Center for The Business of Government, Washington DC. Innes JE and Booher DE (1999). Consensus building and complex adaptive systems: a framework for evaluating collaborative planning. Journal of the American Planning Association 65(4), 412–423. Innes JE and Booher D (2003). ‘The impact of collaborative planning on governance capacity’. Working Paper 2003/03, Institute of Urban & Regional Development, University of California, Berkeley. ITS Global (2006). Evaluation of the Bilateral Agreements for the Regional Component of the Natural Heritage Trust of Australia. Department of Environment, Canberra. Jackson W (2003). Achieving inter-agency collaboration in policy development. Canberra Bulletin of Public Administration 109, 20–26. Jordan A, Wurzel R and Zito A (2003). ‘New’ instruments of environmental governance: patterns and pathways of change. Environmental Politics 12(1), 3–24. Keen M, Brown V and Dyball R (Eds) (2005). Social Learning in Environmental Management. Earthscan, London. Keogh K, Chant D and Frazer B (2006). Review of Arrangements for Regional Delivery of Natural Resource Management Programmes. NRM Ministerial Reference Group, Canberra. Kernaghan K (1993). Partnership and public administration. Canadian Public Administration 36(1), 57–76. Kettl DF (Ed) (2002). Environmental Governance. Brookings Institution, Washington DC. Kjaer AM (2004). Governance. Polity Press, Cambridge. Lane MB (2001) Affirming new directions in planning theory: co-management of protected areas. Society and Natural Resources 14(8), 657–671. Lane MB, McDonald GT and Morrison T (2004). Decentralisation and environmental management in Australia: a comment on the prescriptions of the Wentworth Group. Australian Geographical Studies 42(1), 102–114. Lee KN (2003). Compass and Gyroscope: Integrating Science and Politics for the Environment. Island Press, Washington DC. Lindquist E (2004). Strategy, capacity and horizontal governance: perspectives from Australia and Canada. Optimum: Journal of Public Sector Management 34(4), 2–12. Lovan WR, Murray, M and Shaffer, R (Eds) (2004). Participatory Governance. Ashgate, Aldershot.

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MAC (Management Advisory Committee) (2004). Connecting Government: Whole of Government Responses to Australia’s Priority Challenges. Commonwealth Government, Canberra. Mandell MP (Ed) (2001). Getting Results through Collaboration: Networks and Network Structures for Public Policy and Management. Quorum Books, Westport CT. Mobbs C (2003). National forest policy and regional forest agreements. In Managing Australia’s Environment. (Eds S Dovers and S Wild River) pp. 90–114. Federation Press, Sydney. Moore SA (2005). Regional delivery of NRM in Australia: is it democratic and does it matter? In Participation and Governance in Regional Development. (Eds R Eversole and J Martin) pp. 121–136. Ashgate, Aldershot. Morrison TH and Lane MB (2005). What whole-of-government means for environmental policy and management: an analysis of the connecting government initiative. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 12(1), 47–54. Osborne SP (Ed.) (2000). Public-Private Partnerships. Routledge, London. Ostrom E (2007). A diagnostic approach for going beyond Panaceas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 104(39), 15181–87. Papadakis E (1993). Politics and the Environment: The Australian Experience. Allen & Unwin, Sydney. Papadakis E and Grant R (2003). The politics of ‘light-handed regulation’: ‘new’ environmental policy instruments in Australia. Environmental Politics 12(1), 27–50. Pierre J and Peters BG (2005). Governing Complex Societies. Palgrave Macmillan, Houndsmill UK. PMSEIC (Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council) (2002). ‘Sustaining our natural systems and biodiversity’. Report for PMSEIC, Department of Education, Science and Training, Canberra. Rammel C, Stagl S and Wilfing H (2007). Managing complex adaptive systems: a co-evolutionary perspective on natural resource management. Ecological Economics 63, 9–21. Rhodes RAW (1997). Understanding Governance. Open University Press, Maidenhead. Rittel HW J and Webber MM (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences 4(2), 155–169. Robins L (2007). ‘Enabling regional NRM boards: a discussion paper on capacity building options’. Australian National University, Canberra. Robins L and Dovers SR (2007). Community-based NRM boards of management: are they up to the task? Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 14(2), 111–122. Scharpf FW (1994). Games real actors could play: positive and negative coordination in embedded negotiations. Journal of Theoretical Politics 6(1), 27–53. Scholz JT and Stiftel B (Eds) (2005). Adaptive Governance and Water Conflict: New Institutions for Collaborative Planning. Resources for the Future, Washington DC. Schusler TM, Decker DJ and Pfeffer MJ (2003). Social learning for collaborative natural resource management. Society and Natural Resources 16(4), 309–326. Stewart J and Jones G (2003). Renegotiating the Environment. Federation Press, Sydney. Stratford E, Davidson J, Lockwood M, Griffith R and Curtis A (2007). ‘Sustainable development and good governance’. NRM Report No 3, University of Tasmania, Hobart. Wallington TJ, Lawrence G and Loechel B (2008). Reflections on the legitimacy of regional environment governance: lessons from Australia’s experiment in natural resource management. Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning 10(1), 1–30. Walters CJ (1986). Adaptive Management of Renewable Resources. Blackburn Press, Caldwell NJ.

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Weber EP (2003) Bringing Society Back In: Grassroots Ecosystem Management, Accountability, and Sustainable Communities. MIT Press, Cambridge. Weidner H and Janicke M (Eds) (2002). Capacity Building in National Environmental Policy. Springer, Berlin. Whitten S, Carter M and Stoneham G (Eds) (2004). Market-based Tools for Environmental Management. Rural Industries Research & Development Corporation, Canberra. Wondolleck JM and Yaffee SL (2000). Making Collaboration Work: Lessons from Innovation in Natural Resource Management. Island Press, Washington DC.

3

Invest, divest or empower: interpretations and practices of regionalisation in Australia’s savannas Bruce Taylor

Introduction Regionalisation as an explicit strategy for national and supra-national policy implementation has been a well-trodden path to sustainable development for several decades. Underpinning this strategy is the belief that ‘the region’ provides an ecologically and socially advantageous scale to address pressing and contentious problems of environmental degradation, natural resource management or socio-economic disadvantage. The contribution of this strategy to viable and effective forms of regional governance in Europe, North America and Australia however has come under increasing scrutiny (Gleeson 2003; Lane et al. 2004; Lawrence 2005; Sagan and Halkier 2005). Regionalisation is a form of decentralisation; it is decentralisation to the regional scale. As such it is likely to contain diverse and often competing imperatives inherent in processes of decentralisation. These can include imperatives of efficiency of investment, divestment of responsibilities by central governments to local or regional actors or the empowerment of those local actors. In Australia there is a growing and healthy discourse on regionalisation as a means to promote national development and environmental policy agendas and investment. Examples of the latter are the Australian Government’s Natural Heritage Trust, and National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality. This chapter considers regionalisation under these initiatives in northern Australia within the broader context of decentralisation. In particular, this chapter describes how the national call to regionalise for natural resource management has played out in three jurisdictions: Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. By analysing the strategies and perspectives of regional bodies and government agencies participating in regionalised planning arrangements this chapter describes how jurisdictions have interpreted and enacted regionalisation in quite distinct ways. In particular the analysis highlights three tensions in the interpretation and practice of regionalising. It is argued here these tensions are between firstly, the state’s preference for administrative consistency across regions while encouraging planning arrangements that are tailored to suit local conditions and needs; and secondly, strategic, efficient investment to achieve national priorities, while purporting to empower diverse local actors through participation and deliberation. The third tension permeates the first two. It is between the intention for the region to be the site of cooperative planning and investment while simultaneously creating the conditions for competition between scales and actors. 29

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The literature on regionalisation often couches tensions such as these solely in terms of top-down versus bottom-up perspectives. What the analysis here reveals is that policy objectives such as consistency, flexibility, empowerment, efficiency, cooperation and competition can co-exist in different measures in regional settings where governance is being redefined (Lawrence 2005). It is the balance of these goals, present in the particular regionalising strategies and assumptions adopted by different jurisdictions, that influences the form of the regionalised model. The co-existence of these diverse rationales also serves to reinforce what Judith Tendler refers to as the ‘paradox of decentralisation’ (Tendler 1997 p. 143), that is, the tendency of decentralising strategies such as regionalisation to re-configure responsibilities between actors rather than simply divest central governments of their responsibilities. By describing the three distinct interpretations of regionalisation in different jurisdictions and exploring their inherent tensions the analysis shows that there is no single outcome from the process of regionalising. Understanding the efficacy of this strategy for improving natural resource management therefore means we need to appreciate the distinctive ways in which regionalisation is interpreted and negotiated. This chapter is essentially concerned with how the competing imperatives of government to invest, divest or empower manifest at regional scales. Decentralisation and natural resource management Over the last two decades, scholars of ‘good government’ have noted the enthusiasm with which central governments seek to engage actors and organisations at ‘the local end of the spectrum’ (Abers 1999; Lane 2003; Tendler 1997). This enthusiasm for decentralised approaches presumes power is transferred, ‘from the central government to actors and institutions at lower levels in the political-administrative and territorial hierarchy’ (Larson and Ribot 2004 p.3) or from ‘the centre to operational units’ (De Montricher 1995 p. 406). The recipients of this transfer can include local governments, non-government organisations, civic associations or boards of comanagement at the sub-national level, enlisted in new arrangements of governing with the state involving private and public interests. The literature notes there are different meanings of decentralisation. These relate to how power is shared or redistributed and to whom new accountabilities are directed. Ribot et al., (2006) distinguish between two dominant forms: deconcentration and democratic decentralisation. The first of these, deconcentration (or administrative decentralisation), occurs when ‘powers are devolved to appointees of the central government in the local arena’ (Ribot et al. 2006 p. 1865; emphasis added). It is often associated with line ministries of central governments seeking to ‘read the preferences of local populations and to better mobilise local labour and resources’ (Larson and Ribot 2004 p. 3) or the creation of new territories in their administrative arrangements to provide a greater emphasis on the spatial dimensions of public policies (De Montricher 1995). In these instances accountabilities are directed upward from the local or regional actors to central governments. The second form, democratic decentralisation, is also referred to as political decentralisation. Here, power is actually transferred to local or regional institutions that are ‘downwardly’ accountable to their communities (Larson and Ribot 2004). In these instances decision-making power and resources are actively redistributed to citizens and other non-government actors at sub-national scales to resolve issues of local and national importance. Democratic decentralisation is also associated with the practice of ‘radical’ participatory democracy in urban planning and development contexts (Abers 1999) and ‘empowered participatory democracy’ (Fung and Wright 2001) where citizens actively forge, through deliberation, the local expressions of national agendas or initiate new locally controlled governing arrangements. These local actors can be elected representatives of their communities yet, ‘even when they are appointed, the reform is tantamount to political decentralization’ (Ribot et al. 2006 p. 1865).

Invest, divest or empower: interpretations and practices of regionalisation in Australia’s savannas

In their review of decentralisation for natural resource management, Larson and Ribot note that globally, since the 1980s, the rhetorical emphasis has shifted towards these more democratic forms that promote citizen participation, away from earlier rationales of ‘national cohesion, efficient management and effective rule’ (Larson and Ribot 2004 p. 1). This and other reviews of decentralisation in developing nations also shows that the resulting form has been highly varied, even within individual countries (Batterbury and Fernando 2006; Larson and Ribot 2004). Some have argued persuasively that it is unhelpful to understand decentralisation as a one-way transfer by the state of its responsibilities in a rush for efficiencies of implementation or increasing civic participation. Because of this transfer of decisional powers, decentralisation affects the ‘author’ as well as the ‘subjects’ of the decision (De Montricher 1995). In this context it is argued that, ‘most decentralised programs … are obviously a mix of local and central’. This should be expected because, ‘the agenda of decentralisation, after all, is to reduce the over-centralisation of government and to remedy the traditional weakness of local [actors]’ (Tendler 1997 p. 23). This notion of decentralisation as a two-way transfer between local and central actors is also noted in planning contexts, where the outcome is shaped not only by the intent and principles employed by policy makers but by the way in which other actors interpret, agitate for, and generally seek to influence that strategy (Sandercock 1999). The move to regionalise The region as a desirable spatial, social and administrative unit to support planning and development policies has fallen in and out of favour with successive Australian governments since the post-war period (Brown 2005; Everingham et al. 2006). It is suggested that regionalisation, particularly in latter decades, is part of a broader ‘quiet revolution’ in responding to natural resource challenges and the observed limitations of rational and command-and-control models of doing business and the need to find ‘alternative agents’ (Lane et al. 2005 p. 12). Regionalisation is a form of decentralisation where the region forms the focal scale of activity and is often associated with a ‘top-down’ delineation of management boundaries and mandates by central governments (Morrison 2007). It is important for the following analysis however to distinguish between the processes of regionalisation, and, regionalism. Regionalism is conceived as a ‘bottom-up’ process (Dore and Woodhill 1999). While central governments may provide a supporting policy environment where the emphasis is ‘the strengthening of regional communities to manage their own environments’ (Morrison 2007 p. 229), regionalism essentially entails the voluntary, often selforganising capability of local actors around a shared identity or set of objectives linked to a sub-national area. One particular form of regionalism described by Lane and others (2005) is civic regionalism. This, they suggest, has emerged from two converging trends in policy at state and national government levels in Australia. The first of these trends is greater civic engagement in environmental planning and management. The second is governmental (re)recognition of the regional scale as the most appropriate scale for managing across contiguous ecological and landscape processes. When placed in a regional natural resource management context, the process of ‘revitalising civic engagement and citizenship’ also presents citizens with opportunities to ‘craft regionally salient and effective solutions’ (Lane 2005 p. 21). These more tailored and socially appropriate responses invariably involve improved coordination between organisations and sectors, the development of more holistic management responses, greater local ownership and access to local knowledge (Morrison and Lane 2006). These more democratic forms of decentralisation to the region have ‘proven difficult to find, and the results of existing policies are highly varied’ (Larson and Ribot 2004 p. 4). In

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testing these democratic ideals against the practice of regionalised NRM in Australia, Moore and Rockloff conclude that it is ‘more likely that the process underway is one of de-concentration where, although power is transferred to lower-level actors, they remain accountable to their superiors’ (2006 p. 271). This view is supported by other critics (Farrelly 2005; Jennings and Moore 2000; Wallington et al. 2008) who suggest that the observed lack of downward accountability towards, or inclusion of, local interests in these new regionalised arrangements indicates governments may actually be ‘devolving responsibility rather than power’ (Lawrence 2005). This scenario is consistent with arguments of some commentators that ‘bottom-up’ regionalism in Australia has often been ‘the outright enemy of state and federal regionalisation strategies’ employed to forestall moves for greater regional autonomy (Brown 2005). This desire of central governments to retain direct control is seemingly at odds with a pervasive neo-liberal agenda in national environmental policy in Australia (see Chapter 6 this volume; Dibden and Cocklin 2007; Higgins and Lockie 2002). In the design of regionalised NRM, the neo-liberal emphasis on individual responsibility, market orientation and a ‘managerialist’ government mindset seems to have fused with motives of self-determination by regional interests, more aligned with notions of regionalism. Here, however, financial dependence, at least in concert with moral or coercive controls, holds sway in regional-state accountability relationships and appears to be mediating transfer of power to regional level actors. In this sense whether government has directed the formation of regional level organisation, or simply enabled it, the practice of governing at the regional scale will be diverse. This diversity is due not only to how the ‘region’ was formed but also to the mix of competing policy imperatives and interplay of actors at different scales. Creation of new, intermediate scales of governance has been widely pursued around the world as a strategy for improving policy performance in a range of sectors. While the rationales for regionalisation are persuasive, any careful reading of the literature reveals that the outcomes have been diverse, and sometimes unanticipated. It is also clear that reconfigurations in decentralising translate into tensions between investment, divestment and empowerment within the regional model in practice. The recent Australian move to regionalise NRM might be effectively considered against this backdrop. First however some brief description of the study area and research method is needed.

Study description The analysis presented here is based on an evaluation of regional natural resource planning arrangements in northern Australia over a four year period from 2004 to 2007 (Chapter 13 this volume; McDonald 2005; Taylor 2006).1 Its aim was to assess progress in, and emerging limitations with, regionalisation under the Natural Heritage Trust and National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality. The study includes 17 designated NRM regions spanning the States of Queensland and Western Australia, and the Northern Territory (see Figure 3.1).2 Some 12 of these regions are located within, in part or whole, the bioregions of the northern tropical savannas. The analysis presented below draws on the responses of participants from the 17 savanna regions studied. Their perspectives on the regionalisation process were collected through a semi-structured qualitative survey administered via the internet. 3 Participants were provided with a unique identifier and password that allowed them to pause and return to the survey if needed, allowing for more considered and detailed written responses. The survey asked for written responses to six open-ended questions dealing with perceptions of progress and limitations of the emerging planning and governance arrangements in regions. In addition the survey contained 14, Likert-scale questions designed to elicit respondents’ views on the presence of procedural and structural ‘requirements’ for effective regional planning. Those particularly relevant to this analysis concerned inclusiveness of planning and decision-making;

Invest, divest or empower: interpretations and practices of regionalisation in Australia’s savannas

Figure 3.1 Study area showing boundaries of NRM study regions in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Regions not identified on the map include i) Torres Strait and, ii) Ord (within the Kimberley sub-region)

the capacity of diverse interests to participate; the clarity of roles and responsibilities of government and other actors; the strategic nature of investment; the efficacy of accountability mechanisms; connections between different spatial scales, and convergence of priorities between interests and scales (Taylor et al. 2006). These responses were supplemented with the provision of text entry boxes, where respondents were asked to provide explanation or example. Of the 57 survey respondents, 27 were representatives of regional NRM bodies that is, chairs of those organisations, executive officers, or planners. The other 30 participants in the survey were State/Territory Government staff from eight separate agencies with mandates for land and water management, primary production, local government and planning, infrastructure, environmental protection or regulating mining operations. These staff, located mainly in regional offices, had regular contact with regional bodies in developing, vetting and co-investing in regional plans and subsequent investment proposals. This ‘dual role’ of program administrator

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on one hand, and prospective partner on the other, was often a source of tension in regional body-agency interactions (Taylor et al. 2006). The survey was conducted in late 2005, a time when most regions were in transition from planning to implementation stages.4 The method is also supplemented by an analysis of policy and program documentation framing the implementation of the Natural Heritage Trust, and through the author’s participation and observation of both policy and planning forums in the three jurisdictions between 2001 and 2006. In human and ecological terms the northern savannas are geographically distinct from much of southern or near-metropolitan regions of Australia. The area exhibits low population densities, remote settlements and often mobile or highly seasonal (e.g. tourist) human populations. Biogeographically diverse, large tracts of these extensive tropical grassy woodlands are owned by the States and leased to pastoralists and miners. There are also large and increasing areas of lands owned and managed by Aboriginal people. The conservation estate and defence lands are other major uses. Savanna communities and economies exhibit a high reliance on the natural resource base yet must also contend with high spatial and temporal variability in climate and resource availability (Vella et al. 2005). These regions are also considered to be currently undergoing a ‘post-productivist transition’ where Indigenous, tourism and conservation values arguably now dominate traditional farming and grazing values in many regions (Holmes 2006). Exceedingly long distances from political and administrative centres have seen these communities literally ‘governed at a distance’ and subject to both intermittent periods of neglect and attempts at redemptive intervention by provincial and national governments.

Findings and discussion The findings from the analysis are presented here in three parts. In the first part, the analysis points to the in-built tensions evident within policy agreements made between governments to guide implementation of the regional approach. The second part of the analysis then shifts to observations of practice from the three jurisdictions over the four-year period of the study. Here the different modes of regionalisation are sketched, as shown in the main strategies and structures of regionalising employed. More than simply provincial peculiarities however, these observed differences reflect competing interpretations of regionalisation under a single national initiative for sustainable natural resource management. These rationales significantly influence (and differentiate) planning and governance in those jurisdictions, and in more than one case between regions within the same jurisdiction. The third and final section of the analysis focuses on what emerges as the central tension between the co-existing goals of empowerment and efficiency present in the regional model of natural resource management and traceable to competing interpretations. In-built policy tensions: regionalisation of NRM in Australia The suite of bilateral and multilateral agreements between states and territories and the Federal Government articulate the principles and requirements for implementation of the Trust and National Action Plan. 5 More than simply setting the ground rules, the agreements capture a dialogue between national and provincial partners (or co-investors) on which rationales ought to predominate in the process and product of regionalisation. One of the underlying rationales for the regionalised approach is that investor governments believe that intervention at the regional level provides for ‘flexibility to reflect different circumstances in jurisdictions and the variation in the capacity and expectations of communities and the needs of different … regions’ (Commonwealth of Australia 2001 p. 1). This notion of regional flexibility is also buttressed by calls for ‘regional empowerment’. This is stated as a principle for delivery of the Trust in the bilateral agreement between Queensland and the Australian Government, signed in 2004. It promotes ‘the importance of building

Invest, divest or empower: interpretations and practices of regionalisation in Australia’s savannas

strong regional arrangements for natural resource management and regional empowerment in the further development, implementation and management of the Trust’ (Commonwealth of Australia & State of Queensland 2004 p. 13.c). Here, however, the objective of regional empowerment is ambiguous. It is also bounded by its enlistment, largely as a means to further program implementation. Empowerment of regional communities is not a substantive goal in its own right. We can also see, in the content of the agreements, the intent to ‘maximise’ outcomes from investment, promote local capability and ownership and accelerate adoption of state-defined sustainable technologies by landholders: Governments will endeavour to maximise the effectiveness of the investments they make in NRM. Enhancing the capability of stakeholders to be actively involved at all stages of NRM planning and implementation will be a critical component of this investment, as it will promote local ownership and increase the uptake of existing and newly developed sustainable NRM practices and processes. Governments must also review and change their own processes to work more effectively with the community. (Commonwealth of Australia & State of Queensland, 2004 p. 85) There are some interesting issues developing here. Firstly regionalisation is framed as a centrally conceived vehicle for efficient and effective investment in national priorities that is extended firstly to the regions and then, by regional bodies, to local communities and individual land managers, with financial capital the primary catalyst. Interestingly, it also recognises some need for governments to reconfigure their approach to include partial implementation of that initiative. This reflects Tendler’s (1997) ‘paradox’ that suggests the process of decentralising brings different but not depleted responsibilities and operational norms for central governments in new multi-level governance arrangements (Batterbury and Fernando 2006; Morrison 2007). It becomes clearer here that even within the guiding policies and agreements tensions exist between competing objectives of regionalising that are likely to manifest in the final forms, structures and practices in regions.6 Practice makes product: strategies and structures of regionalising Moving from the policy and program rules articulated in formal agreements, observations of practice employed in the process of regionalising are presented, from the three State/Territory jurisdictions studied. Each jurisdiction is considered in turn. The Northern Territory The bilateral agreement for delivery of the Trust in the Northern Territory adopted an unconventional position, designating the whole jurisdiction as a single region for planning and program investment (Anon. 2003). The Landcare Council of the Northern Territory (LCNT), an existing advisory body to government consisting of stakeholders with interests in land management and conservation, was endorsed as the accredited regional NRM body. Control of the early planning, engagement and project design phases however was largely embedded within, and dependent on, Territory Government officers from the Department of Planning, Infrastructure & Environment. LCNT members regarded government agency staff as the primary contributors at that time. The rationale given for this strategy by LCNT and government officers alike was dual. Firstly, the non-incorporated status of the regional body was incompatible with administrative and financial capacities, and, secondly, a belief that centralising would minimise transaction costs of establishing additional community infrastructure and reduce burdens on already over-stretched community members. The effects of these strategies were significant. As a community advisory structure to government the LCNT had difficulty fulfilling its regional body function as a decision-making forum. This restricted the LCNT to a stakeholder reference

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group role or external client for the regional plan. This was despite having accountability for development and delivery of the plan under the program agreements. Further the strategy of using an agency-based planning team to reduce pressure on the community reduced access to and ownership of the planning process and plan amongst sectors and local actors in sub-regions. This lack of access was further exacerbated by the decision to plan for the Northern Territory as a single investment region and stakeholder perceptions of a top-down process. In short, expectations of efficiency, technical competency and institutional capability associated with a centralist strategy created tensions in the more democratic or participatory dimensions of the process. In late 2005 a new regional body structure the Natural Resource Management Board (NT) Inc. formed, largely to address the mismatch between the structure and function of the Landcare Council. Implications of this transition, shown by the perspectives of regional participants, are outlined in the third part of this analysis. The Western Australian Rangelands, Kimberley and the Ord The Kimberley region at 425 000 km2 is one of four large ‘sub-regions’ delineated for natural resource management within the Western Australian Rangelands region. The Interim Kimberley NRM Group was designated responsibility to conduct community engagement, subregional plan development and priority setting as part of the broader Rangelands initiative. The Rangelands NRM Coordinating Group the regional body for this vast management area, comprising some 90% of that State’s landmass, relied heavily on sub-regions such as the Kimberley to advance the ‘regional’ initiative. This strategy enabled the development of more localised, distributed and accessible structures, than in the Northern Territory case during the plan-making process. However, in a political sense decision-making powers on priorities and investment functions resided with the Rangelands NRM Coordinating Group, despite formal sub-regional representation on that Group. Sub-regional participants concerns included that this lack of influence at the decision-making table threatened the viability of local engagement networks established during the planning stage, and the continuation of existing projects of particular importance to local communities. There is, however, an interesting spatial and programmatic anomaly in regionalisation in the WA Rangelands. Located inside the boundary of the Kimberly sub-region lies the Ord River Catchment, an area of 53 000 km2 . The Ord, nationally prominent for its production, cultural and economic values was identified as a priority investment region in its own right under the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (NAPSWQ). With this status came the allocation of substantial and dedicated funds compared to those available to its Trust-funded neighbour the Kimberley sub-region. In addition, the Ord Catchment Reference Group was able to articulate more clearly defined management goals and occupied a relatively autonomous territorial unit for planning and investment. It also lies within a self-identifying socio-cultural unit of the East Kimberley (Greiner et al. 2001). The Ord also had the advantage of a pre-existing NRM planning network in the form of the Ord Land and Water initiative since the mid-1990s which boasted strong state agency involvement. This continuity from earlier structures and considerable consistency between the group’s mandate and the objectives of the NAPSWQ provided it with a competitive advantage in leveraging significant government and industry co-investment compared with its neighbours. Due to a history of national development focus and resource conflict since the 1960s (MacRae and Brown 1992; Walker 1973), local actors in the Ord are experienced in mobilising in response to opportunities (or threats) presented at the national level. This preparedness, political efficacy and autonomy seem to have worked in favour of interests within the Ord River Catchment in embedding local priorities and advancing local interests through the vehicle of regionalisation for natural resource management.

Invest, divest or empower: interpretations and practices of regionalisation in Australia’s savannas

Queensland savanna regions Regional bodies formed in Queensland as non-statutory entities, as they had in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The State of Queensland, under the lead of what was then the Department of Natural Resource and Mines, adopted a more facilitative approach to regionalisation. While not participating on the boards or committees of regional NRM bodies directly, the State framed its function as providing policy, administrative, technical and procedural advice to the emerging entities. A strategy of region-by-region negotiation, largely between the State and regional bodies, although often contentious, provided for greater flexibility in regional governance arrangements. The inclusion of the Commonwealth in these negotiations added to tensions as regional bodies claimed they received mixed messages from the two levels of government advisors. This flexibility in the State’s approach also created considerable complexity, uncertainty and perceptions of increased risk in regional scale delivery particularly amongst government agencies with regulatory cultures such as the Environment Protection Agency. Uncertainties relating to accountability functions, co-investment, responsibilities for implementation and competing priorities between regional bodies and governments arose regularly during the planning process. While improving ‘local’ ownership, the diverse character of regional bodies and their agendas created initial difficulties for State-level industry and business groups seeking a consistent mode of engagement with multiple regions. On some aspects of ‘regional business’ a consensus position was emerging by late 2005 between regional bodies on the need for greater consistency and efficiencies in financial reporting and other aspects of upward accountability to program administrators in Brisbane and Canberra. Not all Queensland regions were granted the same latitude. Regionalisation in Cape York Peninsula saw a greater degree of central control exerted by State and Federal Government interests, which were in turn often at odds. This more interventionist approach accompanied slower progress in finalising planning and investment arrangements in that region compared with neighbouring savanna regions. The above description presents an account, if only in broad terms, of the different strategies employed in regionalisation across the three jurisdictions and some of their structural implications. Next, the final part of the analysis frames the co-existing goals of efficiency and empowerment as the dominant tension as expressed in the experiences of those participating. Efficient investment or regional empowerment The objectives of efficiency and empowerment are tied, respectively, to regionalisation in its more deconcentrative and democratic guises (Jennings and Moore 2000; Morrison and Lane 2006). These objectives and the tensions their co-existence creates are seen in the responses of WA Rangelands participants when reflecting on the degree of community control of the regional planning and investment process: People are tired of it, less enthusiastic. The language of NHT has focussed on community ownership, but the intent has been to be more strategic, have higher level and better prioritised plans, and the money for WA Rangelands has been small. It all adds up to mixed messages. (survey respondent 36) And, The timetables and agendas set at a state-national level make engagement at the ground level difficult. A significant portion of participants have become disillusioned with the process they initially thought they could drive. (survey respondent 37)

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Regional body participants from Cape York and Northern Gulf in Queensland also indicated that national- and state-level priorities did not always sit well at the regional level: Government policy and legislative agendas are often at odds with community aspirations, for example [with] vegetation management, wild rivers [legislation] and World Heritage. Not all [regional] stakeholders support an enhanced focus on Indigenous communities. (survey respondent 3) These competing aspirations were also considered to directly affect both the efficiency and effectiveness of regional level management, particularly in working collaboratively with Indigenous interests and landowners: You cannot expect positive outcomes if priorities are split. [T]here is only a limited number of people on the ground and competing interests cannot be supported, for example, Indigenous communities need more time and support than current government timelines allow – business is done differently. (survey respondent 16) Embedded in the vision of regionalisation often held by participants is a conglomerate of ideals. These include an empowered ‘collective’ or network of actors, but also strategic efficiencies within what are clearly managerialist aspirations. When asked what the long-term goal of regional arrangements was, one Queensland State Government participant responded: … the ultimate goal is formalised delivery partnerships, within a strategic investment framework, that delivers tangible changes on ground … Inherent in this [is] less bureaucracy at all levels, better articulation between regional bodies and other organisations . Subscription to the purchaser-provider model [in short] lean regional bodies overarching a well articulated, empowered collective of service providers [and] delivery mechanisms. (survey respondent 40) However any expectations that the process of regionalisation would allow, or indeed seek the retreat of the state from the local arena seem unfounded. Cape York and Northern Territory participants point to a stronger rather than depleted role for central governments where, at least in the short term, a lack of capability is seen to exist in civil society: … arrangements are still in a transitional phase with no formal regional body in place … no accredited plan and investment strategy [with a process relying on] stronger government coordination in the absence of strong community leadership and capacity. (survey respondent 4) And similarly in the Northern Territory: At present, it can be said that the new board has inherited a dog’s breakfast … In the longer term, there will hopefully be better support from State and local government, which will allow for the successful implementation of on-ground activities. (survey respondent 27) During this transition in regional body structure in the Northern Territory in 2005, the inclusion of ‘problematic’ interest groups was seen to reduce the efficiency of planning and investment decisions and was to be avoided:

Invest, divest or empower: interpretations and practices of regionalisation in Australia’s savannas

[With] the new NRM Board established to implement the plan, this has in part altered the influence of special interest groups to affect decision-making for their own benefit as distinct from overall Northern Territory objectives … the [new board provides] essentially a clean slate to allow decision-making .… (survey respondent 28) In the case of the Northern Territory these sentiments point to an unwillingness to engage certain partisan interests. It may also signal co-existing aspirations to professionalise or at least streamline the regional model to improve the efficiency of expenditure and expedite natural resource management improvements. Both these interpretations are consistent with the spatially and administratively centralised approach adopted in that jurisdiction to the NRM plan development process discussed in the second part of the analysis. This strategy of a largely centralised process was framed by Territory respondents in terms of avoiding the type of experience observed in the Kimberly sub-region of the WA Rangelands. Experiences in the Kimberley indicate that devolving plan-making and engagement functions to the sub-regional level may be initially effective in garnering local ownership and involvement. Where this is done on a short-term basis, however, without the transfer of decision-making powers, frustration, uncertainty, and high social transaction costs appear at the local and sub-regional level. In contrast, the Ord experience points squarely to how a more focused regionalisation with adequate investment and clear management mandate empowers local resource managers, particularly where these actors are experienced in the politics of national-regional dialogues. The Queensland experience of opting for a more negotiated and diversified model of regionalising appears to have galvanised, in most cases, government and regional body players into more robust power-sharing arrangements. The above evidence suggests this is counterbalanced by initial increased program complexity, reduced consistency of administration and confusion over roles and responsibilities. Several individual regional processes remain fragile and comparatively immature, particularly in more remote savanna regions, where decentralisation was more limited and government intervention comparatively greater.

Conclusion The Trust and the National Action Plan represent a nationally devised strategy of policy implementation. This national strategy relies in large part on the regionalisation of natural resource management planning and investment activity. Far from uniformly applied, the findings presented here describe how that national call to regionalise is interpreted by state and territory jurisdictions in quite distinct ways. These are evident in both the objectives sought by State and Territory Governments and the practices they employed. Both the goals and practices of regionalisation also appear strongly mediated by assumptions about the character and capability of regions made by central governments. In addition the type of ‘regional model’ adopted in the different jurisdictions is influenced by the degree to which centralist thinking pervades the culture of the participating agencies at state/territory level. This in turn influences whether limited deconcentrative or more democratic modes of decentralisation result. So is this difference a problem? Regionalisation, by definition, ought to seek more locally suited or tailored means of policy delivery. As such any expectations of uniformity of structure or practice across regions are arguably misplaced. However it might be expected the underlying principles that support the policy goals to be applied consistently, even if this occurs by different, locally relevant means. This analysis highlights however the potentially wide spectrum of interpretations that may result. The process of tailoring arrangements at the regional level appears more aligned

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with the bias of the intermediate level of government (States and Territories in this instance) towards efficiency or empowerment objectives. Yet neither can the efficacy of local actors, such as their capacity to engage with the national agenda, be discounted in influencing the final arrangement. Implementation of the Trust and National Action Plan is clearly neither a case of state intervention or state retreat, nor are objectives of empowerment or efficiency rejected outright. Both continue to exist in the rationale and practice of regionalisation to varying degrees across the three jurisdictions studied. The ‘state’ in each of the jurisdictions however has maintained the rule-setting function, including the extent to which resources and political power is shared or roles reconfigured with regional bodies, interest groups or participating citizens. This is suggestive of what scholars have described in other natural resource management contexts as meta-governance (Bell and Park 2006). Tendler’s paradox of decentralisation also appears alive and well. What we are seeing in the cases discussed here is neither a purely democratic or administrative form of decentralisation but the result of tensions between these forms. This reflects Lawrence’s appraisal of regional governance arrangements for sustainable development in Australia as ‘a contradictory process at the local level’ (Lawrence 2005 p. 169). It also extends this understanding by demonstrating these contradictions in investment, divestment and empowerment co-exist in different measures across participating regions under a single national policy initiative in community-based natural resource management. These forms are also deeply coloured by the particular provincial jurisdiction partnering the Federal government in program delivery. Because there is no single outcome from the process of regionalising, understanding the efficacy of this strategy requires more attention be paid to appreciating the distinctive ways regionalisation is interpreted and practiced.

Endnotes 1 This evaluation was a collaborative venture supported by the Tropical Savannas Management Cooperative Research Centre including CSIRO and Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines. (http://savanna.cdu.edu.au/research/projects/healthy_ savanna_pla.html). The author would also like to acknowledge project leadership for this research by the late Professor Geoff T McDonald and the contribution of Sonja Heyenga and Cathy Robinson in the design and implementation of the survey. 2 Cape York, Torres Strait, Northern Gulf, Southern Gulf, Wet Tropics, Burdekin Dry Tropics, Fitzroy Basin, Desert Channels, Mackay-Whitsunday, Burnett-Mary, South-East Queensland Catchments, South West, Condamine, Queensland Murray-Darling Basin, Northern Territory, and Kimberley (including Ord region). 3 In total, 89 possible respondents were identified, of these 86 were able to be contacted, from which 57 (66%) completed the survey. 4 With the staggered timing of bilateral agreements between participating governments, regions in Queensland arguably had a head start over the Territory and to a lesser degree Western Australia. 5 These agreements were co-signed between 2001 and 2004 for the jurisdictions of Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia. 6 See Hussey and Dovers 2006 who discuss how unresolved tensions in policy development for natural resources often re-surface to confound efforts during policy implementation: Hussey K and Dovers S (2006) Trajectories in Australian water policy. Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education 135, 36–50.

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References Abers R (1999). Practicing radical democracy: lessons from Brazil. Plurimondi 2, 67–82. Anon. (2003). ‘Bilateral Agreement between the Commonwealth of Australia and the Northern Territory to deliver the Natural Heritage Trust, Signed 5 June 2003’. Australia, Commonwealth of (2001). ‘Intergovernmental Agreement on a National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality Between the Commonwealth of Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory, and the Australian Capital Territory’. Commonwealth of Australia. Australia, Commonwealth of, & State of Queensland (2004). ‘Bilateral Agreement between the Commonwealth of Australia and the State of Queensland to Deliver the Natural Heritage Trust, Signed 18 June 2004’. Australian Government. Batterbury SPJ and Fernando JL (2006). Rescaling governance and the impacts of political and environmental decentralization: an introduction. World Development 34, 1851–1863. Bell S and Park A (2006). The problematic metagovernance of networks: water reform in New South Wales. Journal of Public Policy. 26, 63–83. Brown AJ (2005). Regional governance and regionalism in Australia. In Participation in Regional Governance: Global trends in an Australain Context. (Eds R Eversole and J Martin) pp. 17-42. Ashgate, Aldershot. De Montricher N (1995). Decentralization in France. Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration 8, 405–418. Dibden J and Cocklin C (2007). Contesting competition: governance and farmer resistance in Australia. In Rural Governance: International perspectives. (Eds L Cheshire, V Higgins and G Lawrence) pp. 175–190. London, Routledge. Dore J and Woodhill J (1999). Sustainable Regional Development. Greening Australia, Canberra. Everingham JA, Cheshire L and Lawrence G (2006). Regional renaissance? New forms of governance in nonmetropolitan Australia. Environment and Planning C-Government and Policy 24, 139–155. Farrelly M (2005). Regionalisation of environmental management: a case study of the Natural Heritage Trust, South Australia. Geographical Research 43, 393–405. Fung, A and Wright, EO (2001). Deepening democracy: innovations in empowered participatory governance. Politcs and Society 29, 5–41. Gleeson B (2003). Learning about regionalism from Europe: ‘economic normalisation’ and beyond. Geographical Research 41, 221–236. Greiner R, Stokes C, Cowell C, Tapsall S, Kinloch J, Kininmonth S and Murray A (2001). A socio-economic profile of the natural resource-based industries in the (East) Kimberley, Report for the Ord-Bonaparte Program. CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Townsville. Higgins V and Lockie S (2002). Re-discovering the social: neo-liberalism and hybrid practices of governing in rural natural resource management. Journal of Rural Studies 18, 419–428. Holmes J (2006). Impulses towards a multifunctional transition in rural Australia: gaps in the research agenda. Journal of Rural Studies 22, 142–160. Hussey K and Dovers S (2006). Trajectories in Australian water policy. Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education 135, 36–50. Jennings SF and Moore SA (2000). The rhetoric behind regionalization in Australian natural resource management: myth, reality and moving forward. Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning 2, 177–191.

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Lane MB (2003). Decentralization or privatization of environmental governance? Forest conflict and bioregional assessment in Australia. Journal of Rural Studies 19, 283–294. Lane MB, McDonald GT and Morrison TH (2004). An agnostic view on regionalism, decentralisation and other silver bullets: a response to Thom. Australian Geographical Studies 42, 398–403. Lane MB, Cheers B and Morrison TH (2005). Regionalised natural resource management: the new South Australian regime. Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia 104, 11–25. Larson AM and Ribot JC (2004). Democratic decentralisation through a natural resource lens: an introduction. The European Journal of Development Research 16, 1–25. Lawrence G (2005). Promoting sustainable development: the question of governance. Research in Rural Sociology and Development 11, 147–176. MacRae I and Brown D (1992) The evolution of regional planning in Western Australia. In Urban and Regional Planning In Western Australia: Historical and critical perspectives. (Eds D Hedgcock and O Yiftachel) pp. 205–217. Paradigm Press, Perth. McDonald G, Taylor B, Bellamy J, Robinson C, Walker M, Smith T, Hoverman S, McAlpine C and Dawson S (2005). Benchmarking regional planning arrangements for Natural Resource Management 2004–5: progress, constraints and future directions for regions. In Healthy Savanna Planning Systems Project. Tropical Savannas Management CRC. Moore SA and Rockloff SF (2006). Organizing regionally for natural resource management in Australia: reflections on agency and government. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 8, 259–277. Morrison TH and Lane MB (2006). The convergence of regional governance discourses in rural Australia: enduring challenges and constructive suggestions. Rural Society 16, 341–357. Morrison TH (2007). Multiscalar governance and regional environmental management in Australia. Space and Polity 11, 227–241. Ribot JC, Agrawal A and Larson AM (2006). Recentralizing while decentralizing: how national governments reappropriate forest resources. World Development 34, 1864–1886. Sagan I and Halkier H (Eds) (2005). Regionalism Contested: Institution, Society and Governance. Ashgate, Aldershot. Sandercock L (1999). Translations: from insurgent planning proactices to radical planning discourses. Plurimondi 2, 37–46. Taylor B, McDonald G, Heyenga S, Hoverman S, Smith T and Robinson C (2006). ‘Evaluation of regional planning arrangements for natural resource management 2005–6: Benchmark Report 2’. Tropical Savannas Management CRC & CSIRO, Brisbane. Tendler J (1997). Good Government in the Tropics. The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. Vella KJ, Williams RJ, Walker DH, Smajgl A, Kirschbaum MUF and Greiner R (2005). Viewpoint: social and economic dimensions of involving savanna communities in carbon management systems. Australian Journal of Botany 53, 741–747. Walker KJ (1973). The politics of national development: the case of the Ord River Scheme. Australian Journal of Public Administration 32, 93–113. Wallington T, Lawrence G and Loechel B (2008). Reflections on the legitimacy of regional environmental governance: lessons from Australia’s experiment in natural resource management. Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning 10, 1–30.

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Can community-based NRM work at the scale of large regions? Exploring the roles of nesting and subsidiarity Graham R Marshall

Introduction A government-sponsored experiment in community-based natural resource management (NRM) has been underway in rural Australia since the 1980s. Its focus has been on delivery of federal, state and territory government funds to motivate landholders to adopt the kinds of behaviours needed to address the nation’s environmental problems. Over this period, the ‘community’ referred to has grown from local groups to populations of up to hundreds of thousands of people. The most recent phase of this experiment, announced in 2000 and continuing from 2008 under the ‘Caring for our Country’ program, is referred to as the ‘regional delivery model’. Besides the pressures imposed by this scaling up of the community-based approach, another challenge derives from the pressures on regional bodies to assume responsibilities (e.g. maintaining upward accountability to government investors) that risk them becoming perceived by their constituents as extensions of government. A further challenge follows from increased governmental pressures on regional bodies to invest their funds more strategically, and less on the basis of equity considerations, and the consequent risk that community ownership of regional decisions may be weakened by perceptions of bias or political opportunism. Despite the growing complexity of community-based NRM programs in Australia, governments expect them to remain just as effective in motivating farmers to adopt conservation practices promoted under these programs. These expectations remain backed by little reasoning or evidence. The research reported here sought to examine how these expectations might be pursued more systematically, and thus to assist governments in developing an explicit program logic for the regional delivery model. Previous research has yielded important insights regarding various social dimensions of the regional delivery model (e.g. Jennings et al. 2000; Broderick 2005; Farrelly 2005; Paton et al. 2004; Kingwell et al. 2008; Robins 2008). Of particular interest here, Broderick (2005) highlighted the complexity of working with communities under the regional delivery model, and the need to develop strategies for community engagement that accommodate heterogeneity within each regional population. The present research broadens this knowledge base by exploring the potential of institutional innovation to enable community-based NRM to function effectively in large-scale and 43

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otherwise complex settings. This research was motivated particularly by the eighth of E Ostrom’s (1990) design principles for common-property governance of larger, more complex, natural resource systems: ‘appropriation, provision, monitoring, enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities are organized in multiple layers of nested enterprises’ (E Ostrom 1990 p. 90). Such nesting of enterprises results in a polycentric governance system: a system comprising multiple decision-making centres each retaining substantive autonomy from one another. In contrast, a monocentric, or centralised, system of governance presumes coordination between organisational units is feasible through a single integrated command structure (V Ostrom et al. 1999). The logic of E Ostrom (1990) and others including McKean (2002), Berkes (2002) and Lebel et al. (2006) implies that environmental governance arrangements for complex settings designed consistently with the ‘nesting principle’ are more likely to succeed in achieving the levels of trust, reciprocity and voluntary cooperation needed for successful implementation of decisions made under such arrangements. How salient is this logic for ongoing efforts to pursue community-based NRM at the scale required under Australia’s regional delivery model? Success with the regional delivery model clearly depends on large measures of voluntary cooperation from rural landholders in particular, since many of the environmental solutions sought under the model entail changes in how they manage their privately-owned land. Even so, what potential exists for application of the nesting principle, by both governments and regional NRM bodies, to strengthen this cooperation within this particular context? This question is addressed in the remainder of this chapter. The logic of nested, or polycentric, governance is considered in the next section. The relevance of the principle of subsidiarity as a guide for scaling up community-based NRM as a multi-layered system of nested enterprises is then discussed. A brief account of how community-based NRM in Australia has been scaled up over the last few decades is presented next. A set of eight guidelines for translating the nesting principle into the context of the regional delivery model is then presented. These guidelines are based on discussion of the preceding section, as elaborated by qualitative and quantitative evidence from the author’s recent project ‘Nesting community-based NRM for regional accountability and grassroots cooperation’.1 Finally, concluding comments are presented.

Understanding the nesting principle The rationale for the nesting principle is evident from various theoretical perspectives, including those of ‘collective action’ and ‘robustness’. The first of these begins with Olson’s (1965) analysis of the ‘free rider problem’ faced by a large group perceiving a shared problem. Game theoreticians translated this problem into one of group members establishing the mutual trust they need to be assured that other members will resist the temptation to free ride on their own efforts. Olson’s solution was for a large group to reconfigure as a federated system, i.e. as a small group of small groups, where ‘small’ signifies few enough members that solutions to remaining problems of trust building become possible. No explanation was offered, however, for how members of the large group might overcome their collective action problem of reorganising as a multi-level system. E Ostrom (1990) completed this logic by observing that collective action problems faced by large groups may often be broken down into smaller problems among which some are typically surmountable given pre-existing trust between some members. Hence, multi-level governance of large groups can be explained from this perspective as, ‘the eventual result of larger, more inclusive organizational units emerging from, and then ‘nesting’ … smaller, more exclusive units that manage to self-organize sooner. Smaller organizations thus become part of a more inclusive system without giving up their essential autonomy’ (Marshall 2005 p. 47).

Can community-based NRM work at the scale of large regions? Exploring the roles of nesting and subsidiarity

The advantage of nesting lower-level units, rather than subsuming or sidelining them, follows in this perspective from the problems of vertical trust that emerge once governance becomes multi-levelled. Introducing a higher level assists lower-level actors with their problems of horizontal trust only to the extent that they trust the higher level not to fail them (Marshall 2002; 2004a; 2004b). Maintaining units that actors have self-organised, and limiting constraints on their autonomy, helps with problems of vertical trust since we may expect actors to place greater trust in units they create for themselves and in which they retain rights to participate in decision-making. The robustness perspective recognises that the social-ecological systems normally addressed in community-based environmental management are complex adaptive systems at risk of ‘flipping’ unpredictably into configurations that may be unsustainable. A social-ecological system has been defined accordingly as robust, ‘if it prevents the ecological systems upon which it relies from moving into a new domain of attraction that cannot support a human population, or that will induce a transition that causes long-term human suffering’ (Anderies et al. 2004 p. 7). The potential contributions of polycentric governance towards robustness in addressing larger-scaled and otherwise complex environmental problems arise in part from the increased scope, compared with monocentric arrangements, that nesting allows for decentralised decision making. E Ostrom (1999 p. 526) explained how decentralised decision-making can add robustness by: (i) enhancing access to local knowledge; (ii) increasing the likelihood of excluding untrustworthy individuals; (iii) allowing closer adaptation of rules to each local environmental problem; (iv) reducing enforcement costs by strengthening local legitimacy of rules and making it easier to craft rules that can be monitored affordably, and (v) enabling ‘multiple units [to experiment] with rules simultaneously, thereby reducing the probability of failure for an entire region’. This last advantage was recently highlighted as follows by Watson in the context of Australian water policy: In a situation of uncertainty about the best steps to take in water policy, experimentation rather than the elusive search for national consistency should be encouraged. Some states and groups of irrigators will be more receptive to new ideas. Local circumstances differ. If policy innovations are effective in one state, others including the central government will follow. Diversity in ideas and policies is better than one shoe fits all. (Watson 2008) Polycentric governance may potentially contribute towards robustness also by complementing a relatively decentralised system with higher levels of governance capable of dealing with problems exceeding the capacities of some lower-level units to solve by themselves (e.g. intractable problems of biophysical spill-overs, discrimination, and inter-group conflict). The redundancy and overlapping of units in polycentric arrangements may itself contribute to robustness, by enabling information about rules that have worked for one unit to be communicated more easily to other units. It can mean also that ‘when small systems fail, there are larger systems to call upon – and vice versa’ (E Ostrom 1999 p. 528). Polycentricity can also strengthen the adaptive capacity of a governance system, and thereby its robustness, by structuring it as a set of relatively small modules with substantive autonomy. The smaller the ‘building blocks’ of a governance system, and the more autonomous they are, the lower will be the transaction costs of reconfiguring the system over time in line with our evolving understanding of the problems the system seeks to solve.

Applying the nesting principle Ostrom was careful to warn against applying her design principles, including the nesting principle, on a one-size-fits-all basis (E Ostrom 2005). Rather, she viewed them as a ‘beginning

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point for conducting a broad search for appropriate means of solving problems’, and suggested accordingly that application of the nesting principle be pursued by translating it in any specific context into the following question: ‘How do we create a multiple-layer, polycentric system that can be dynamic, adaptive and effective over time’ (E Ostrom 2005 p. 271). The research reported in this chapter followed this suggestion, as well as Young’s insight that the challenge of succeeding with multi-level governance can be divided into two problems: (i) how to assign governance responsibilities across the different levels, and (ii) how to manage the cross-level interactions, or ‘vertical interplay’, arising from any given assignment of responsibilities (Young 2002b). He reasoned that these two problems would best be solved by first assigning responsibilities to the appropriate levels, and then striving to ensure that consequent crosslevel interactions yield complementary behaviours. The focus in this chapter is on the first step of this strategy. The focus on the problem of assigning tasks across governance levels has revolved largely around the ‘principle of subsidiarity’. Although various definitions of this principle exist, they share the implication that any particular responsibility should be assigned to the lowest level of governance with the capacity to discharge it effectively. McKean proposed that the advantages of small groups in achieving voluntary cooperation in addressing local NRM problems be extended to larger-scale problems by means of ‘nested groups … with subsidiarity’ (McKean 2002 p. 8). Despite wide endorsement of the subsidiarity principle as a guide for assigning responsibilities across a multi-level governance system, consensus on its interpretation is typically elusive. Even so, we are not without guideposts for applying the subsidiarity principle to design nested systems of community-based environmental management. There is much to learn from previous experience in this direction. Some key lessons to date are considered below. How do we identify, as required in applying the principle of subsidiarity, the lowest possible level of governance with the capacity to conduct a given responsibility satisfactorily? McKean proposed the following guideline for deciding how low ‘possible’ is: an individual subunit of the governance system is free to undertake all the responsibilities that do not affect anyone in another subunit, ‘but we move up a notch to a higher level if a subunit wants to engage in behavior that will affect any other subunit’ (McKean 2002 p. 10). This guideline is consistent with Ribot’s proviso when identifying the lowest possible level, ‘that making the decision at this level does not cause negative effects at higher social or political-administrative scales’ (Ribot 2004 p. 23). Nevertheless, this guideline fails to account for all relevant aspects of capacity. An organisational unit may be able to fulfil a particular responsibility without imposing negative effects on other units, yet may be at a disadvantage compared with a higher-level unit in accessing all the physical, financial, human and social capacities needed to discharge that responsibility effectively. When this is the case, it is reasonable to interpret the subsidiarity principle as justifying centralisation of that responsibility further than the level needed to represent all individuals with an interest in the responsibility, but only to the minimum extent necessary to ensure that it is conducted to the required standard. The subsidiarity principle is relevant to the responsibility of deciding how nesting of units at progressively higher levels should occur. As observed by V Ostrom et al. (1999), it is a common mistake of policy-makers to underestimate the capacities of units at any level to self-organise governance arrangements for which they are currently ‘too small’. It can sometimes be possible for units to deal with higher-level problems by reconstituting themselves to represent all key interests at that higher level. Otherwise, they may be capable of closing mismatches of this kind by federating with other units at their level. Even if these possibilities are beyond their capacities, they might still participate effectively in deciding the design of higher-level arrangements, particularly to ensure that new arrangements add value to their existing capacities.

Can community-based NRM work at the scale of large regions? Exploring the roles of nesting and subsidiarity

Where there is potential for a subunit at any level to overcome an existing capacity shortfall, the subsidiarity principle implies an obligation on higher-level units, including governments, to help realise that potential. However, often there is reluctance to assign tasks to lower-level subunits before their capacity has been proven, even though it is impossible to establish such proof until assignment has occurred (Ribot 2002). One solution to this problem is to begin by assigning simpler tasks for which lower-level capacity is clearly evident and/or the costs of failure would not be severe (McKean 2002). We can expect individuals and their communities to participate in capacity-building efforts only to the extent that they expect participation to further their goals. In many environmental projects, like those concerned with biodiversity, this expectation is unlikely to exist at the outset. Often the resources to be conserved are not already valued highly by those whose participation is sought, and they also lack secure rights to benefit from the capacities they do develop (Child 2003).

Subsidiarity and the regional delivery model The origins of the regional delivery model reside in the 1983 release of Australia’s National Conservation Strategy which identified local community participation as essential to realising natural resource management (NRM) objectives. Curtis (1998) explained how this emphasis arose from the influence of rural development theory which emphasised local self-help supported by change agents. The experiment gained momentum when in 1989 the Australian Government established the National Landcare Program to catalyse local activity by supporting formation and facilitation of landcare groups. Meanwhile, state and territory governments were establishing integrated catchment management (ICM) programs in recognition of the interrelatedness of NRM issues. The catchments delineated were much wider in scale than the local landscapes around which landcare groups formed. Given fears that ‘a regulatory approach to ICM could focus farmers’ energies on resisting interference from bureaucrats rather than on improved land management’ (Hollick 1992 p. 51), community-based ICM committees were expected to achieve voluntary cooperation from those they depended on for implementation of their strategies. Landcare groups were thus embraced by governments as vehicles through which ICM would be implemented. In 1997, the Federal Government established the Natural Heritage Trust (‘the Trust’) with a contribution of $1.25 billion over five years. The Federal Government required that a Regional Assessment Panel be established for each ‘region’ (now often substituted for ‘catchment’) to recommend on funding applications in accordance with a regional strategy. These Panels were formed generally from existing catchment management committees. Their recommendations were considered by State Assessment Panels in making final recommendations to the responsible Federal minister. These policy developments represented significant decentralisation of rights to participate in deciding how public funds for on-ground NRM activity should be allocated between competing bids. However, it is less clear that this decentralisation occurred consistently with the ethos of subsidiarity that was implicit in the facilitated-self-help concept that originally attracted Australian farmers to community-based NRM. The decentralisation was not to landcare or other local groups but to catchment or regional bodies operating at a much higher spatial level of governance. In general, moreover, governments did not consult landcare and other local groups when deciding how to up-scale the experiment in community-based NRM that the groups had embarked upon. In most cases, governments presumed that their fiscal dominance, as final

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arbiter of regional recommendations for allocation of Trust funds, was sufficient to obtain the cooperation needed from local groups and their members. The upshot was that levels of voluntary cooperation were undermined significantly in many regions, with many local groups coming to view the so-called community-based regional NRM bodies as ‘just another level of bureaucracy’ (Ewing 2000 p. 115). Soon after establishment of the Trust, pressures emerged to better align it with the Australian Government’s new commitment to ‘effective federalism’. This commitment drew its inspiration from the New Public Management (Crowley 2001), which since the 1990s has become a dominant paradigm for public sector management around the world (McLaughlin et al. 2002). It sees government as ‘steering not rowing’, using market and market-like mechanisms in delivering public services, and separating politics from the management of public services (Carroll et al. 2002). One outcome in Australia has been a rapid rise in governments ‘purchasing’ the production of public services from ‘providers’. These pressures towards effective federalism led in late-2000 to the Council of Australian Governments endorsing the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (NAP), and in 2001 to the Australian Government extending the Trust (becoming known as NHT2) for a further five years. Funds from the NAP and NHT2 would be delivered principally to government-accredited regional bodies through what essentially were purchaser-provider arrangements. These institutional arrangements became known as the ‘regional delivery model’. Whether the result of rationalisation under NHT1 or the regional delivery model, the current set of 56 regional bodies is markedly smaller than the set of entities originally established across the nation to make ICM programs community-based. In 1998, for instance, the ICM program in NSW alone consisted of 48 catchment management structures (Farrier et al. 1999). In contrast, there are now in NSW only 13 regional NRM bodies recognised by the Federal and State Governments as partners under the regional delivery model. Reducing the number of NRM regions followed partly from arguments that the existing regions were too small to effectively integrate the management of inter-related environmental problems (Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council 1998; Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry – Australia 1999). It followed also from the Federal Government’s determination to maintain a governable number of regional bodies from its perspective.2 Many regions constituted under the original Trust thus found themselves relegated to sub-regions of the regions newly defined from the top (Marshall 2008c). Adoption of the regional delivery model constituted a further clear step in the process of decentralising responsibilities for allocating public funds to on-ground activity in NRM. Like the previous step, this one was guided little by subsidiarity. It was driven predominantly by the needs of governments as ‘purchasers’ of on-ground NRM outcomes, as perceived through the lens of New Public Management, and little by feedback regarding the needs of the regional, sub-regional and local entities now viewed as ‘providers’ of these outcomes. The Council of Australian Governments argued when establishing the new model that the new regions represented the most effective level for engaging the community in NRM (Council of Australian Governments 2000). This position was repeated more recently as follows: ‘The community ownership principle … reinforces the biophysical importance of the region as a basic unit for NRM programme delivery’ (Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council 2006 p.5). Meanwhile, most regional bodies are struggling to find workable arrangements for genuine community-based governance given the size of the regions with which they are now expected to engage. The effect of reducing the number of organisations across the nation expected to make NRM community-based has been that the fewer remaining organisations have been left, on average, with much larger and more diverse populations to work with. It is hardly surprising,

Can community-based NRM work at the scale of large regions? Exploring the roles of nesting and subsidiarity

therefore, that the Regional Implementation Working Group (2005) found community engagement under the regional delivery model to remain a formidable challenge, with many community groups seeing the new regional bodies as remote from the ‘real’ community. This challenge was heightened by the continuing reluctance of Federal and State/Territory Governments to loosen their control of decision-making by the regional bodies, including in respect of their intra-regional governance arrangements. In order to retain access to funding, regional bodies must comply with stringent upward accountability measures imposed by the governments. Demonstrating compliance with such measures makes it hard for regional bodies to be perceived as community-based since it consumes resources that could otherwise be used on projects of interest to the community, and involves bureaucratic processes that are a ‘turn off’ to voluntary community engagement. In its federally-commissioned review of the regional delivery model, RM Consulting Group (2006) warned accordingly that continuing governmental lack of confidence in these bodies would deprive them of the flexibility they require to become capable of earning the trust of those they depend on for implementation of their investment programs. Along with the fiscal dominance that has allowed governments to retain substantial control over regional bodies, the cognitive hegemony of ideas from New Public Management (NPM) has played an important role. These ideas are now commonly interpreted through the mainstream-economic lens of agency theory which holds that it is feasible for any principal, including the state, to design centrally an incentive system that aligns its own interests to the interests of lower-level agents on which it depends (Miller 1992). Although the NPM refers commonly to these principal-agent, or purchaser-provider, relationships as ‘partnerships’, these are partnerships of a very limited kind wherein principals buy cooperation from agents on terms decided by the former leaving only limited room for discretion by the latter. Ribot observed that any lower-level unit that is decentralised responsibilities without commensurate discretionary powers ‘is merely an extension of government … The overriding principle that most governments seem to be following is: keep everything of value centralized and transfer centrally defined obligations to lower-level authorities. This is a clear formula for central consolidation’ (Ribot 2004 p. 51). Despite these sources of power available to governments in resisting the effective decentralisation of decision-making rights to community-based NRM processes, supporters of such decentralisation have reasonable grounds for longer-term optimism. Regional bodies are joining forces with increasing effectiveness to counter-balance governmental power with powers borne of solidarity and superior knowledge of what is feasible on the ground. For instance, the Natural Resource Management Community Forum held annually for chairs of regional groups across the nation is becoming increasingly effective in this respect, with its recommendations influencing the advice governments are receiving from the consultancies they commission. Experience is also a powerful teacher. Government policy-makers have learned over the nine years since the regional delivery model was announced that a purchaser-provider model of NRM governance is more complex in practice than agency theory led them to expect. Meanwhile, their increasing exposure to ideas from the science of complexity (e.g. Walker et al. 2006) is bringing about a deeper understanding of what authentic community-based collaboration can contribute to robust governance of complex social-ecological systems. This section highlighted a number of barriers to Australian governments strengthening voluntary community cooperation with the regional delivery model by following the nesting principle in accommodating regional bodies under the model. In turn, the resulting limited autonomy of regional bodies reduced the scope of these bodies to adapt their modes of operation sufficiently to nest lower-level (e.g. sub-regional, district and local) entities such that the

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distinctive features of the latter, equipping them to effectively engage their respective communities, might be interfered with as little as possible.3 The following section elaborates on the intra-regional challenges of applying the nesting principle to community-based NRM, and proposes a number of guidelines for translating this principle to the overall context of Australia’s regional delivery model.

Guidelines for nested community-based NRM under the regional delivery model The kinds of considerations discussed above led the author previously to propose seven guidelines for succeeding with community-based NRM beyond the local level (Marshall 2008c). Subsequent to that earlier work, qualitative research in three of the NRM regions defined under the regional delivery model was undertaken to validate and elaborate these earlier guidelines. The first of these regions was the South West Catchments Region in Western Australia, where the sub-regional focus was on the Blackwood Basin for which the South West Catchments Council had devolved various NRM governance responsibilities to the Blackwood Basin Group. The second of the regions was the Fitzroy Basin Region, where the sub-regional focus was on the Central Highlands for which the Fitzroy Basin Association has devolved various NRM governance responsibilities to the Central Highlands Regional Resources Use Planning Cooperative. The third case study region, Victoria’s Mallee NRM Region, had decided against establishing sub-regional arrangements with similar stature as in the other two cases. To maintain comparability across the three cases, the focus in the Mallee Region was on dryland farming districts of that region, since agricultural activity in the other two sub-regions is predominantly dryland-based. It is possible here, for reasons of space, to list only the four main themes from the qualitative research that emerged in common across the three cases. This research is discussed extensively in Marshall (2008a). The four main themes identified were: 1. 2. 3. 4.

don’t do what a lower-level group can do for itself; appraise lower-level capacities, and recruit with respect; invest in strengthening lower-level capacities, and establish and maintain vertical trust.

The first three of these themes were consistent with the seven guidelines identified earlier. Although the fourth was implicit in a number of those guidelines, feedback from case study partners highlighted the importance of making it explicit. For instance, an officer from the Fitzroy Basin Association commented in response to the earlier set of guidelines that: … the thing that makes it all happen effectively is trust and respect. And possibly that’s where government falls down because of that ongoing mistrust. Organisation to organisation, there is often not a lot of respect. … To be able to recognise what respect and trust between organisations means, what it means for how you communicate, and what you communicate, is incredibly important to an ongoing relationship. And I don’t think that is there in your principles. Furthermore, quantitative research was also undertaken in the project to examine the importance of farmers’ vertical trust in the regional delivery model in relation to their plans to adopt a range of conservation practices promoted within their region under that model. This research involved double-censored regression (Greene 2000; StataCorp 2007) of data collected from postal surveys of farmers in the three case study sub-regions.4 Specification of the

Can community-based NRM work at the scale of large regions? Exploring the roles of nesting and subsidiarity

explanatory variables included in the regression models to test for this importance was informed by four common (but not universal) perceptions of farmers that the qualitative research indicated were associated with their trust in the regional delivery model. These perceptions were that the regional delivery model: ● ● ● ●

has extended bureaucracy downwards; has disempowered prior structures for community-based NRM; is a way for governments to shift costs onto the community, and is a means to increase regulation of farmers’ activities by stealth (Marshall 2008a).

These qualitative findings were supported by quantitative data from the farmer surveys. For instance, the proportions of respondents in the three cases who agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: ‘The regional approach is part of a strategy to increase government regulation of rural land-use’ were each over 70%. Similarly, the proportions of respondents in the three cases who agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: ‘The regional approach is a way for governments to ‘pass the buck’ on difficult issues’ were 70% or greater (Marshall 2008b). For the Blackwood Basin and Central Highlands cases where a sub-regional NRM body was nested within the regional arrangements, it was found that ‘trust in sub-regional body’ was second most likely of the 18 explanatory variables to be associated (with at least 90% statistical significance) with farmers’ plans to adopt these various conservation practices. Across all three cases, the explanatory variable ‘trust in regional body’ was sixth most likely to be associated with these plans (Marshall 2009). Aside from testing the statistical significance of these ‘vertical trust variables’ in respect of farmers’ adoption plans, their substantive significance was examined by calculating ‘elasticities’. The elasticity for an explanatory variable measures the predicted percentage change in the dependent variable (farmers’ plans to adopt a specified conservation practice, measured in hectares) given a 1% change in the explanatory variable when all explanatory variables are set at their mean values. Of particular interest, it was found that farmers’ adoption plans were more elastic in respect of (i.e., sensitive to) changes in trust in sub-regional body than to changes in most other variables found to be statistically associated with such plans (Marshall 2009). The final set of guidelines for translating the ‘nesting principle’ to the context of community-based governance under Australia’s regional delivery model (and other large-scale, complex NRM contexts) is presented in Table 4.1. These guidelines for community-based governance are not offered as necessary conditions for success in this venture. Rather, they are presented in the spirit of both: ●

●

Young’s (2002a) call for an ‘institutional diagnostics’ approach to addressing environmental issues which recognised that all contexts are unique, and consequently that caution is warranted in generalising a single set of guidelines to all contexts, and Ostrom’s (2005) argument that guidelines for institutional design derived systematically from research will often be superior to ad hoc hunches as starting points when searching for solutions to complex problems of institutional design. Following this argument, the guidelines presented in Table 4.1 can be translated into a series of initial questions to be asked when diagnosing how the existing governance system for any region might be reformed to increase its performance as a community-based system. For instance, the ‘establish vertical trust’ guideline might be translated into the following question: ‘How might we fulfil responsibility ‘X’ at our level so we establish greater trust from the levels below us and above us?’

The guidelines presented above should be applied in conjunction with guidelines proposed in other research into the regional delivery model. While the above guidelines focus on

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Table 4.1:

Guidelines for nested community-based governance under the regional delivery model

Guideline

Elaboration

Establish vertical trust

Fulfil responsibilities at any level in ways that establish trust from units at other levels. Various attributes of ‘good governance’ are relevant here, including transparency, accountability (upward and downward), inclusiveness, fairness, and deliberativeness. Procedures for establishing such attributes should be decided deliberatively between the relevant levels, not imposed from the top down.

Subsidiarity

Each governance responsibility should be undertaken at the lowest level of a multi-level system with capacity to conduct it effectively. This guideline should not be interpreted solely from the top down, but rather through deliberation between the relevant levels.

Representation

The capacity at a given level to conduct a responsibility effectively depends partly on whether all parties substantively affected by the responsibility are represented at that level.

Competence

The capacity at a given level to conduct a responsibility effectively depends also on whether there is sufficient access at that level to the requisite physical, financial, human and social capacities.

Build and maintain lowerlevel capacities

The capacity at a given level to discharge a responsibility effectively can often be enhanced. Subsidiarity obliges decision-makers at one level to exhaust all reasonable opportunities for building capacities at lower levels before ruling out assigning responsibilities to those levels. Meanwhile, it urges due caution in ensuring decisions do not weaken lower-level capacities (e.g. over-stretching or under-utilising capacities, encouraging dependency, triggering conflict, causing demoralisation, etc.).

Secure lowerlevel rights

Efforts to build capacity at lower levels are unlikely to succeed unless the target population has secure rights to benefit from the capacities developed.

Respect lowerlevel autonomy

Units assigned responsibilities in accordance with the subsidiarity principle should be allowed substantive autonomy in how they decide to pursue those responsibilities.

Counter resistance

Higher-level units often resist application of the subsidiarity principle as decided deliberatively between the relevant levels. Such resistance can often be countered through leadership (including by individuals at higher levels), patient strategic moves, demonstrating good performance, preparing for ‘windows of opportunity’, and establishing horizontal and vertical alliances.

realising the advantages of community-based governance under this model, other researchers (Griffith 2008; Lockwood et al. 2007) have adopted a broader focus, including on the challenges of corporate governance within this context.

Concluding comments This chapter began with the complex challenge faced by regional bodies in making community-based NRM work at the scale of large and populous regions – as required under Australia’s regional delivery model. Observing that the ‘nesting principle’ had been proposed from international research as a possible foundation for addressing challenges of this kind, we proceeded to examine the potential for application of this principle (by both governments and regional bodies) to help community-based NRM in this context deliver more of the voluntary onground cooperation that originally justified this approach’s adoption. Given the pivotal place of subsidiarity in translating the nesting principle to the design of community-based NRM,

Can community-based NRM work at the scale of large regions? Exploring the roles of nesting and subsidiarity

this examination involved tracing the degree to which governmental policy steps towards the regional delivery model had been consistent with subsidiarity. These steps were found to be less consistent with subsidiarity than with a desire by governments to control regional community-based processes through fiscal dominance exercised through purchaser-provider ‘partnerships’. Regional bodies, in consequence, have been allowed only limited latitude to adapt their modes of operation to their unique settings as required to engage their constituents sufficiently to strengthen their vertical trust and reciprocity and, thereby, their voluntary cooperation. It is hardly surprising then that successful community engagement remains a challenge for many regional bodies. Increased government control over regional processes has been achieved in seeming disregard for the costs of this control in terms of lost opportunities to mobilise voluntary cooperation in implementing regional decisions. None of this demonstrates the nesting principle is mistaken, only that it is difficult to apply in a policy environment still strongly path-dependent on world views and vested interests that were consolidated before the 1970s when people of developed nations markedly lost faith in centralised governance and pushed for greater community participation in public policy. Despite this difficulty, some regional NRM bodies particularly committed to the ethos of community-based NRM have managed to manoeuvre themselves the latitude needed to work with sub-regional and other lower-level community groups with the requisite capacities in establishing nested governance systems within their regions. Moreover, recent econometric research by the author involving a few such regions indicated that nesting sub-regional bodies within a regional community-based governance system was associated with enhanced system capacity to elicit voluntary cooperation. Nesting is not proposed here as a panacea for the problem of achieving effective community engagement in NRM across large and populous regions. In some regions, or parts of regions, social groupings below the regional level will lack the capacities needed (e.g. due to depopulation, ageing, drought, or simply lack of interest in NRM) for them to want to be nested within a regional system. The nesting principle is proposed, however, as one possible response to this problem for consideration in appropriate settings. Governments should allow regional bodies the autonomy they need to experiment with this option in the spirit of adaptive management (using the guidelines of Table 4.1 as a possible starting point). In pondering this advice, governments need to consider not only any increased transaction costs brought about by adding new governance levels but also the advantages of increased voluntary cooperation (and thus reduced transaction costs of implementing regional NRM investment programs). If Australia’s NRM problems cannot be solved without large measures of voluntary cooperation (i.e., beyond the cooperation we can afford to induce through financial incentives), then the task of gaining this cooperation is worthy of substantial investment. Finally, responsibility for deciding how nesting of organisational units should occur in a given context should be assigned in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity. Where units at any level have the capacities needed to self-organise their own nesting arrangements to deal effectively with higher-level responsibilities (particularly capacities for representation and competence as identified in Table 4.1), subsidiarity justifies the nesting process occurring on a selforganised, bottom-up basis. Where units at any level lack these requisite capacities, subsidiarity justifies higher-level units leading the process of deciding how nesting shall occur, while facilitating participation of the lower-level units in the process to ensure that the new arrangements add value to, rather than duplicate or destroy, their existing capacities. This is not to deny that tensions may arise in assessing capacities, and thereby interpreting subsidiarity, in any particular context. Subsidiarity implies that higher-level judgement should not be permitted to

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trump lower-level judgement in such circumstances, but rather that disputes be addressed by deliberation between the relevant levels.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their feedback on this chapter. I am grateful also for the Cooperative Venture for Rural Capacity Building financially supporting the research on which this chapter was based. The views expressed here do not necessarily coincide with those of the Cooperative Venture.

Endnotes 1 See http://www.ruralfutures.une.edu.au/projects/3.php?nav=Environmental%20Impacts% 20of%20Change&page=80 for details of, and other publication from, this project. 2 Governments have reason of course to be concerned about the transaction costs they themselves would incur in effectively administering a proposed governance system. As observed above, however, the rationale for establishing a community-based governance system is to lower the overall costs of realising societal NRM objectives by strengthening voluntary cooperation in making and implementing NRM decisions. To be consistent with this rationale, a government should avoid simplifying the governance system from its own perspective when the transaction costs it would save would be outweighed by resulting increases in transaction costs elsewhere in the system (e.g. when simplification for governments makes it harder for community-based bodies to operate with the adaptability needed to establish trust, reciprocity and voluntary cooperation from their constituents). 3 Any regional boundary will encompass a diversity of communities. The nesting principle acknowledges the frequent error, as identified by Agrawal et al. (1999; 2001), Broderick (2005), of assuming a population defined as a ‘community’ for public policy purposes will resemble a homogeneous group. It recognises also that regions delineated by biophysical boundaries often do not correspond with the communities to which inhabitants of these regions feel they belong (Brunckhorst et al. 2006; Reeve et al. 2007). The nesting principle offers a means of tailoring lower-level governance arrangements to the unique characteristics of each distinct community at the same time as maintaining higher-level units capable of intervening to resolve problems between communities they cannot solve appropriately for themselves. 4 See Marshall (2008a) for details of how sampling occurred and the postal surveys were administered. Completed questionnaires were received from 333 farm businesses in the Blackwood Basin (29% response rate), 170 farm businesses in the Central Highlands (20% response rate), and 318 farm businesses in dryland areas of the Mallee NRM Region (40% response rate).

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literature’. Report no. 4 of the project ‘Pathways to good practice in regional NRM governance’, School of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart. http://www.geog.utas.edu.au/geography/nrmgovernance. Marshall GR (2002). Institutionalising cost sharing for catchment management: lessons from land and water management planning in Australia. Water, Science and Technology 45(11), 101–111. Marshall GR (2004a). Farmers cooperating in the commons? A study of collective action in salinity management. Ecological Economics 51(3–4), 271–286. Marshall GR (2004b). From words to deeds: enforcing farmers’ conservation cost-sharing commitments. Journal of Rural Studies 20(2), 157–167. Marshall GR (2005). Economics for Collaborative Environmental Management: Renegotiating the Commons. Earthscan, London. Marshall GR (2008a). ‘Community-based regional delivery of natural resource management: building system-wide capacities to motivate voluntary farmer adoption of conservation practices’. RIRDC Publication No. 08/175, Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, Canberra. Marshall GR (2008b). ‘Farmers and regional NRM delivery: survey results from three regions’. Institute for Rural Futures, University of New England, Armidale. [online] http://www. ruralfutures.une.edu.au/downloads/UNE91A/SurveyReportPt1_UNE91A.pdf. Marshall GR (2008c). Nesting, subsidiarity, and community-based environmental governance beyond the local level. International Journal of the Commons 2(1), 75–97. [online] http:// www.thecommonsjournal.org/index.php/ijc/article/viewFile/50/19. Marshall GR (2009). Polycentricity, reciprocity, and farmer adoption of conservation practices under community-based governance. Ecological Economics 68(5), 1507–1520. McKean MA (2002). Nesting institutions for complex common-pool resource systems. In: Landscape futures II: social and institutional dimensions. Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Landscape Futures, Armidale, 4–6 December 2001. (Eds J Graham, I Reeve and D Brunckhorst). Institute for Rural Futures, University of New England, Armidale. McLaughlin K and Osborne SP (2002). Current trends and future prospects of new public management: a guide. In: New Public Management: Current Trends and Future Prospects. (Eds K McLaughlin, SP Osborne and E Ferlie) pp. 1–3. Routledge, London. Miller GJ (1992). Managerial Dilemmas: The Political Economy of Hierarchy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council (2006). Framework for future NRM programmes. http://www.nrm.gov.au/publications/future/index.html. Olson M (1965). The Logic of Collective Action. Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Ostrom E (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Ostrom E (1999). Coping with tragedies of the commons. Annual Review of Political Science 2, 493–535. Ostrom E (2005). Understanding Institutional Diversity. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Ostrom V, Tiebout CM and Warren R (1999). The organization of government in metropolitan areas: a theoretical inquiry. In: Polycentricity and Local Public Economies: Readings from the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. (Ed. MD McGinnis) pp. 31–51. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor. Paton S, Curtis A, McDonald G and Woods M (2004). Regional natural resource management: is it sustainable? Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 11(4), 259–267.

Can community-based NRM work at the scale of large regions? Exploring the roles of nesting and subsidiarity

Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council (2008). Dryland salinity and its impacts on rural industries and the landscape. Office of the Prime Minister, Canberra. Regional Implementation Working Group (2005). Regional delivery of natural resource management – moving forward. NRM Ministerial Council, Canberra. http://www.nrm.gov. au/publications/index.html#books. Reeve I and Brunckhorst, D (2007). ‘Spatially bounded regions for resource governance.’ Australiasian Journal of Environmental Management 14, 142–54. Ribot JC (2002). Democratic Decentralization of Natural Resources: Institutionalizing Popular Participation. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC. Ribot JC (2004). Waiting for Democracy: The Politics of Choice in Natural Resource Decentralization. World Resources Institute, Washington DC. RM Consulting Group (2006). ‘Evaluation of sustainable agriculture outcomes from regional investment (NAP and NHT): final report’. RM Consulting Group, Canberra. Robins L (2008). Making capacity building meaningful: a framework for strategic action. Environmental Management 42(5), 833–846. Walker B and Salt D (2006). Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World. Island Press, Washington, DC. Watson A (2008). ‘Water policy in Australia: old dilemmas and new directions’. Paper presented to the International Workshop on Sustainable Water Management in Agriculture: Institutional Options and Issues, 15–16 May, Seoul, Republic of Korea. Young OR (2002a). The Institutional Dimensions of Environmental Change: Fit, Interplay, and Scale. MIT Press, Cambridge. Young OR (2002b). Institutional interplay: the environmental consequences of cross-scale interactions. In: The Drama of the Commons. (Eds E Ostrom, T Dietz, N Dolšak, PC Stern, S Stonich and EU Weber) pp. 263–291. National Academy Press, Washington, DC.

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Will Regionalisation achieve integrated Natural Resource Management? Insights from recent South Australian experience Marcus Lane, Anna Haygreen, Tiffany H Morrison and Jill Woodlands

‘Boundaries work to foster the impression of a circumscribed space in which likeness dwells, the likeness of natives, or an autochthonous people, or of a nationality, or of citizens with equal rights. Likeness is prized because it appears as the prime ingredient of unity. Unity, in turn, is thought to be the sine qua non of collective power’. (Wolin 1996 p. 32)

Introduction This chapter is concerned with the intersection of two recent and important conceptual and operational trends in environmental management in Australia: the regionalisation of management, and the need for integrated approaches to natural resource management (NRM). While regionalisation of different areas of policy implementation has a long, if not distinguished history in Australia (Beer et al. 2003), the imperative to achieve greater integration of environmental management efforts is a relatively recent phenomenon (Morrison et al. 2004). There has been, over recent years, something of a renaissance of regionalism and regionalisation, particularly in relation to natural resources. Part of the rationale for the regionalisation of NRM has been the promise of improved levels of integration (Abrahams 2005). In this submission, we ask, will the regionalisation of NRM achieve improved levels of integration? The focus on institutional integration in the NRM debate reflects the widespread view that institutional complexity, fragmentation and duplication impede efforts to effectively manage natural resources (Morrison et al. 2004). A seminal moment in this debate was the publication of Cairns and Crawford’s (1991) Integrated Environmental Management which promoted a holistic systems (multiple-scale) approach to institutional design based on interdisciplinary consensus and alignment of educational institutions, regulatory agencies and industry. While considerable thought has been devoted to the problem of fragmentation, and some achievements have been won, severe problems of policy and implementation fragmentation continue to obstruct NRM in Australia (Bellamy and Johnson 1998; Bellamy et al. 1999; Morrison et al. 2004). These problems exist at the highest policy-making levels within the Federal Government, between the central and subordinate levels of government, across civil society and industry and generally throughout all groups and bodies involved. In short, the significant intellectual, operational and financial investments made in NRM over the past decade have 59

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been frustrated by lack of integration of substantive matters in policy design and by the lack of vertical and horizontal harmony in our system of resource governance. We pursue the question of the effects of regionalisation on institutional integration by developing two case analyses of regional NRM underway in South Australia under the auspices of the 2004 Natural Resources Management Act (SA). The new NRM regime in South Australia reflects thinking and practice, well established in Australia and overseas, that NRM is best undertaken through a regime of regionally-scaled citizen boards or statutory committees (Curtis and Lockwood 2000; Ewing 2003; Farrelly 2005; Jennings and Moore 2000; Lane et al. 2004). This approach to the management of natural resources borrows heavily from the associational model of governance (Smyth et al. 2005) which emphasises the role of the community and networks of stakeholders and actors, and in which policy is developed by processes of negotiation and transactive learning. In the Australian NRM domain, policy is developed through processes of civic engagement organised at the regional scale. We call this approach to natural resource management civic regionalism, the decentralisation of authority and/or resources for environmental management to regionally organised citizen boards or statutory committees (Lane 2006). The Australian Government’s approach to NRM, as well as several states (Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia), has been (re-)organised over the past decade along these lines (see, for example, Farrelly 2005; Lane et al. 2005; Robins and Dovers 2007a). A recurring theme in the field of regionalisation in Australia has been the possible dividend to be realised in NRM by improved levels of institutional harmony and integration (Abrahams 2005). South Australia’s Natural Resource Management Act (2004), whose gestation was both long and contested, set out to provide nothing less than, ‘an integrated and transparent natural resource management system that will ensure that South Australia’s resources are used sustainably’ (Hill 2004 p.1). The cases presented here however, the Eyre Peninsula and the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges regions, show that merely altering the scale of governance to the regional level does not guarantee improved levels of institutional integration. Rather, we demonstrate that regions are sites of complexity and contestation and that those actors effective in natural resource governance operate across scales and are not constrained by the designated boundaries of a particular regional jurisdiction. We suggest, therefore, that there is no structural solution to problems of institutional complexity and fragmentation and that, instead, processes of multi-level dialogue and collaboration need to accompany the establishment of new regional architectures (Morrison 2007).

The regionalisation of NRM The regionalisation of NRM in Australia is almost complete. Australia is now formally divided into 56 regions for the purposes of delivering both Federal and State environmental management programs. Each region has a ‘community-based Board of management’ which is supported by a regional agency responsible for the implementation of environmental programs (Robins and Dovers 2007a). The demarcation of these regions has been evolutionary. The definition of some regions has largely built upon the perceived success of catchment-scale management, while others have been shaped by ‘bottom-up’ demand. However since they began, ‘they have been increasingly moulded, homogenised and professionalized to deliver … programs on behalf of State/Territory Governments, and especially the Australian Government’ (Robins and Dovers 2007a p. 274). Perhaps not surprisingly, some strident advocacy for regionalisation was required before governments embraced the regionalisation agenda (TWG 2002; Brunkhorst and Reeve 2006). While few can argue with their over-arching contention that the imperative for improved

Will Regionalisation achieve integrated NRM? Insights from recent South Australian experience

approaches to the management of crucial natural resources is both immediate and compelling, their calls for regionalisation rest on a number of distinct premises. Perhaps the most prominent part of the rationale is the contention that, ‘the common bio-physical characteristics of Australian regions endows the regional level … of programme delivery with a high potential for achieving good landscape-scale outcomes’ (Keogh et al. 2005 p. 16). This premise is challenged however by other commentators concerned about its lack of appreciation of the complex interdependencies of social and ecological systems (Berkes and Folke 1998) and yet others who have pointed out that, ‘ecological change occurs in the patchy, cross-scale manner…there is no single right scale for management’ (Pritchard and Sanderson 2002 p. 150). A second rationale for the regionalisation of NRM in Australia relates to the role of citizen participation. When the Australian Federal Government began to regionalise its approach to NRM with the introduction in 2001 of the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality, an important objective was to ‘motivate and enable regional communities to use coordinated and targeted action’ (NAP 2001). When the second phase of the NHT was introduced in 2002, it mirrored the regional emphasis championed by the NAP, seeking to deliver improved environmental management through ‘regional empowerment and ownership through integrated regional planning’ (Farrelly 2005 p. 396). In contemporary natural resource governance, citizens are not viewed as passive recipients, but are instead directly engaged in both policy development and implementation. While this approach might be conceptually seductive, a succession of reviews has shown it is also operationally difficult and outcomes have left much to be desired (Broderick 2005; Farrelly 2005; Lane and Corbett 2005). A further premise of the regionalisation of NRM in Australia can be found in the cultural and political milieu in which new approaches to governance have been wrought. The traditional command-and-control model of environmental management has been assailed by the consensus that statism has failed (Bowles 1999) and a recognition of the need to change democratic governance (Rose 2000). The process of developing and testing new approaches to statecraft has seen the revitalisation of civic engagement (as discussed above), civil society and citizenship; the widespread advocacy of decentralisation; the re-sizing of policy processes and the changing of the relationship between the state and community (Diamond 1999; Giddens 1998; Putnam 2000; Skocpol 2003; Ribot 2002). While some have derided these efforts as neoliberalism (e.g. McCarthy 2005, 2006) it is perhaps more analytically powerful to understand them as experiments in governance. The conceptualisation of governance reminds us that the boundaries between state and society have been blurred to such an extent that the state can be understood as a constellation of governmental and societal actors (Rhodes 2001; Rose 2000). In these circumstances, governments can only act as ‘enablers’ rather than ‘doers’; their work is concerned with facilitating the action and cooperation of others. The regionalisation of NRM can therefore be understood as an effort to develop an architecture in which the cooperation and agency of multiple actors, both within and outside government, can be (better) facilitated, coordinated and integrated. Recent research examining the operation of these new regional governance arrangements reveals that the challenges are many. Against the backdrop of a set of ‘wickedly’ complex and persistent natural resource problems, and the rapidity with which the regionalisation of NRM was established, the (small) academic literature is split: on the one hand great hope is attached to the potential for regionalised NRM; on the other, a number of concerns are apparent. An important and recurring theme in the literature relates to the capability of newly-created regional bodies to attend to the complex array of natural resource management problems (Lane and McDonald 2005; Lockwood et al. 2007; Robins and Dovers 2007b). A related and perhaps greater concern is that capability varies substantially from region to region and across the country (McAlpine et al. 2007; Robins and Dovers 2007b). The problems are manifold and

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relate to human and physical geographies of the region, resources, skilled personnel and leadership (Lane et al. 2005; McAlpine et al. 2007). Some commentators have warned that increased investment is likely to be required to ensure that regional management organisations are able to deliver on their substantial mandate and responsibility (Farrelly 2005; Lane 2006; Robins and Dovers 2007b). The effectiveness of efforts to engage relevant communities and stakeholders is another crucial theme in the literature (Broderick 2005; Lane et al. 2004). This complex, expensive and time-consuming task is not always well-handled and, in particular, the research suggests that current community engagement strategies poorly account for differences within and between communities (Broderick 2005; Lane and Corbett 2005; Reddel and Woolcock 2004). Community engagement efforts are important both to inform regional planners about regional issues and priorities and to ensure that regionally-scaled NRM is fair, transparent and accountable. On the question of fairness, Lockwood and others (2007) suggest that regional NRM has been performing well; research examining Indigenous participation in regional NRM (Lane and Williams 2008) suggests the opposite. Two additional and closely related concepts are also relevant here. Researchers have been concerned about the extent to which the new regime of regionalised resource management is accountable to governments ‘above’ and citizens ‘below’ and the extent to which decision-making is transparent and thus legitimate (Lane et al. 2004; Lockwood et al. 2007; Wallington et al. 2008). These are matters which have bedevilled decentralised governance arrangements the world over (Ribot 2002; Tendler 1997). On this point too, the literature is split. Some have suggested that the new arrangements are managing to meet these objectives (Lockwood et al. 2007), while others have highlighted some problems (Wallington et al. 2008). Another fascinating issue emerging from this literature is the adaptiveness of the regional bodies and the entire system of NRM. While it is clear that more research needs to be undertaken, initial signs are that adaptive management is not being realised at the regional scale in Australia (Allan and Curtis 2005; Farrelly 2005; Lockwood et al. 2007). And what of the extent of integration in regional NRM? While it is clear that integration has almost become the raison d’être of regionalised NRM, and that it has been widely assumed that down-scaling to the regional level (and up-scaling from the local) will assist levels of integration (Abrahams 2005), preliminary reports from the field suggest that the integration agenda is far from complete (Farrelly 2005; McAlpine et al. 2007; Robins and Dovers 2007b). To explore this, it is to the integration literature that we now turn.

The integration agenda in NRM Most commentators on environment policy and NRM agree that the institutional landscape is crowded with multiple institutions whose connections are often confusing and conflicting. Holmes argues that postmodern conditions of globalisation, differentiation, pluralisation and reflexivity mean that many regions are marked by, ‘uncertain, complex and often contradictory modes of decision making, swayed by multiple interest-groups, each with its own distinctive set of values and ideologies, not susceptible to swift resolution in multiple-value, multiple-use contests’ (Holmes 2002 p. 372). This kind of complexity is regarded as problematic in that it not only congests decisionmaking and increases zones of conflict, but it also displaces traditional venues of control and responsibility, and produces unintended consequences (Warren 2001 pp. 3–16). Recognition of this problem in Australian NRM has been widespread (see, for example, Morrison et al. 2004). Dovers speaks for many when he declares:

Will Regionalisation achieve integrated NRM? Insights from recent South Australian experience

‘too often, policy and management experiences remain isolated in separate sectors, portfolio areas and jurisdictions, and within small groups concerned largely with one substantive issue, whether that be fisheries, water, biodiversity forests, pollution control, or something else. The modern idea of sustainability – ecologically sustainable development (ESD) in this country - is not about environment but about an intended, integrated policy agenda that is wider and deeper.’ (Dovers 2003 p. 3) While the integration agenda has been clearly articulated, it is a discourse rich in conceptual confusion and contradictions. These include varying definitions of what integration is and what constitutes ‘institutions’. ‘Institutions’, for example, are defined by some scholars and practitioners as either tangible organisations or (more enduring but less definable) conventions, or sometimes both (Dovers and Wild River 2003). How institutional integration occurs outside formal governmental arrangements is often acknowledged but largely untreated. It is no surprise then that the term ‘integration’ is often interchanged with ‘whole of government’ (Bates 2003). Many have assumed that institutional integration requires the creation of a specific totalising structure, scale or space (an organisation, or ‘a region’ as formalised by a plan, a law, etc.). Other synonyms include ‘interdisciplinary’, and a host of less specific words such as ‘coordination’, ‘collaboration’, and ‘cooperation’ (Clark et al. 2000; Taylor-Powell et al. 1998; Cairns and Crawford 1991). Whether ‘integration’ is concerned with establishing either strong consolidation or loose connections is also rarely established. There is no discipline-specific discourse on institutional integration; instead the work of a variety of scholars from differing disciplines needs to be considered. In this way a deeper understanding of the phenomenon and of the problem can be developed. For example, while scholars and practitioners of environmental planning tend to characterise institutions and their relationships as formal government arrangements, other disciplines subscribe to a ‘thicker’ definition of institutions. This thicker definition regards institutions as enduring conventions (whether they be laws, customs, usages, practices, and/or organisations) established through communal life. From this perspective, while all institutions are socially embedded, most formal government arrangements are only created for the purpose of fulfilling a particular task (Leach et al. 1999). Only some government arrangements become institutionalised. Using this thicker definition enables us to view institutions as formal and informal and as being located across the public, private and voluntary sectors (Migdal 2001; Warren 2001). Institutions are thus broader than formal government arrangements; they are ‘sites of social interaction, negotiation and contestation comprising heterogenous actors having diverse goals’ (Mehta et al. 1999 p. 7). The authors note, however, that institutions only act, and therefore interact, through actors. Scholars and practitioners concerned with the integration agenda seem to alternate between perceiving institutional actors as individuals or organisations (Gray and Lawrence 2001; Knight and Bates 1995). Actors are often divided into ‘community’, ‘industry’, ‘government’ and ‘the academy’, with the implicit assumption that community and industry are local and willing, government is remote but well-resourced, and the academy is neutral and knowledgeable (Richardson 2000). Others focus so much on individuals that they displace the role of organisations altogether (Ostrom 1990). Rhodes (1997) is helpful here in that he conceives actors as individuals and organisations. He notes that a conception of institutional action and interaction must also account for the fact that actors’ interests not only govern, but also are governed by, enduring institutions. The implication is that institutional actors relate according to their differing positions regardless of whether they are individual or organisational. Some recent work by Morrison (2004; Morrison et al. 2004) provides insights both into sources and causes of institutional fragmentation and into the characteristics of integration.

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This work outlines the following key dimensions of integration based on the work of Eggenberger and Partidario (2000); Margerum and Born (2000); the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (1993), and Ostrom (1990). 1. Strategic integration refers to the directions and rules at higher scales (regional/state/ federal/global). This involves political commitment by leaders including rules for directing behaviour and an enabling context through the direction of resources. 2. Structural integration refers to the arrangement of functions, powers and coordinating responsibility. This does not necessarily imply organisational rationalisation; multiple overlapping actors can work whilst weakly linked through a myriad of pre-existing organisations, temporary bodies, or informal agreements (Imperial 1999; Tendler 1997). 3. Procedural integration refers to the integration and ‘harmonisation’ of policy processes thus reducing the propensity for discordant policy outcomes. The multiple scales of action, differential power bases of diverse actors and expanded policy roles of civil society and nonstate actors are all crucial complexities of working towards procedural integration. 4. Facilitative integration refers to the availability of enabling resources (financial, human, informational and so on) which are fundamental to integrative behaviour. 5. Functional integration refers to the achievement of integrated policy outcomes or outputs. Too often, current integrative efforts are prone to stakeholder disaffection because they foster broad non-specific expectations, rather than specific, functional needs or outputs. 6. Methodological integration technical and methodological cooperation can have substantial benefits across planning at the regional and local scales. Methodological integration is more than just technical outputs; it is about developing an integrated awareness and underpinning deliberative processes with interlinked knowledge and ideological structures. 7. Substantive integration: the goal of integrative behaviours and strategies are, of course, the substantive integration of policy outcomes and outputs. This framework can help to reveal institutional arrangements and behaviours so as to identify those areas in which improvement is required to achieve substantive integration. Having sketched some of the key contours of the institutional fragmentation (and its counterpoint, integration) we now shift our attention to two case analyses of NRM in South Australia.

Integrated NRM in South Australia Regional NRM in South Australia In recent years, South Australia has substantially revamped its approach to NRM by passing the South Australian Natural Resources Management Act (2004) (‘the Act’). The purpose of this statute was to provide a legislative framework for ‘an integrated and transparent NRM system that will ensure that South Australia’s resources are used sustainably’ (Hill 2004). According to the South Australian Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation (DWLBC), the aspiration of the Act was to create a ‘new natural resource management system’ in order to, ‘achieve integrated, simplified decision-making without losing community involvement. Local Government will continue to play a crucial role in natural resource management’ (DWLBC, 23 July 2003, emphasis added). The over-arching aim has also been described as, ‘to assist in achieving ecologically sustainable development in the State through the establishment of an integrated system for NRM…balancing environmental, economic and social needs to deliver the best outcomes for South Australia’ (GSA 2003 p. 3).

Will Regionalisation achieve integrated NRM? Insights from recent South Australian experience

The concept and benefits of integrated natural resource management can be discerned throughout the statute. Integrated NRM is understood under the Act as the coordination of, ‘policies, programs, plans and projects, and coordination in the exercise and performance of administrative and statutory powers and functions by government agencies, statutory authorities, local government bodies, and the broader community, relevant to the management of the State’s natural resources’ (GSA 2002 p. 15). To achieve this considerable ambition, the Act consolidates three existing statues and creates a new regional apparatus for management (see Figure 5.1). In terms of statutory consolidation, the Act amalgamates the previous Water Resources Act (1997), the Soil Conservation and Land Care Act (1989), and the Animal and Plant Control (Agricultural Protection and Other Purposes) Act (1986). Other than this consolidation, there has been little change in the substance of water, soil and animal and plant management. Other important aspects of NRM, such as geologic resources and mineral development, have not been integrated into the new legislative framework. The research presented here was pursued through two intensive case analyses of NRM regions under this regime. In two socially and physically distinct regions, the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges and the Eyre Peninsula, extensive and intensive semi-structured interviews with key institutions and stakeholders engaging in natural resource policy and management were undertaken. These interviews, combined with documentary analysis and observations of institutional interactions at the regional scale were used to complete two distinct studies of institutional interaction in regional NRM (see Haygreen 2007 and Woodlands 2007). By restructuring and refocusing these studies, and pairing them together, we are able to comment on the hypothesised links between regionalisation and integration. NRM in the Eyre Peninsula The Eyre Peninsula (EP) is a vast primary production region of south-western South Australia (Figure 5.1). The regional economy is based on four main industries: agriculture, seafood, tourism and mining. In terms of agriculture, the region’s produce consists of wheat, barley, wool and livestock, with some horticulture and viticulture. This is a sparsely populated region supporting 33 000 people spread over a land mass of 55 000 km 2 (an area roughly equivalent to that of Tasmania). According to the Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia, the majority of the EP is considered ‘remote’, with two local government areas on the west coast classed as ‘very remote’ (Hugo 2005; Haygreen 2007). In terms of NRM issues, the region must address the degradation and fragmentation of native vegetation due to introduced species, grazing and land clearing. In addition, dryland salinity, soil acidification as well as wind and water erosion are key problems. NRM in Adelaide and the Mount Lofty Ranges The Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges (AMLR) region largely follows pre-existing catchment boundaries and incorporates metropolitan Adelaide, the Mount Lofty Ranges the Barossa Valley, the Northern Adelaide plains, the Fleurieu Peninsula and the Southern Vales. It is a landscape composed of a complex mosaic of land uses. In stark contrast to the EP region, the AMLR has a land area of 3880 km2 and a population of over 1.2 million (roughly 70% of the State’s population). This is an urban and peri-urban region. The peri-urban portions dominate this NRM region and are of perhaps the greatest interest. Peri-urban regions are characterised by spatial complexity and competition between production, consumption and protection values (Holmes 2006) and are therefore critical in understanding (and achieving) sustainability (Bunker and Houston 2003). In the AMLR, horticulture and viticulture increasingly

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Figure 5.1:

NRM regionalisation in South Australia

Will Regionalisation achieve integrated NRM? Insights from recent South Australian experience

compete for space with the sprawl of metropolitan Adelaide and, just as importantly, ‘hobby farmers’ and other amenity migrants. Research foci The analysis that follows is based on two separate studies which, although designed to be complimentary, were conducted independently. Haygreen’s study (2007) of NRM in the Eyre Peninsula was concerned with understanding the capacity of communities to take up the opportunities and responsibilities for NRM entailed (and envisaged) under the new South Australian statute. Woodlands’ study (2007) was concerned with understanding patterns of community engagement in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges NRM region. Since both studies had, as one of their empirical foci, a concern with the interactions among key actors (community and governmental) involved in fashioning management strategies in each of the two regions, the issue of integration, perhaps inevitably, emerged as an important theme across both studies. Both pieces of research were designed along similar lines: case analysis of community behaviour at a regional scale using semi-structured interviews, observation and documentary analysis. Analysis of the cases Frustrated efforts to integrate the management of natural resources became a common theme in all of the interviews conducted for both studies, despite the geographical and regional variations that were manifest between the two regions (Haygreen 2007; Woodlands 2007). Interestingly, even though the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges region has the benefit of a number of attributes ascribed to having a major city within its boundaries, such as access to decision makers and availability of information on natural resources, and also has a substantially higher income than the sparsely populated and physically remote Eyre Peninsula, both regions experienced similar difficulties in achieving effective integration. Although these studies were conducted in the transitional phases of regionalisation, research conducted in South Australia more recently (Woodlands et. al. 2009) which looked into the dynamics of non-government and community organisation engagement in regional NRM processes, determined a range of barriers to effective integrated NRM that reiterate the findings of Haygreen and Woodlands. This suggests that the following barriers to effective integration are not simply a reaction to transitional arrangements, but indicative of problems that will continue to hamper integration efforts into the future. In the discussion which follows, we identify the major factors, common to both studies, which impeded attempts to integrate NRM in South Australia. 1. Imposition of structural change by government Perhaps the most common frustration offered by the respondents from each study was that the imposition of the new (regional) structure has disrupted existing networks and relationships. Established conventions and behaviours for achieving appropriate ends in a multi-stakeholder environment were disrupted and in some cases prohibited by the development of the new regime. The following remarks made by a representative of a sub-regional NRM body in the Eyre Peninsula were typical: ‘so many name changes, as soon as government changes, agency names are changed or amalgamated or whatever.’ Now people are not sure who to approach for what.’ As a result of this disruption, a number of people commented that the key challenge would be the development of new relationships and networks – both personal and institutional. Resentment and confusion, along with institutional politics, were predicted to impede the

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development of effective relationships. In part, this is a product of a perception that the change was ‘top-down’: ‘The main problem is that we are ‘puddling around the edges’. A lot of this is that staffs are not connecting with community issues. We are not initiating things. We are just okaying stuff that is top-down.’ (Community representative, sub-regional NRM body, AMLR) 2. Role ambiguity and confusion The rapidity with which statutory, structural change (finally) came to NRM in South Australia, and the significant shift in the roles of both government and citizen envisaged in the Act, created a high degree of role ambiguity. The remarks of this NRM Facilitator in the Eyre Peninsula are typical: ‘There is a complete lack of understanding of what role the Board will play … With the restructure there have been a lot of unknowns, even the people in government agencies haven’t know where they stand and NRM staff haven’t been able to tell the community what’s going on’. Role ambiguity increases the transaction costs and the potential for conflict and redundancy. As a respondent from the State-wide NRM Council commented: ‘We had enormous difficulties in getting everyone to understand their roles in the structure. There was a lot of time, talking and tension. The problem with this is that it is hindering the decision-making process as people are not clear about their roles’. 3. Problems with engagement A major issue identified across both case studies related to problems with the effectiveness of efforts to engage all relevant actors. Engagement of both formal (e.g. government agencies) and informal (e.g. community groups, citizens) is a crucial aspect of moving toward integration of resource management efforts. In these South Australian cases, the problems with engaging diverse actors were manifold. A common lament related to the failure to effectively engage with some actors (e.g. local government) while privileging others (e.g. agricultural interests). This comment of an NRM Facilitator in the Eyre Peninsula illustrates this: ‘Biodiversity and native vegetation management are tending to get a bit lost amongst the other issues… at the moment there is definitely a stronger emphasis on agricultural production and pest management. Even though these have outcomes for biodiversity there is less of a focus on biodiversity in itself.’ The absence of a clear or salient role for local government, and the lack of effort to engage with local government, was another common concern. As this Local Government Official in the Eyre Peninsula remarked, ‘The role of local government in the structure is neither clear enough nor strong enough.’ Further, a community member and Presiding Chair from a sub-regional NRM group (AMLR) commented that it was, ‘Frustrating that local government [was] not involved. [There is a] history with local government playing catch-up or not taken seriously.’

Will Regionalisation achieve integrated NRM? Insights from recent South Australian experience

The disruption to existing networks and relationships, discussed above, was also a factor in limiting the effectiveness to engagement efforts. In particular, the newly-created regional decision-making bodies, the boards, were not well connected to their constituent communities: ‘community organisations have their own networks but these are not necessarily connected to the Board’s’ (Landowner, EP). Others, however, felt that problems with engagement were related to a lack of commitment or effort to engage: ‘I’m amazed by the Board in that they haven’t tried to engage the community at all. They have had one meeting in Port Lincoln…where members of Landcare groups could discuss what they’ve been doing and what they’d like to do. From that I don’t believe anything has happened.’ (Local Government Official, EP) 4. Loss of trust and problems of legitimacy The problems described above together with a perception that structural change was ‘driven by Adelaide’, combined to create a legitimacy problem for the new NRM regime. While regional communities expected a high degree of participation in both the design and administration of the new regime, as we have seen a strong perception developed that it was in fact both hierarchical and bureaucratic. The legitimacy problems of the new regional structure, in turn, adversely affected the preparedness of citizens and communities to engage with the new regime. This commentary offered by this interviewee, a community representative of a sub-regional NRM body in the ALMR, is apposite: ‘I think we are hamstrung by the bureaucratic structure [because] before the catchment boards worked more independently of government. What we have built is a bureaucratic monster at the moment, in part driven by government policy, driven by the accounting procedures of government. It’s politics, it’s about managing a pool of money that is now linked to the finances of the state. This is a situation where the government wanted greater control over what is done on the ground – no government wants to give power to the people.’ 5. Capacity and scale Perhaps inevitably, the capacity of new regional structures was raised as a constraint on the ability to integrate resource management. The regional actors interviewed in these case studies reported that both the number of staff (with relevant skills) available to the complex task of identifying and aligning the disparate objectives and activities of diverse actors were insufficient. Additionally, one interviewee from the NRM Council remarked that the new regional ‘…Boards don’t have an intellectual framework to [pursue integration]. An intellectual framework must be built in to address this.’ In addition to the complexity of the integration agenda, scale was also identified as a problem in one case study (EP). This is significant because in much of the literature on regionalisation and decentralisation, down-scaling of governance is undertaken to overcome the problems of governance at national or provincial scales. In the EP case, respondents reported that the scale of the region was still too large to achieve the effective engagement and alignment of actors. This comment was typical: ‘we are dealing with an area greater than Tasmania, there’s 1600 to 1700 km of coastline, it’s a huge area. We had 12 or 14 structures in the old system that handled these issues, we’ve

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now got one. We simply can’t deal at the grassroots level with the whole of the community because of our size.’

Concluding remarks What are we to make of these experiences? We suggest three matters are salient. First, re-scaling governance and management is no panacea to the ‘wicked’ problems of institutional complexity and fragmentation. Regionalisation does not automatically aid the integration agenda. Regions are (also) sites of complexity and contest and therefore problems of aligning and coordinating resource management policies and actions are manifest at the regional scale. A respondent to the EP case study presented here captured this superbly with this anecdote about wombats in the western part of the Peninsula: ‘the DEH [state environment agency] wants to protect them, the Indigenous people want to eat them and the NRM wants to eliminate them as agricultural pests.’ Second, if we are to make progress with the integration agenda, we need to think beyond changing the scale of governance as a strategy; a more robust intellectual framework for achieving integration is required. Importantly, in crowded, contested democracies such as Australia where there has been a shift from ‘government to governance’, our thinking on integration needs to move beyond structure. Integrated NRM, we suggest, is primarily a product of relationships between and among relevant actors. If we think of integrated NRM as being manifest as a network of multilateral relationships between and among actors (formal and informal) we start to see the kinds of technologies needed to foster integration: engagement, role clarity, agenda setting, capacity building and collaboration (Morrison and Lane 2005). We suggest that regionalisation of NRM in South Australia has placed too great an emphasis on strategic integration at the expense of other dimensions of integration such as procedural integration. The cases demonstrate that efforts to integrate NRM need to be more broadly deliberative about who is participating and the nature of their participation. In addition, more careful planning for structural integration, to ensure appropriate and widely accepted arrangement of functions, powers and coordinating responsibilities to key actors, is necessary. In order to achieve substantive integration it is therefore crucial to focus on two key dimensions of integration identified by Morrison and others (Morrison et al. 2004) in the aforementioned integration diagnostic, structural integration and procedural integration. Third, and as others have suggested, we need to move beyond ‘top-down versus bottom-up’ and recognise the extent to which both human actors and ecological processes operate across scales (Morrison 2007). Effective, multi-level natural resource management therefore needs effective institutions at both the ‘top’ and the ‘bottom’. A key finding of the research presented here is that this effort in regionalisation has, paradoxically, undermined rather than facilitated regionally engaged communities to manage natural resources within their jurisdiction. In these cases, centralised control of the new regime and its structures has had a disruptive and alienating impact on regionally-scaled networks and relationships. This has frustrated the integration agenda. Regionalising for the purpose of integrating natural resource policy and action needs to allow regional actors a degree of control of structures and processes (see also Tendler 1997).

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Allan C and Curtis A (2005). Nipped in the bud: why regional scale adaptive management is not blooming. Environmental Management 36, 414–425. Bates G (2003). Legal perspectives. In Managing Australia’s Environment. (Eds S Dovers and S Wild River) pp. 255–301. The Federation Press, Sydney. Beer A, Maude A and Pritchard B (2003). Developing Australia’s Regions: Theory and Practice. University of New South Wales Press, Sydney. Bellamy JA, McDonald GT, Syme GJ and Butterworth JE (1999). Evaluating integrated resource management. Society and Natural Resources 12, 330–353. Bellamy JA and Johnson AKL (1998). Integrated resource management: moving from rhetoric to practice in Australian agriculture. Environmental Management 25, 265–280. Berkes F and Folke C (Eds) (1998). Linking social and ecological systems: management practices and social mechanisms for building resilience. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Bowles S (1999). Social capital and community governance. Focus 20, 6–10. Broderick K (2005). Communities in the catchments: implications for natural resource management. Geographical Research 43, 286–96. Brunckhorst D and Reeve I (2006). A geography of place: principles and application for defining ‘eco-civic’ resource governance regions. Australian Geographer 37, 147–166. Bunker R and Houston P (2003). Prospects for the rural-urban fringe in Australia: observations from a brief history of the landscapes around Sydney and Adelaide. Australian Geographical Studies 42, 303–23. Cairns J and Crawford TV (Eds) (1991). Integrated Environmental Management. Lewis Publishers, Inc., Chelsea. Clark TW, Willard AR and Cromley CM (2000). Foundations of Natural Resources Policy and Management. Yale University Press, New Haven. Curtis A and Lockwood M (2000). Landcare and catchment management in Australia: lessons for state-sponsored community participation. Society and Natural Resources 13, 61–73. Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation (2003). Natural resources management draft bill up for discussion, media release, DWLBC, Adelaide, 23 July 2003. Diamond L (1999). Developing Democracy: Towards Consolidation. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. Dovers S (2003). Processes and institutions for resource and environmental management: Why and how to analyse. In: Managing Australia’s Environment. (Eds S Dovers and S Wild River). The Federation Press, Sydney. Dovers S and Wild River S (Eds) (2003). Managing Australia’s Environment. Federation Press, Sydney. Eggenberger M and Do Rosario Partidario M (2000). Development of a framework to assist the integration of environmental, social and economic issues in spatial planning. Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal 18, 201–207. Ewing S (2003). Catchment management arrangements. In Managing Australia’s environment. (Eds S Dovers and S Wild River) pp. 393–412. Federation Press, Sydney. Farrelly M (2005). Regionalisation of environmental management: a case study of the Natural Heritage Trust, South Australia. Geographical Research 43, 393–405. Giddens A (1998). The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy. Polity Press, Cambridge, MA. Grey I and Lawrence G (2001). A Future for Regional Australia: Escaping Global Misfortune. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. GSA (2002). New directions for natural resource management in South Australia: discussion paper. Government of South Australia and Natural Resource Management Council, Adelaide. GSA (2003). Draft natural resources management bill: explanatory document. Settled draft bill for consideration, Government of South Australia, Adelaide.

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Haygreen A (2007). Community Capacity to Manage Natural Resources: Analysis of the Eyre Peninsula NRM Region. BSc (Hons) thesis, University of Adelaide, Adelaide. Hill J (2004). News Release of the Honourable John Hill, Minister for Environment and Conservation, 2 July 2004. Government of South Australia, Adelaide. Holmes J (2002). Diversity and change in Australia’s rangelands: a post-productivist transition with a difference? Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 27, 362–384. Holmes J (2006). Impulses towards a multifunctional transition in rural Australia: gaps in the research agenda. Journal of Rural Studies 22, 142–60. Hugo G (2005). The state of rural populations. In: Sustainability and Change in Rural Australia. (Eds C Cocklin and J Dibden) pp. 56–79. University of New South Wales Press, Sydney. Imperial MT (1999). Institutional analysis and ecosystem-based management: the institutional analysis and development framework. Environmental Management 24, 449–465. Jennings SF and Moore SA (2000). The rhetoric behind regionalization in Australian natural resource management: myth, reality and moving forward. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 2, 177–91. Keogh K, Chant D and Frazer B (2005). ‘Review of arrangements for regional delivery of natural resource management programmes: final report’. Ministerial Reference Group for Future NRM Programme Delivery, Canberra. Knight R and Bates S (1995). A New Century for Natural Resource Management. Island Press, Washington DC. Lane MB, McDonald GT and Morrison T (2004). Decentralisation and environmental management in Australia: a comment on the prescriptions of the Wentworth Group. Australian Geographical Studies 42, 102–114. Lane MB (2005). Public participation in planning: an intellectual history. Australian Geographer 36, 283–299. Lane MB and Corbett T (2005). The tyranny of localism: Indigenous participation in community-based environmental management. Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning 7, 141–159. Lane MB and McDonald GT (2005). The limits to community-based environmental planning: operational dilemmas, planning principles and possible remedies. Journal of Environmental Planning & Management 48, 709–31. Lane MB, Cheers B and Morrison TH (2005). Regionalised natural resource management: the new South Australian regime. South Australian Geographical Journal 104, 11–24. Lane MB (2006). ‘Critical issues in regional natural resource management’. Paper prepared for the 2006 Australian State of the Environment Committee, Department of the Environment and Heritage, Canberra. http://www.deh.gov.au/soe/2006/integrative/nrm-issues/ index.html. Lane MB and Williams LJ (2008). Colour blind: Indigenous participation in regional environmental governance in Australia. Journal of Planning Education and Research 28, 38–49. Lockwood M, Davidson J, Curtis A, Griffith R and Stratford E (2007). ‘Strengths and challenges of regional NRM governance: interviews with key players and insights from the literature’. Report No. 4 of the project Pathways to good practice in regional NRM Governance. University of Tasmania, Hobart. Margerum RD and Born SM (2000). A co-ordination diagnostic for improving integrated environmental management. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 43, 5–21. McAlpine CA, Heyenga S, Taylor B, Peterson A and McDonald G (2007). Regional planning in Queensland’s Rangelands: challenges and prospects for biodiversity conservation. Geographical Research 45, 27–42.

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McCarthy J (2005). Devolution in the woods: community forestry as hybrid neoliberalism. Environment and Planning 37, 995–1014. McCarthy J (2006). Neoliberalism and the politics of alternatives: community forestry in British Columbia and the United States. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 96, 84–104. Mehta J, Kellert S, Ebbin S and Lichtenfeld L (1999). Community natural resource management: promise, rhetoric, reality. Society and Natural Resources 13, 705–715. Migdal J (2001). State in Society: Studying How States and Societies Transform and Constitute One Another. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Morrison TH (2004). Institutional Integration in Complex Environments: Pursuing Rural Sustainability at the Regional Level in Australia and the USA. PhD Thesis, University of Queensland, Brisbane. Morrison TH (2007). Multiscalar governance and regional environmental management in Australia. Space and Polity 11, 227–242. Morrison TH, Lane MB and McDonald GT (2004). Integrating natural resource management for better environmental outcomes. Australian Geographer 35, 243–259. Morrison TH and Lane MB (2005). What ‘whole of government’ means for environmental policy and management: an analysis of the ‘Connecting Government’ initiative. The Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 12, 47–54. National Action Plan (2001). A National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality, Council of Australian Governments. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Economic Development (1993). Agricultural and environmental policy integration: recent progress and new directives. OECD, Paris. Ostrom E (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Pritchard L and Sanderson SE (2002). The dynamics of political discourse in seeking sustainability. In: Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems. (Eds LH Gunderson and CS Holling) pp. 147–172. Island Press, Washington DC. Putnam RD (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon & Schuster, New York. Reddel T and Woolcock G (2004). From consultation to participatory governance? A critical review of citizen engagement strategies in Queensland. Australian Journal of Public Administration 63, 75–87. Rhodes R (1997). Understanding Governance: Policy Networks, Governance, Reflexivity and Accountability. Open University Press, London. Ribot JC (2002). Democratic Decentralization of Natural Resources: Institutionalizing Popular Participation. World Resources Institute, Washington DC. Richardson J (2000). Government, interest groups and policy change. Political Studies 48, 1006–1025. Robins L and Dovers S (2007a). NRM regions in Australia: the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’. Geographical Research 45, 273–290. Robins L and Dovers S (2007b). Community-based boards of management: are they up to the task? Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 14, 111–122. Rose N (2000). Community, citizenship, and the third way. American Behavioral Scientist 43, 1395–1411. Skocpol T (2003). Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life. University of Oklahoma Press, USA. Smyth P, Reddel T and Jones A (2005). Community and Local Governance in Australia. UNSW Press, Sydney.

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Taylor-Powell E, Rossing B and Gerran J (1998). Evaluating Collaboratives: Reaching the Potential. University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension. Tendler J (1997). Good Government in the Tropics. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. TWG (The Wentworth Group) (2002). Blueprint for a Living Continent: A Way Forward from The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists. WWF Australia, Sydney. Wallington T, Lawrence G and Loechel B (2008). Reflections on the legitimacy of regional environmental governance: lessons from Australia’s experiment in natural resource management. Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning 10(1), 1–30. Warren ME (2001). Democracy and Association. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Wolin SS (1996). Fugitive democracy. In: Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political. (Ed. S Benhabib) pp. 31–45. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Woodlands JF (2007). Local level community engagement under new regional NRM in South Australia: case study of the Upper Torrens Land Management Project. BSc (Hons) thesis, University of Adelaide, Adelaide. Woodlands JF, Boggon T, Rees M and Haygreen A (2009). ‘Non-government organisation engagement in regional natural resources management processes in SA’. Report for The Conservation Council of South Australia, Adelaide (Unpublished).

6

Interrogating devolved natural resource management: challenges for good governance Julie Davidson and Michael Lockwood

Introduction In this chapter, we explore the contradictory effects of devolution as a neo-liberal method of rule on the governance of Australian natural resource management (NRM). A number of scholars have argued that there are strong neo-liberal influences on NRM regionalisation. Their primary focus has been on the deployment of various methods of neo-liberal rule, including decentralisation or devolution (Lane et al. 2004), intensification of market logic (Lockie et al. 2006), individualisation (Cheshire and Lawrence 2005), instrumentalisation of community (Cheshire and Lawrence 2005), an increased responsibility for regional actors (Higgins and Lockie 2002) and performance management (Higgins and Lockie 2002). While there is general consensus that its influence is pervasive, several authors have noted the diverse and complex means employed by neo-liberal governance, and the internal tensions and contradictions to which this form of rule is subject (Cheshire and Lawrence 2005; Peck and Tickell 2002). For almost two decades, the broader scholarly community has utilised the explanatory power of Foucault’s ‘governmentality’ approach and its central concept of the ‘conduct of conduct’ to illuminate the workings of power and control in neo-liberal systems of rule (Dean 1999; Rose 1996b; Rose and Miller 1992). Governmentality may be thought of as the way governments try to produce the citizen best suited to realise their policies, and the organised practices (mentalities, rationalities, and techniques) through which subjects are governed. The term is made by combining ‘governing’ (“gouverner”) and modes of thought (“mentalité”), or governing mentality. It is a useful conceptual tool for explaining how governments use neoliberal techniques to disperse power, and to share responsibilities for addressing difficult problems with other state and non-state actors, yet retain control in order to achieve desired political and public policy outcomes. A key feature of neo-liberal governance is its ‘underlying logic’ for multi-level governance, which includes devolution of policy responsibilities to lower governing levels in ways that promote market rule and minimise direct regulation (Harmes 2006). To facilitate devolved rule and to regulate activities within disparate subject areas and spaces for the purposes of the neo-liberal project, a number of strategies and practices can be deployed (Dean 1999). In analysing devolution through a governmentality lens, we have several objectives. First, by interrogating what is known as the ‘techne’ of governance – ‘the means, mechanisms, procedures, instruments, tactics, techniques, technologies and vocabularies [by which] authority is 75

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constituted and rule accomplished’ (Haahr 2004 p. 213) – we seek to contest current approaches to devolved governance and its associated governing techniques to indicate the desirable ends of NRM governance, and to suggest governance practices more likely to secure these ends. Second, by highlighting the tensions, paradoxes and contradictions generated by three particular techniques of devolved governance – governing at a distance, vertical accountability and governing through community – we characterise the problems of these particular methods of neo-liberal rule and, following Higgins (2004), show how the tensions, paradoxes and contradictions might provoke changes that lead to more effective environmental governance. Empirical data for the analysis comes from interviews undertaken in 2006 and 2007 with 58 decision-makers in nine regional NRM organisations across three States (four in New South Wales, two in Tasmania and three in Victoria) and in the relevant state and national agencies. This work was undertaken in the process of developing a governance standard and assessment framework for the NRM system and its organisations. The semi-structured interviews canvassed respondents’ opinions on their organisation’s performance regarding aspects of governance such as legitimacy, accountability, transparency, inclusiveness, fairness, coordination with other organisations, capability and adaptiveness. The responses were used to refine a set of governance principles, to assess the current state of NRM governance, to craft the governance standard and assessment framework, and to develop good practice guidelines (Davidson et al. 2008; Lockwood et al. 2007; Lockwood et al. 2008; Lockwood and Davidson et al. 2008).

Governing at a distance Governing at a distance refers to the neo-liberal tactic of shaping thought and action not through direct means such as regulation, but by indirect methods including through New Public Management norms of efficiency and accountability, that became central to governments’ efforts to modernise the public sector since the 1980s. Such ‘soft’ forms of rule have come to the fore in the light of neo-liberal governments’ desires to govern less and provide greater transparency of and accountability for government policies and procedures (Higgins 2004). Their application is intended to release society’s potential for productivity and wealth production (Haahr 2004). Governing at a distance is often enabled through decentralisation. The governmentality instruments relevant to decentralised contexts include a number of political rationalities and technologies, which provide the technical means for making rule practical and for shaping conduct at a distance. Decentralisation of resource management decision-making is recognised as a global phenomenon (Larson and Ribot 2004). More broadly, decentralisation has been proposed as a means of counteracting perceptions of a democratic deficit in public policy, brought about by disenchantment with governing elites (Hindness 1997). Such reform can be achieved by handing over to democratically self-governing associations of citizens, as many of the tasks of government as possible (Hirst 1994, 2000). However, within resource management, decentralisation has often been restricted to the devolution of administrative tasks (deconcentration) (Lane et al. 2004; Larson and Ribot, 2004). Deconcentration is a weak form of decentralisation that involves the transfer of responsibility for service delivery to local administrative bodies, while power to direct the form of required outcomes and, to some extent, the means by which they are to be achieved, is retained by the centre. Because the mechanisms by which decision-makers are accountable and responsive to local populations are relatively weak, deconcentration is argued to be less democratic than political devolution (Moore and Rockloff 2006). The latter can be considered more desirable in that democratic processes encourage local authorities to be more responsive and accountable to local constituencies. This enables gains to both efficiency and equity, as local

Interrogating devolved natural resource management: challenges for good governance

constituents contribute their support and knowledge to NRM decisions (Larson and Ribot 2004). However, strongly neo-liberal-influenced governments, including successive Australian governments of the last three decades, have been reluctant to grant the autonomy of democratic devolution. In this section, the key features and issues of neo-liberal devolution are briefly outlined and a number of associated technologies of governing, used to shape the conduct of Australian regional NRM actors from a distance, are discussed. In the implementation stages of Australia’s regionalised NRM framework, the Federal and state governments sought and successfully accomplished broad involvement of relevant stakeholder communities in the initial development of regional plans and strategies. Unfortunately, this early promise of a democratic decentralisation faded somewhat as the energies of the regional organisations created by the Federal and state governments shifted to focus on meeting the accountability demands of government stakeholders and on implementation of their regional plans. Moreover, while the composition of the NRM regions’ boards of management is ostensibly community-based, statutory skills requirements and an overall bias towards the productive sector means that local communities, especially those in regional cities and towns, have limited opportunities to ‘have a say’. The reality is that subsidiarity (the devolution of power to the lowest level at which it can be effectively exercised) in NRM decision-making is more rhetorical than substantial (Head 2007), as illustrated by the following comment from a NSW CMA executive officer: The board can’t always get its way but the community doesn’t accept that. This is down to the original rhetoric about community ownership of decisions. The jingle at the time was ‘local people making local decisions with real money’. What they should have added was ‘in a state-wide framework’. This gave a bit of false hope and the impression of autonomy but we’re locked into government. The community thought it was going to get local solutions. It is therefore reasonable to conclude, as Moore and Rockloff do, that the Australian experiment with devolution is of the administrative type, in which regional organisations primarily fulfil the role of delivering services to regional communities (Moore and Rockloff 2006). The latter contribute to achievement of the national objectives for NRM (Australian Government nd) through their voluntary involvement in implementation of projects on-ground. Any democratisation that has occurred is informal and driven by the progressive inclinations of key decision-makers, as illustrated by the following: We take our board meetings out – every third one is at home base. We invite landholders, industry and community to morning tea. This is one of our strategies for making the CMA a reality to the community. We have newsletters we send out with updates of board meetings using a stakeholder database; communication is something we work hard at. (NSW CMA chair) As the regional NRM organisations are essentially administrative creations, it is unsurprising that state and national agencies would want to maintain some degree of control over their activities. While the rhetoric of regionalisation promised a significant level of autonomy to regional organisations, governments have been reluctant to relinquish the reins and have kept control by utilising various tactics and strategies that enable them to ‘govern at a distance’ and so keep regional activities aligned with the centrally-determined national objectives. The most obvious example is retention of fiscal capacity (Miller 2007) supported by onerous financial reporting and compliance regimes. Regional authorities’ decisions are thus shaped by these

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accountability requirements to make the most economically ‘rational’ decisions in line with a neo-liberal mentality of government largely concerned with maintenance of the resource base (Higgins 2004). The following quote illustrates the frustration of competent decision-makers on community-based boards whose autonomy is constrained in such ways: Our relationship with the State and Commonwealth governments is cordial and hierarchical. In a governance sense it is confused. If you have a board and you charge it with independence, then you have highly skilled people, in many cases more skilled than people in the bureaucracy, then that is a weak point in governance. The amount of reporting is completely over the top given the responsibility given to the board, and the level of checks already in hand. The level of micro management is hugely inefficient. We need more financial autonomy. We need to make proper use of boards that have demonstrated competence in governance. (Victorian CMA chair) Paradoxically, the intended improvements in delivery of NRM services appear to have been impeded as a result of inefficiencies generated by such onerous accountability requirements. Similarly, the effective operation of the regional NRM bodies has been hindered by governments curtailing services essential to their effective operation, including technical extension: There’s possibly been some cost-shifting from government to the regions in relation to extension. (Tasmanian NRM Committee executive officer) These examples illustrate the contradictions that are seemingly inevitable when governments come under the influence of a management perspective that espouses ‘steering not rowing’ and smaller government (Osborne and Gaebler 1992). 1 As well as structural inefficiencies, the internal unity of devolved governance projects is liable to destabilisation through the everyday operation of power across space. Such operations may generate tensions that cause governing at a distance to fail (Argent 2005) or alternatively, from Higgins’s (2004) perspective, enable the ongoing self-examination of rule necessary for adjustments to roles and regulation. Thus, in response to criticisms about the rigidity of regional plans and strategies, the responsible national agency has had to allow the regions greater budgetary flexibility to account for variations in local conditions, such as long-term drought: We’ve taken on board criticisms and changed our processes. We’ve been able to put in a Variations Protocol to enable variations to projects. We’re putting more trust in the regions. Ministers want to be a bit conservative but we’re telling the Minister that the regions have matured. (Australian Government NRM Team member) Notwithstanding responsiveness on local or particular issues, this discussion raises larger structural questions about (i) the optimal partitioning of roles, responsibilities and authorities in a multi-level governance system (that is, which roles should be centralised and which decentralised), and in particular, (ii) the proper roles of government in a multi-level system. The empirical evidence shows that confusion over roles and responsibilities of regional bodies clearly impacts on their legitimacy and effectiveness: The name ‘authority’ gives the community the wrong impression. Our perception is that the role of the CMA is to give advice and information whereas they see us as a regulator, as the compliance organisation. (NSW CMA regional facilitator)

Interrogating devolved natural resource management: challenges for good governance

In addition to clarification of regional NRM bodies’ roles, their legitimacy and effectiveness are also dependent on an appropriate allocation of powers, authorities and funding in support of their responsibilities: There is role confusion and overlap: with water, wholesale, retail and river health all being different. It is the same for land with pest plants and animals. It is not clear who has responsibility and then the CMA might not have any money. Again with DSE and biodiversity, our job is writing native vegetation plans. DSE does the enforcement stuff. We don’t have a stream of revenue to do it. (Victorian CMA executive officer) While scholars commenting on decentralised governance have advanced a range of roles and responsibilities for central governments in cases where power is devolved (see, for example, Larson and Ribot 2004; Wallington et al. 2008; Wilson 2004), the empirical evidence indicates that if the Australian system of devolved resource governance is to be effective, then governments have central roles in backing it with appropriate levels of technical support and funding, a degree of budgetary flexibility, clear allocation of roles and responsibilities, and in ensuring minimal conflict between such roles. As well, central governments have quite specific functions in a devolved system, including that they assume much greater responsibility for coordination of arrangements for sharing resources, expertise, knowledge and information. Although regional organisations may resent central government intervention, governments also have legitimate responsibilities to represent extra-regional interests, and erosion of their willingness to address national and international environmental issues and obligations is of concern. Decentralisation of authority, allowing regional NRM bodies to address NRM issues at the regional level, should therefore be accompanied by retention or even strengthening of governments’ environmental commitments and capabilities. As Morrison concludes, ‘the paradox of regionalisation is that it requires centralisation’ (Morrison 2007 p. 237).

Unintelligent accountability In Australia’s devolved NRM system, accountability is predominantly one-way, from the regions to state and national government agencies (Wallington and Lawrence 2008). It is also narrowly focussed on financial and performance reporting by the regional organisations to the agencies. Respondents within the regions unanimously agreed that they were overwhelmed by the number and frequency of reports, checks and audits which generated unnecessary duplication and inefficiency. In this section, we highlight the problems of vertical accountability for the effectiveness of the regional delivery model, examine accepted accountability norms, and indicate how accountability might be better formulated for more effective environmental governance. Accountability has become a governing technique associated with ‘governing at a distance’ modes of governance. Indeed, neo-liberal governance relies heavily on norms of accountability (Rose and Miller 1992) although these are more relevant to business management than to democratic or political responsibility (Brown 2006). From a governmentality perspective, market-based and managerialist accountabilities (Hodge and Coghill 2007) combine to create a disciplinary instrument that normalises regional actors’ conduct for economic productivity and growth (Larner 2000; Rose 1999). In the NRM context, conduct is normalised by output-based accountability to achieve improvements in resource condition, which is assumed to be the basis for improving productivity. In general, the targets do not directly express desired ends in terms, for example, of biodiversity conservation but are indirect proxy measures such as kilometres of fencing or area of native vegetation retained.

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Accountability norms derived from New Public Management principles provide the selfsteering (Miller and Rose 1990) that is essential in keeping regional actors on task. Where the conduct of actors is being steered by measurable outputs, the issue arises of the relative power and freedom available to regional bodies to act for their constituent communities and to be responsive to community expectations. Individuals and organisations are free to act only within a defined space circumscribed by particular norms of accountability and governing techniques such as opportunities for involvement in decision-making (Triantafillou 2004). The latter are termed ‘technologies of agency’ (Dean 1999) because they seek to mobilise local action (agency) in particular ways towards particular ends. In the NRM context, the problem involves a combination of norms of accountability (acceptable performance on financial measures and on meeting resource condition targets) and technologies of agency (participatory exercises designed to make regional stakeholder groups responsible but to lead and control them in ways that match Federal and state governments’ political and policy purposes). This combination can not only direct environmental management efforts in ways that may not achieve desired environmental outcomes, but can also limit opportunities for democratic accountability (Harmes 2006). To put it another way, not only does vertical accountability enable central governments to steer regional actors (Swyngedouw 2005), but also, and paradoxically, it limits opportunities for the latter to assume relevant responsibilities in the future (Braithwaite 1999). In this respect, Wallington and Lawrence (2008) express concern that emphasising procedural control means foreclosure on opportunities for relevant communities (particularly those that have not so far been included in the mix) to contest and scrutinise decisions, actions and the way things are framed, while an equally important component of accountability, responsiveness to the substantive concerns of regional and local communities, is downgraded. The following quote exemplifies the tensions experienced by a community-based organisation under pressure of top-down accountability demands: We are a community-based board and not here to replace the Department. Running along with that there has been an increase in accountability and interference. When we were set up we had the tariff that gave us much more freedom than the tagged funds now. (Victorian CMA Executive Officer) Gilles Paquet (2007) has criticised vertical accountability as an ‘unintelligent’ way of holding decision-makers to account in complex adaptive systems because, in being reactive and backward-looking, and in reducing accountability to a few measurable dimensions, it denies the complexity and experimentation so necessary for adaptation. Instead, Paquet (2005) argues for multiple or ‘360 degree accountabilities’ on the basis that, under conditions of distributed and decentralised governance where power is theoretically shared, there is a greater array of interactions and no one direction of accountability should dominate. ‘Intelligent accountability’, which is geared to social learning – an accepted driver of adaptation (Paquet 2004) – is forward-looking, accepts complexity, is experimentalist, and supports innovation (Paquet 2005). For Paquet, there are two accountability issues. One is that accountabilities have to be multi-directional and the second is that the purpose of accountability should be to provide the feedback that enables sustainability and adaptation. The empirical evidence points to another dimension of accountability requiring attention, namely the clear allocation and understanding of the roles and responsibilities of all governing authorities within a multi-level system. The following quote illustrates how the absence of such clarity leads to both governance and management failures. At the moment there is a greying about what DSE [Department of Sustainability and Environment] and the CMA does. Certainly we have a clear role on river health and works

Interrogating devolved natural resource management: challenges for good governance

on waterways. But when you get into the broader PPA [Priority Project Areas] and those types of things there is a lack of clarity. Without it being clearly articulated from a government perspective, then I think with the next iteration of the RCS [Regional Catchment Strategy], we’ll put the challenge out there of who we think is responsible for those things at a high level and have it challenged. (Victorian CMA manager) In summary, while regional organisations should expect to demonstrate financial accountability, the consensus is that current accounting procedures are unlikely to contribute to building adaptive capacity within the regions, or generate the levels of trust necessary for collaborative problem-solving. In the interests of good governance, several issues of accountability in the decentralised NRM system need to be addressed in future system design. These include strengthening democratic accountability and responsiveness, and thus the legitimacy of the system; development of measures to enable the assessment of performance against desired outcomes (as distinct from outputs), as well as to report on and improve system performance; and investigation of the institutional arrangements for the types of accountability that are likely to deliver trust through independent and informed judgements on the quality of performance, as well as to reflect the complexity and range of accountabilities within the NRM system.

Governing through responsible communities Under neo-liberal regimes, the community has become the focus for addressing a range of social problems (Rose 2000). The Natural Heritage Trust (NHT, see Chapter 4, this volume p. 10) programs are no exception. The NHT2 program was intended to involve local communities in addressing the problems of declining resource condition in an altogether more integrative and coordinated fashion than previous resource management programs, which were judged to be insufficiently strategic. Participation of local communities is integral to the new approach of regional NRM plans and related investment strategies. Communities in regional areas are engaged in resource management in several ways, including as stakeholders on the ‘community-based’ regional management boards and as participants in regional plan development and implementation of land and water management activities. Although the regional boards are largely skills-based and biased towards the productive sectors, some states mandate wider representation of Indigenous and conservation groups and females, in addition to requirements for skills in financial and business processes (Robins and Dovers 2007). However with the exception of Queensland and Western Australia, the designated government minister is responsible for either nominating or confirming board appointments, allowing governments with strong economic growth imperatives considerable latitude in controlling the range of represented community interests. To understand the governmental and political rationales behind the shift to community as a strategy for the devolved governance of natural resources, we examine some of the technologies employed to governmentalise regional communities in a context strongly influenced by goals of economic productivity and growth. We note some contradictory effects of governing through the community, consider the implications of these for sustaining the resource base and conclude with suggestions regarding the relationships that governing agents might pursue with regional communities. Neo-liberal governance is characterised by the primacy it gives to individual freedoms and aspirations and the importance it places on social actors assuming responsibility for their own outcomes. Shamir describes responsibility as the ‘practical master-key’ (Shamir 2008 p. 4). These qualities are used by neo-liberal governance regimes to foster an entrepreneurial disposition in individuals and communities. In general terms, ‘governing through community’ is a

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method by which individual aspirations and community resources and capacities for selfgovernment are cultivated and used for social, political and economic purposes (Marinetto 2003; Rose 1996a). This use of community involvement is therefore interpreted as a strategy allowing central governments to step back from the complex and messy realities of regional and local governance, yet to still steer conduct in ways that are oriented to national goals. It has been suggested that concepts of competitiveness and community empowerment associated with community involvement act as a cover, allowing governments to avoid their obligations to provide for social, economic and environmental needs by making rural communities responsible for their own prosperity (Murdoch 1997) or as a means of muting opposition to economic restructuring despite the hardships that it has brought to many communities (Young and Matthews 2007). The political rationality of neo-liberal rule underpinning ‘governing through community’ is that national growth objectives, to which NRM contributes through increased productivity of natural resources, are achieved more effectively if governments govern less and allow individuals and communities to foster growth through their own individual choices (Higgins and Lockie 2002). For such choices to be aligned with national objectives, individual and community capacities must be shaped in such a way that communities conceive of themselves as selfgoverning and responsible (Herbert-Cheshire and Higgins 2004), yet at the same time being coopted in the advancement of these wider objectives. Within the NRM context, the essence of governing through community is that regional communities are mobilised for their own governance and for the environmental governance of their region or catchment. Ideas of active citizenship, community involvement and empowerment, work to reconfigure older ideas of self-help and self-reliance which, when combined with obligation, create a mentality of responsibility for sustaining the productive capacities of rural lands (Herbert-Cheshire 2000). Regional communities are thus made responsible for and charged to act in the cause of selfgovernance and in the success or failure of NRM and, by implication, of the resource base of their local and regional economies. The instrumental use of the community has significant ramifications for genuine participation because it prevents the development of the trust needed to support deliberative democratic communities. This is because, as community actors become conscious of the uses to which their agency is being put and the constraints being applied from a distance on their ability for selfdetermination, a gap is exposed between the rhetoric of central authorities and the actual purposes of participatory practice. Paradoxically then, because there is no trust or associated deliberative democratic community, the capacity for effective NRM, which requires cooperation, is compromised. This situation occurs because the instrumental and strategic rationalities of neo-liberalism tend to be dominant, and so override opportunities to make progress on communicative rationality through democratic deliberation (Miller 2007). In the process, the social capital essential for people to invest in collective resource management (Pretty and Ward 2001) is undervalued. At present, skills and competencies outweigh representativeness in the selection of NRM board members (Moore 2005) while effectiveness of NRM efforts prevails over responsiveness to local needs and concerns (Wallington et al. 2008). Both representation and responsiveness need to be satisfied if the democratic promise of community-based NRM is to be realised. Within the Australian NRM policy context of Landcare, the NHT and similar programs, rural communities are specifically charged with promoting the sustainable use of resources by building their capacity, and that of rural industries, to adopt improved NRM practices and increase their commitments to sustainable resource use (Australian Government nd). Under the program proposed to replace NHT, ‘Caring for our Country’, strategic results are intended in ‘community skills, knowledge and engagement’, one of six national priority areas identified to achieve an ‘environment that is healthy, better-protected, well-managed, resilient, and that provides essential ecosystem services in a changed climate’ (Australian Government 2008).

Interrogating devolved natural resource management: challenges for good governance

Here, government intentions are no less instrumental than those of older programs, the only difference being that sustainable production objectives are not so plainly articulated. Charged with engaging their communities and building their capacities for environmental management, regional NRM organisations consider community involvement to be a key element of good governance and have applied considerable effort in this direction: About a year ago we developed this one goal: it is all about community engagement and inspiring them to action. The process started at board level and has been progressively embraced and used by the staff as a way of benchmarking what we are doing. For example, we have recently approved a new communication strategy and this one is very different from the previous one, which was about improving the CMA’s image; the new one is about inspiring the community to take action. I see that as good governance. (Victorian CMA board member) Much of the effort has been aimed at engaging stakeholders in practical activities rather than deliberative discussion. Although there was considerable consultative engagement in the initial development of key plans and strategies, in some regions this has not been maintained: Its strengths have changed since it was established. The regions are at a disadvantage because they were created by other players and they had no say in their creation. The Commonwealth said that it had to be based on community consultation and one of its strengths is that it is based on community input. A lot of that has been lost over time because of the nature of the bilateral agreement and cherry-picking by the two partners in the bilateral agreement. (Tasmanian NRM Committee member) While some regions use engagement in an instrumental way, others understand that genuine participation is the real key to effectiveness: The challenge is to make sure that we are continuing to adequately represent the community. It is easy for a board, once it settles down, to tend to work pretty closely with the CEO and staff and to forget that we represent the community. That broader governance role is one we need to continually work on and improve. (Victorian CMA board member) Community engagement and capacity building are not without their tensions. At the same time as national and state governments were devolving NRM responsibilities and decisionmaking to the regions, state governments were cutting back the extension services on which the regions relied to assist their community capacity-building efforts: …the State Government is divesting itself of its responsibilities without regard for the financial and technical capacity of the regions. (Tasmanian NRM Committee executive officer) The effect of such cutbacks has been that the regional NRM organisations have been limited by scarcity of technical expertise in their ability to engage their stakeholders and communities, and to deliver change as intended. As a result of state government downsizing, less advantaged regions experience significant challenges in building the capacities of their stakeholders: We don’t have capacity to employ staff with skills; they are in the State Government. It restricts technical expertise. …The state doesn’t have enough staff or resources to give us the help we need with water management planning. (Tasmanian NRM Committee board member)

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This example of one neo-liberal agenda being undermined by another exemplifies the contradictory nature of the neo-liberal project and underscores some of the factors underlying the relative disadvantage experienced by some regions. The irony is that under neo-liberal governmentality, failure to develop community capacity becomes the fault of regional communities. Additionally, regions’ capacity challenges are not helped by the short-term funding regimes favoured by governments, which further hinder the ability of less advantaged and more remote regions to attract and retain appropriate expertise. The following statement illustrates the capacity limitations that such regions must overcome: Because we’re on three-year rolling funding, we can’t contract excellent people for five years and we can’t say to our providers that they should build staff. In regional areas human capital is our most valuable asset – it’s hard to keep people in the regions under this funding regime. (Tasmanian NRM Committee deputy chairperson) Eventually, however, frustration from the lack of adequate resources, short-term funding arrangements and onerous bureaucratic processes may sufficiently undermine political trust that governing through the community becomes a threat to state legitimacy, the so-called ‘trapdoor of community’ (Herbert 2005). This threat arises from increasing inequalities among communities and regions, resulting from self-help strategies that shift the burden of responsibility for economic development to communities regardless of their capacities (Herbert-Cheshire 2000). Inequality occurs because more advantaged communities generally have greater human resources, are better organised and more sophisticated in attracting assistance, so that their ability to engage in development programs has been found to advantage them further relative to communities under-supplied with such capabilities (Herbert 2005). While the rhetoric of engagement is inclusive, and some regional organisations have made considerable efforts in this regard, others are still struggling, so that significant sectors remain outside the NRM decision-making environment, including Indigenous, urban and conservation constituencies, forestry and tourism. The transition to the regional delivery model also produced a great deal of resentment and loss of trust among the ‘care’ sector of voluntary groups (Landcare, Coastcare and similar organisations which were instituted prior to NHT2). In recognition of their importance to the implementation of regional NRM strategies, many regional bodies have explicitly targeted their engagement although some are still struggling to build trusting relationships with pre-existing organisations. Despite the largely instrumental approach to community engagement, the importance of genuine participation has been recognised by more progressive regional organisations: The community has to feel that they have a say in it all because they are the ones who will make the difference. So there will be durability in the whole system, the board has focussed on engagement. (NSW CMA chairperson) Although the discussion has largely focussed on voluntary engagement, the use of particular market-based instruments can undermine these efforts. Such instruments have been shown to limit the range of stakeholder groups that are drawn into participation. For example, the use of tenders as a mechanism for allocating payments for provision of public-good outcomes appeals to certain landholder segments, while other parts of the landholding community show no uptake of, or interest in, such instruments (Morrison et al. 2008). Engagement efforts are thus selective in their engagement of particular stakeholder sectors. Good practice for inclusive engagement necessitates investment in locally important priorities as well as regional and national priorities, building effective relationships with communities

Interrogating devolved natural resource management: challenges for good governance

and sectors that are not yet effectively engaged with NRM, ensuring opportunities for engagement of all stakeholder groups, and attending to the particular communication needs and preferences of groups currently on the margins. Transformative outcomes are most likely when capacity-building is joined with genuine participation.

Conclusions In this chapter, we employed a governmentality perspective to examine the devolution of environmental management responsibilities to regional-scale community-based organisations. We highlighted some of the shortcomings, logical inconsistencies, contradictions, paradoxical effects and tensions resulting from three governing technologies commonly used by central governments to steer actors at a distance. Among the risks associated with the present regional delivery model, we identified deficiencies in the democratic legitimacy and effectiveness of regional organisations caused by the withdrawal of central governments from the support and coordination roles that they are best fitted to perform. Added to these concerns are the limitations that the particular form of accountability required by governments imposes on regional organisations’ capacity to respond to local needs and interests, on opportunities for regional communities to contest decisions and actions, and on developing adaptive capacities. Finally, in seeking to make communities responsible, we noted risks to representativeness in the emphasis on skills and competencies and in the inequalities among communities and regions that are an inevitable result of self-help strategies that disregard diverse and often uneven regional capacities. The concerns and issues raised in the discussion suggest a number of preconditions for ‘good-practice’ governance within the devolved system of resource management. Governments need genuine commitment to the principle of subsidiarity and should seek closer alignment of responsibilities, authorities and powers, as well as clear allocation of roles and responsibilities among decision levels. Governments need to respond to the imperative for funding-continuity, and to assume stronger leadership and coordination roles to improve adaptive capacity within the NRM system. Accountability systems need to be redesigned so that they are forward-looking, experimental, and multi-directional. To strengthen the legitimacy of devolved governance, governments must also allow for inclusion of regional actors in decisions regarding system review and design. Space must be found within the regional delivery model for engagement of a more diverse range of stakeholders to ensure better solutions to environmental problems, as well as for capacity-building that recognises spatiallybased differences and is linked with genuine participation. The governmentality perspective that we applied to the devolution instruments of Australia’s resource governance system suggests that, under the instrumentalist neo-liberal approach, engendering the changes described above will constitute a major challenge. However, the tensions and paradoxes outlined in this chapter open ‘spaces of hope’ for more equitable and sustainable environmental governance (Harvey 2000). Governing through community may produce contradictory outcomes that generate demands for more democratic involvement and for greater responsiveness from regional authorities. In this way, spaces may develop in which to challenge to prevailing productivist constructions of regional economies and ecologies (Lockie et al. 2006). This potential may reside in the ongoing dissatisfaction among some community sectors with the regional delivery model, although this is not certain. On the other hand, the potential for authority to become more dispersed through the regional system, rather than hierarchically directed, is clearly evident in the unplanned formation of national forums comprising the 56 regional board chairs, chief executive officers and the smaller statebased forums of these officers. This development is indicative of an emergent polycentric

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structure for resource governance, which is argued to be better equipped for adaptation to the uncertainties of global change than centralised government (Cash et al. 2006; Folke et al. 2005; Lemos and Agrawal 2006). Through such means as the now annual NRM Knowledge Conference (which precedes the annual forum of the NRM chairs, hosted by each of the states and territories in turn), these informal networks facilitate flows of information, knowledge and resource management expertise that can be drawn upon to deal with uncertainty and surprise, and they provide the leadership, vision and common understanding necessary for purposeful adaptation. More research is required to better understand the conditions under which such opportunities might be increased and their development supported.

Acknowledgements The empirical data in this paper derive from the project Pathways to good practice in regional NRM governance, funded by Land and Water Australia, the Department of Environment and Climate Change (NSW) and the Department of Sustainability and Environment (Victoria). The authors would like to express their appreciation to two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions. The thoughts presented here were also shaped by discussions held over the past two years with the other members of the ‘Pathways’ team – Rod Griffith, Allan Curtis and Elaine Stratford.

Endnote 1 Osborne and Gaebler (1992) used the concept of ‘steering not rowing’ in their argument that governments are not good providers and should limit their governing activities to coordination and control. The associated New Public Management prescriptions have had a considerable influence on public administration especially in Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

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Accounting for performance: public environmental governance in the shadow of the future Tabatha Wallington and Geoffrey Lawrence

Introduction Public accountability is, at heart, about ensuring that those with public authority actively pursue public goals. Based on this demand, it is not surprising that accountability is said to carry most of the burden of democratic governance in our time (Mulgan 2000). The weight of this burden has intensified in recent decades with a decline in the public authority of representative government, and the devolution of responsibility for public services to a host of nongovernment institutions. Widespread reporting of implementation failures (e.g. Pressman and Wildavsky 1984) has underscored the need to reform traditional institutions of government and democracy so as to restore public confidence in the ability of governments to deliver on their promises. The overwhelming institutional response to the need for improved performance has been the creation of agencies independent of government (Pollitt et al. 2001). According to Majone (1996), an important source of the credibility problems of elected politicians is the tension between the pro tempore nature of democratic governance – making it difficult for politicians to credibly commit themselves to a long-term strategy – and the need for long-term policy commitments to deal effectively with environmental and risk issues. Independent agencies can provide greater policy continuity because they are removed from the short-termism of electoral cycles; offer greater flexibility in both policy formulation and implementation; and provide greater opportunities for public engagement and debate on contentious issues. Devolved governance arrangements typically take the form of partnerships, where the governing board or management committee is inclusive of the various interests involved (Skelcher et al. 2005). These ‘hybrid’ organisations bring together a mix of public, private, community and not-for-profit actors to contest, deliberate, and deliver policy at the regional and local level (Sullivan and Skelcher 2002). Cooperation between mutually interdependent actors is expected to generate a willingness to share accountability for achieving shared outcomes. The price of management flexibility is the imposition of performance measurement and reporting. Regional governance arrangements for natural resource management (NRM) in Australia exemplify these broader trends. Community-based regional bodies are a hybrid of governmental, private, voluntary and community sector actors with responsibility for the development and implementation of NRM plans for their region. The flexibility afforded to these groups opens the way for entrepreneurship, along with responsiveness to community needs and 91

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preferences. Nonetheless, the shift away from hierarchical relations and toward more ‘horizontal’ forms of governance poses problems for the conventional understanding of public accountability (Stoker 1998). Questions about accountability in NRM governance stem from the devolution of public authority and resources to unelected regional groups (Abrahams 2005; Lawrence and Cheshire 2004; Paton et al. 2004), entities that are only loosely coupled to institutions of representative democracy. Elections are not the only form of accountability, however. Indeed, the shift toward more decentralised arrangements is premised on their capacity to be more responsive to those affected by decisions, interventions and programmes, and thus to secure the direct consent of citizens. The focus of performance-based accountability on outputs and strategic outcomes redirects energies from rule following toward creative problem solving, with inclusive deliberation focused on what constitutes valued outcomes in the region. The experience of regional NRM to date indicates that expected synergies between performance-based accountability and more responsive governance are not guaranteed. Evidence suggests that the accountability demands made by central government are curtailing the ability of regional bodies to respond effectively to community concerns (Taylor et al. 2006; see also Cullen 2005; Head and Ryan 2004; Lockwood et al. 2005). The relationship between the democratic character of the new hybrid institutions and their performance is therefore deserving of more explicit attention. How does the structure of democratic engagement and supervision affect the performance of NRM governance? A first step toward answering this question is to outline a framework for evaluating accountability arrangements, which we apply to regional NRM. The remainder of the chapter centres on the extent to which democratic practices are integral to the design of accountability arrangements for NRM, and the impact of these practices on the delivery of public goals.

Understanding accountability Accountability is a notoriously slippery and multi-layered concept, which must be unravelled if we are to evaluate its traditional and emerging forms (Ranson 2003). A sociological lens reminds us that public accountability involves a particular set of social relations, institutionalised in practices of account-giving (Bovens 2005). The conventional understanding of accountability locates it within the hierarchical practices of bureaucracy. Here, to be accountable is to be ‘held to account’, defining a relationship of formal control and sanction. A sole focus on these features of accountability is insufficient, however, because it neglects the social and interactive nature of accountability relationships (Mulgan 2000). The latter relationships are reflected in the debate between an actor and the ‘accountability forum’, or principal (e.g. parliament, courts, auditors) (Bovens 2007). On the one side, actors are required to answer, explain, and justify their actions; on the other side, those holding them to account engage in questioning, assessing and criticising prior to the act of passing judgement on the fulfilment of agreed responsibilities (Mulgan 2000). This interpretation follows from the idea of ‘giving an account’, which implies discursive relations of reciprocity and negotiation rather than hierarchical control (Ranson 2003). For these social relations of engagement and supervision to qualify as public accountability, the account giving must be open, or at least accessible, to citizens (Bovens 2005).1 As such, public action is justified (giving an account), and consent to such action is tested and confirmed (holding to account), in the arena of public discourse (Ranson and Stewart 1994). In order to evaluate the accountability relations characteristic of NRM governance, we also need to understand why accountability is important (Bovens et al. 2008). Aucoin and Heintzman (2000) identify three purposes of accountability:

Accounting for performance: public environmental governance in the shadow of the future

1. To provide a democratic means to monitor and control government conduct in order to safeguard citizens against corruption and the abuse of power. Governments are answerable to citizens for their actions, which are judged according to their capacity to achieve desired public goals. Public values and goals (inputs) serve as standards by which to judge governmental conduct. Accountability involves dialogue and debate about what should be done. 2. To ensure the integrity of public governance by preventing the abuse of authority and resources. Accountability is about ensuring that those with delegated authority are answerable for carrying out agreed tasks according to pre-defined criteria. The measure here is how well results (outputs) conform to intended goals. Accountability involves debate about whether the desired activities are being carried out efficiently and effectively. 3. To enhance government performance by improving the capacity of public administration for learning and continuous improvement. Performance is concerned with the ability of agents to deliver public goods (outcomes). Accountability involves debate about whether (and ideally, how and why) a program or intervention has influenced valued public outcomes. In view of the social relations of accountability outlined above, accountability may be considered a ‘defining quality of the public sphere because it institutionalizes a discourse about purpose, practice, and performance’ (Ranson 2003 p. 475). The accountability relations evoked in the pursuit of these multiple goals are elaborated in more detail below. Democratic control Public accountability is important from a democratic perspective because it makes it possible for citizens to call to account, in a democratic fashion, those holding public office. This conventional understanding of accountability defines a relationship of formal control between parties (Ranson 2003). Indeed, it provides a basis for controlling the actions of both elected representatives and public officials (Mulgan 2000). A series of principal–agent relationships typically characterise this understanding: ccitizens hold their governors to account through elections; citizens’ representatives hold political executives and public servants to account through public scrutiny and audit; political executives hold public officials to account through hierarchical structures of authority and responsibility; and courts hold legislatures, executives and administrative officers accountable to the law (Aucoin and Heintzman 2000). Control agencies outside the bureaucracy assist in this process. Ombudsmen and independent auditors stand at a distance from government and can adjudicate on disputes. Special interest groups, along with the media, scrutinise policy and help to ensure that politicians and public agencies are accountable to citizens by providing the information needed for judging government conduct (Mulgan 2000). These mechanisms allow voters to identify the capacity of their elected representatives to do what is in the public interest, and to vote them out if they have lost public confidence. The aim of so-called ‘command-and-control’ systems is to reduce the need for discretion down the line, with accountability resting with the centre. Recent moves to devolve government functions stem from the realisation that securing compliance with input controls is an ineffective means of securing performance (Aucoin and Heintzman 2000). By granting autonomy to agents in the choice of means to pursue public goals, devolution recognises that judgement must often be exercised in pursuit of desired results. But where such discretion was traditionally guided by independent professional standards, combined with the ethos of public duty that defined the ‘public service’, devolution raises concerns about the standards of those exercising authority. The response to these concerns was to enhance transparency in reporting regimes, with a focus on accountability for outputs rather than inputs – a central strategy to secure the integrity of public governance.

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Integrity of public governance In the context of public governance, accountability aims to ensure the integrity of public agents, who have delegated responsibility for implementing public policy. Public account giving can be viewed as a means of deterring officials from abusing their positions of public trust, and from misusing public resources. Where strategies previously included rules to guide discretion, and transparency to ensure compliance with ‘due process’, transparency is now focused on the achievement of results. Account-giving provides the opportunity for a host of actors – the general public, special interest groups, the media and, of course, opposition political parties – to scrutinise the quality of public services from the perspective of wider public interests, and thus to provide a measure of independent assessment (Aucoin and Heintzman 2000). The idea of ‘giving an account’ subtly shifts the emphasis of accountability relations from regulation to deliberation. Nonetheless, the possibility of discursive relations has tended to be overshadowed by the preference for audit in contemporary times. The audit has been exported from its original financial context to enable scrutiny of nonfinancial processes. According to authors such as Power (1999), the audit – the overviewing, scrutinising, and reporting of investments and results – has become embedded in modern society. It is not just about compliance with standards. It identifies what procedures have been followed, and it makes transparent the ways decisions have been made. In this sense, a successful audit contributes to the overall integrity of the entity being audited. This requires more than simply complying with formal reporting systems, however. The Australian experience reveals a legacy of a compliance-based reporting centred on resource allocation rather than the achievement of goals and objectives (Cameron 2004). This experience has led the Victorian Auditor General to judge that ‘[n]on-financial performance reporting has a long way to go yet in Australia to be both useful and meaningful’ (Cameron 2004 p. 62). It requires that performance itself be examined (Aucoin and Heintzman 2000). Performance As Mulgan (2000 p. 566) has pointed out, accounting for performance is somewhat like ‘control’ in that it is about having governments and their agents conform to the will of the people. It differs from control, however, in not being accompanied by the notion of coerciveness. Rather than the hierarchical relations that define being held to account, it implies deliberative relations of giving an account. The problem-solving capacity that underpins effective performance directs the focus of accountability to substantive goals (Bovens et al. 2008). Here, accountability is a means to ensure that governments and agencies are effective in delivering on their promises, its main purpose being to induce individual or institutional learning through the routine generation of external feedback about their performance (Behn 2003; see also Mayne 2007). Accountability arrangements are deemed effective where they generate ‘bottom-up’ feedback information, and where they stimulate all parties to reflect on and debate the significance of this information (van der Knaap 1995). These requirements highlight the need for openness, flexibility and inclusiveness if performance evaluation is to provide useful feedback to decision makers, and to foster continuous improvement in the pursuit of public goals.

Evaluating public accountability in NRM The framework described above provides a basis for evaluating the prevailing accountability relations in NRM governance. As noted earlier, the influence of democratic structure and supervision on performance is at issue here. The hybrid governance arrangements for NRM incorporate both vertical and horizontal accountability ‘regimes’, each of which would ideally

Accounting for performance: public environmental governance in the shadow of the future

CITIZENS

A. Democratic control (inputs: national priorities, funding)

CENTRAL GOVTS (PRINCIPALS)

C. Performance (outcomes: public goals)

B. Integrity (outputs: expenditure, results)

REGIONAL BODIES (AGENTS)

Dominant focus of accountability dialogue Required focus of accountability dialogue

Figure 7.1

Vertical accountability in NRM governance

meet the requirements of control, integrity and performance. In this way, public purpose sets the standards for the practice of public governance (control), the results of which are scrutinised for their influence on outcomes (integrity), leading to learning and continuous improvement in the pursuit of public goals (performance). Vertical accountability The conventional approach to the problem of hybrids is to address accountability within a principal–agent framework, in which these ‘special purpose governments’ are created to implement pre-determined policy goals (Skelcher 2006). In the accountability relationships established by this governance framework, public agents (in this case, regional bodies) are accountable to political principals (Federal and State governments). This has meant that central governments set the priorities for NRM (along with its delivery framework), and regional bodies act as the delivery agents of elected principals (see Figure 7.1). Democratic control It is unsurprising that central governments believe they have a mandate, secured via the ballot box, to set priorities that will ‘guide’ regional NRM planning and implementation. As such, there are only limited opportunities for direct citizen participation in the setting of these overarching public goals (see Figure 7.1 – A.Democratic control). In previous schemes, such as the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality, the priorities for NRM are set by central governments, after consideration of the biophysical priorities presented by expert scientists. Regional bodies are located as bureaucracies in this hierarchical framework, and governments can exert control over these agents by withholding funding or refusing to approve NRM plans if they don’t conform to government priorities. Integrity Current arrangements for accountability in regional NRM are specified in Bilateral Agreements between State and Federal governments. The integrity of regional body operations is

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secured via transparency (Figure 7.1 – B.Integrity), with a focus on accounting to government for the expenditure of public funds, and for the achievement of management action targets. Higher tiers of government are frequently significant in terms of accountability, as Skelcher et al. (2005) report in their study of 26 partnership boards in England. Highly formalised accountability arrangements for expenditure and target achievement stem from the role of partnerships in realising national goals. Importantly, these arrangements locate accountability away from the local community – a concern expressed by regional actors in Australia (see Wallington et al. 2008). These arrangements also reduce the discretion available to the locality. There is increasing evidence that central control can become stultifying, thereby undermining the ‘flexibility’ that is seen to be the greatest strength of the regional approach to NRM (Keogh et al. 2006; see also Taylor et al. 2006; Cullen 2005; Head and Ryan 2004; Lockwood et al. 2005). Independent evaluations of these arrangements have consistently found that the processes to administer and demonstrate compliance with Bilateral Agreements are considered cumbersome and inefficient (ITS Global 2006; Keogh et al. 2006; ANAO 2008). As noted by Keogh et al. (2006) in their evaluation of the regional delivery model for NRM, when reporting becomes ‘inflexible’, the effectiveness of regional bodies can be constrained and their actions compromised. The results-based approach has therefore had some unanticipated consequences, which have been linked to: ● ● ●

● ●

a focus upon those aspects of performance that are measurable; indicators chosen on the basis of data availability rather than relevance to policy goals; ‘goal displacement’, with monitoring and reporting on the achievement of short-term targets taking precedence over the fulfilment of actual policy goals; concerns that measures have more credence than the actual activities themselves; and the distraction of participants and governments alike from actual policy objectives (van der Knaap 2006; Townley et al. 2003).

Importantly, the focus on activities and outputs – such as the extent of native vegetation, the status of threatened species, and water quality monitoring – has not translated into clear gains for NRM outcomes (ITS Global 2006).2 Overall, there is little evidence of strategic-level change (e.g. landscape-scale repair, replenishment of natural resources, reversal of salinity, etc.). Where regional bodies focus most of their energies on strategic issues, in contrast, they have been found to be more effective (WalterTurnbull 2005). The capacity of regional bodies to adopt a strategic focus would be improved with more streamlined reporting and more flexibility in the operations of NRM groups (Keogh et al. 2006). The aim would be to enhance performance by improving the scope for local-level discretion and entrepreneurship within, and between, NRM groups. Performance When NRM groups are located as bureaucracies, to perform effectively is to ensure that national targets and goals are met (Figure 7.1 – C.Performance). There is a problem, however: the hierarchical matrix of performance indicators to be achieved within different time frames – management action targets (1–5 years), resource condition targets (10–20 years), and ‘aspirational’ targets (up to 50 years) – presumes that higher-level goals are an aggregation of lowerlevel measures (see ANAO 2008 p. 87). The role of performance measures thereby promises ‘control and easily identifiable causal relationships, an assumed linear progression along a causal chain from inputs to outcomes’ (Townley et al. 2003 p. 1062). Regional actors argue, in contrast, that recording outputs does ‘not provide a mechanism of linking actions and outcomes’ (cited in Keogh et al. 2006 p. 31), so that causality cannot be taken for granted. The shift of focus from activities and outputs, to reporting on outcomes, has been identified as the most difficult challenge for public accountability (Mayne 2007). Outcomes are

Accounting for performance: public environmental governance in the shadow of the future

affected by a multitude of factors outside the control of organisations, so that results are heavily dependent on the activities of other actors, on social and economic trends, on governments, and so on. Accounting for performance thus requires learning about policy implementation and impacts, about private actor behaviour, about the production of unintended effects, and about changes in public values, goals and preferences (van der Meer and Edelenbos 2006). In the formal accountability framework set out by central governments, performance has arguably been misinterpreted as conformance with top-down directives. The arrangements aim to secure ‘integrity’ rather than performance itself. The tendency for agents to become preoccupied with what is ‘intended’ rather than what has actually been achieved is noted by the ANAO (2008 p. 100). The incorporation of ‘intermediate outcomes’ into the monitoring and evaluation framework – changes in attitudes, knowledge, practices, and institutions – is implicitly based on the attempt to gauge the extent of learning in the regions. Reflection on these lessons may, in turn, assist in understanding how activities and outputs influence outcomes. Performance stories appear to hold promise in this regard. Stories provide an avenue to report on the meaning of information and change within a particular context, which may only be conveyed qualitatively (Mayne 2007). According to the ANAO (2008), however, performance stories must report measurable change. The fact that quantitative indicators are unable to capture the reasons for, and significance of, social change confirms Cameron’s (2004) conclusions regarding the difficulties of applying audit-based approaches in non-financial contexts. Horizontal accountability In addition to the familiar vertical line of accountability, regional bodies are positioned within a ‘horizontal’ network of relationships with partners, members, contractors, NGOs and a host of other social actors. Accountability aims to authorise the contributions of these multiple civil society actors. In this horizontal political space, collaboration between mutually interdependent actors in achieving shared outcomes is assumed to motivate a commitment to share accountability for improved NRM outcomes. As the following discussion will make clear, however, accountability arrangements have quickly reverted to principal–agent relations, where community-based regional bodies act as principals, and civil society groups act as agents (see Figure 7.2).3 Control Because hybrid organisations fulfil a public purpose, they are designed to have some kind of democratic structure to anchor them to the wider public (Skelcher 2006). Unlike the process for defining national priorities, regional target setting provides opportunities for citizen and stakeholder participation (Figure 7.2 – A.Democratic control). Citizens are therefore able to control and authorise regional priorities for action directly. By securing the direct consent of citizens, this arrangement suggests a more focused principal–agent relationship than is possible between citizens and remote governments. Nonetheless, the extra-constitutional status of hybrid governance bodies poses a significant problem for democratic accountability within this conventional model (Skelcher et al. 2005). Because regional body members are appointed by politicians, rather than directly elected by citizens, the formal sanctioning mechanism of regular elections cannot be employed; they cannot, as in representative democracy, be voted out. 4 Citizens must therefore resort to alternative means of applying pressure to convey their dissatisfaction with the prevailing state of affairs. The refusal of conservation groups and farmers to participate in the planning process is noteworthy in this regard (Wallington et al. 2008; Whelan and Oliver 2005). Withdrawal of support is a form of sanction. This exit strategy may be interpreted within Hirschman’s theory of organisational decline, which suggests that ‘exit, voice, and loyalty’ are the only responses

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CITIZENS

A. Democratic control (inputs: regional targets, funding)

C. Performance (outcomes: public goals)

REGIONAL BODIES (PRINCIPALS)

PARTNERS (AGENTS)

B. Integrity (outputs: expenditure, results)

Dominant focus of accountability dialogue Required focus of accountability dialogue

Figure 7.2

Horizontal accountability in NRM governance

available when a decline in quality is perceived. Accountability is political, and properly represents a ‘voice’ option. However, where community members feel they have no voice, then ‘exit’ (typically an economic strategy) may seem to be their only option to impact upon the process, especially when very little loyalty to the organisation is felt. If the sense of duty felt to regional bodies was originally based on democratic ideals, then the lack of continued loyalty is unsurprising where these ideals have given way to a ‘silo’ mentality in plan implementation (see Wallington et al. 2008). Integrity In the horizontal relations of hybrid governance, the integrity of relations between regional bodies and their implementation ‘partners’ (e.g. NGOs, industry bodies) is at issue (Figure 7.2 – B.Integrity). There is an expectation that the tasks outlined in NRM plans will be carried out by civil society actors (e.g. farmers, Landcare groups, and volunteers), and by the purchase of services from government departments and private contractors. The horizontal nature of these relationships is expected to generate the mutual trust and shared commitment to implementation that underpin improved performance in the future. It is in the context of these relationships, which characterise the activities and practices of public governance, that ‘intermediate outcomes’ (e.g. changes in practices, capacity, institutions, etc.) should become evident. While such changes have been noted (ANAO 2008), the qualitative nature of such change cannot be translated into the required quantitative format. Again, it would appear that the kind of accountability relations appropriate to the new hybrid governance arrangements have been misunderstood. Where governments conceive of regional bodies as bureaucracies, it is likely that the reporting demands made of these groups will be translated into contractual relations with ‘agents’ as the means of complying with top-down directives (Figure 7.2 – B.Integrity). The philosophy of contracts presumes that the basic relationship will be that of principal and agent. The contractor’s job is to act as agent of the principal’s policy, and the contract sets out the terms for achievement of short-term results. This standard fare is an over-simplification of the two-way

Accounting for performance: public environmental governance in the shadow of the future

interactions involved in implementation. Principal–agent relations are based on a hierarchical model of organisational structure. Where devolved governance is premised on the creativity of agents, accountability is more appropriately based on a concept of agency rather than a theory of organisational structure. Accountability then becomes a core property of the multiple and reciprocal relationships between actors who share responsibility for outcomes (Considine 2002; Feldman and Khademian 2002). Regional bodies do rely upon cooperative relations rather than contracts, their relations with individual farmers – whose on-ground actions are voluntary – being a case in point. Even where agreements have statutory backing (e.g. water trading arrangements in some States), the compliance of landholders and others is not guaranteed (Wallington et al. 2008; see also O’Toole 1997). Indeed, this kind of compliance problem underlined the need for a shift from prescriptive regulation to more collaborative approaches. Moreover, conformance with legal and procedural requirements is known to encourage a risk-adverse attitude among managers (Cameron 2004), which further circumscribes the potential for creative agency and innovation. At the same time, regional actors do have veto power, and may withdraw their commitment if the ‘mutuality gains’ promised by collaborative relationships – gains in knowledge, resources, and organisational capacity beneficial to both state and civil society actors – do not eventuate (Bell and Park 2006; Papadopolous 2003). Rather than mutual accountability, conflicting mandates and competitive relations might lead instead to accountability conflicts and veto behaviour (Considine 2002). Performance The measure of performance in the horizontal relations of governance is progress toward the achievement of publicly defined regional NRM goals (Figure 7.2 – C.Performance). The performance of public institutions ultimately rests on the extent to which political systems are capable of dealing adequately with changes in environmental and social conditions. This capacity can only be gained if the system is receptive to feedback from local voices. The intended strategy is to provide more flexibility and responsiveness in NRM policies and institutions (ANAO 2008). Such responsiveness would necessarily recover attention to the contribution of public debate to the performance of regional bodies, and to the understanding of how outputs influence the achievement of outcomes. Public justification and debate provide a forum for external feedback about performance, which in turn provides the stimulus for individual and institutional learning about the appropriateness and feasibility of regional targets and, ultimately, national priorities. As noted earlier, numerous evaluations of NRM governance have identified the resultsbased approach as retarding the achievement of NRM outcomes. The commitment to streamline reporting in the new Labor Government’s ‘Caring for our Country’ is the most recent policy response (Australian Government 2008). Yet, rather than the provision of additional government funding to assist in the delivery of outcomes, prominence is given to competitive tendering between NGOs and government departments for funding as one (simple) mechanism of accountability. This cost-saving strategy may be seen as an example of the market pervading (rather than replacing, or complementing) the distinctive reciprocity that characterises not-for-profits (Pellizzoni 2005). Introducing a competitive market logic to their operations is likely to cause NGOs to become more bureaucratised and increasingly distant from their constituent communities (Black 2007), not only reducing their accountability to these communities, but also destroying the very qualities relied upon in these arrangements (Lane and Morrison 2006). This latter development is disturbing because the logic of involving NGOs in NRM delivery is based on their charitable, public good intentions. These public-oriented goals, in turn, provide the standards by which to evaluate performance. In contrast,

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these qualities are preserved in the dialogue-based accountability relations that characterise Third Sector relations (Goodin 2003), and which may also provide the basis of mutual interdependence in public-private partnerships (Acar et al. 2008).

NRM by numbers Despite the widespread rhetoric of ‘performance management’ associated with NRM, evidence-based accountability has led to a focus on outputs rather than the substantive public goals (outcomes) that properly underpin the performance of public institutions. A lack of opportunities for public feedback beyond the target-setting process has been reported, which regional actors associate with the delivery mandate of regional bodies (Wallington et al. 2008; Whelan and Oliver 2005). While norms of public accountability inform NRM institutions to the extent that planning and target setting must be participatory and deliberative, the potential role of public accountability as a source of feedback and learning on the continued appropriateness of public goals has not been effectively seized. Rather, the institutions of audit and results-based management have filled the accountability gap opened up by the diminished authority of top-down, prescriptive, regulation. As such, accountability arrangements for NRM governance seem to reflect the ‘blind obedience of formal compliance with managerial authority’ in Australia predicted by John Uhr (1999 p. 99). The precarious democratic anchorage of NRM governance thus arises because ‘questions of public participation and accountability are constructed in terms of their potential to facilitate the implementation process … rather than as matters of citizenship rights or good public governance’ (Skelcher et al. 2004 p. 9). Through their capacity to provide innovative approaches to socio-political problems that cross organisational boundaries, semi-autonomous agents are viewed as a means of addressing the ‘wicked’ environmental problems that confront government. Cooperative relations are established between state and civil society actors, and across territorial and jurisdictional boundaries (Papadopoulos 2003). The non-hierarchical collaboration between actors and institutions in these governance networks is said to facilitate relations of interdependence, mutual trust and resource exchange, which provide conditions for improved performance. However, it cannot simply be assumed that ‘horizontal’ relations will automatically equate with democratic accountability. In the eyes of some commentators (see Papadopoulos 2003), the real meaning of ‘horizontality’ is cooperation between actors that ‘count’, organised, influential actors whose veto power might otherwise undermine the effectiveness of policymaking. This tendency has been confirmed in regional NRM (Moore and Rockloff 2006; Whelan and Oliver 2005). The implicit assumption that the representatives of particular interests who sit on NRM boards will be accountable to their constituents has been widely discredited (see Lane and McDonald 2005). On the whole, there is an absence of citizen participation as a form of accountability (see also Newman 2004). We contend that the design of NRM institutions should attend directly to this neglected context of public accountability. The widespread appeal of performance measures is their potential to achieve agreement on action, to act as a mechanism for coordinating action, and to stimulate ongoing debate about long-term objectives (Townley et al. 2003). The downside is that targets, once institutionalised, tend to close off public debate and reasoned justification for action: Numbers have an unmistakable power in modern culture … [they] achieve a privileged status in political decisions, [yet] they simultaneously promise a ‘de-politicization’ of politics … by purporting to act as automatic technical mechanisms for making judgements, prioritizing problems and allocating scarce resources. (Rose 1991 pp. 673–74)

Accounting for performance: public environmental governance in the shadow of the future

Where targets seem to speak for themselves, monitoring and reporting on their achievement become matters of routine. This is problematic if targets poorly reflect the activity or purpose they are intended to represent. Moreover, there is a risk that attention to pre-defined targets and results becomes so distracting that the unintended consequences of action, or the changing nature of public preferences, are simply overlooked (van der Knaap 2006). A number of studies confirm the tendency for an initial attention to reasoned justification and public debate on policy priorities and targets to collapse into a standard template (Boström 2005; Townley et al. 2003). Actions and events are reconstituted as goals, strategies and outputs in the specialised language of management. For Habermas, this ‘violent abstraction’ from the messiness of everyday experience is necessary so that the problematic situation ‘can be dealt with administratively’ (Habermas 1987 p. 363). The result is the kind of standardised information and indicators demanded of regional bodies by Australian governments to enable comparison across regions, and to prioritise resource allocations based on this information. The diversity of environments, resource management practices, and administrative arrangements for regional NRM around Australia are flattened out in this process. These arguments nonetheless help to explain the systematic strengthening of evidencebased accountability regimes in previous decades. Accountability has been transformed from an instrumental event (such as the annual audit) into a continuous process (Ranson 2003). For some, this means that we now live in an ‘audit society’ where accountability constitutes the system itself (Power 1999). At the same time, it points to the ‘orientation to action embodied in the purposes and relations of accountability’, and thus to the expectation that ‘practice can always be improved’ (Ranson 2003 p. 469).

Accountability in the shadow of the future Hierarchical relations of being ‘held to account’ concentrate on accounting for present ‘performance’. Short-term pressures for accountability to central governments reflect the immediacy of government priorities and agendas – what Gleeson and Knights (2006 p. 282) call the ‘culture of the now’. While regional bodies should be held accountable by central governments for their expenditure in the short term, it was their capacity to embrace a more deliberate, future-oriented commitment to sustainability in the regions that prompted their creation. Discursive relations of public accountability, with their promise of learning and continuous improvement, suggest the attempt to enhance performance in the future (see Ranson 2003; Wolf 2008). In the public questioning of achievement that informs a discursive practice of accountability, the engaged stance of reflective public agency in evaluating performance supplants the alienating routines of audit that predominate in a results-based model of accountability. Whereas results-based accountability operates in the ‘shadow of hierarchy’, a more appropriate metaphor to describe the conditions that underpin improved performance is the ‘shadow of the future’.5 The discursive nature of accountability practices is critical because it secures conditions for the culture of learning that underpins improved performance in the future. In a discursive model of public accountability, the ‘shadow’ of future public scrutiny and challenge also provides conditions for action, because citizens and stakeholders are more prepared to consent to decisions in the short term when opportunities exist to revise decisions in the future (see Eckley 2002). And, because institutionalised opportunities for public debate and scrutiny encourage authorities to act as if they might have to justify their authority at some future time (Grimes 2006), the need for a perpetual consultation ritual is reduced. As such, the widespread problem of ‘participation burnout’ is not exacerbated, but is rather eased, by the deliberative nature of accountability practices.

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The possibility of institutionalising a ‘dialogue of accountability’ with citizens is foregrounded by the deliberative turn in NRM governance, which has entailed a mainstreaming of public dialogue and local community involvement (Craig and Vanclay 2005). Norms of authentic deliberation, and community authority to formulate and implement policy, seek not only to ‘reframe developmental problems in terms of local solutions but also to engender a political community or network devoted to their deliberation’ (Skelcher et al. 2004 p. 17). Crucially, accountability for performance requires opportunities for deliberation and challenge beyond the planning and target-setting phase to encompass the ongoing process of ‘implementation’. Here, public scrutiny closes the accountability loop by providing external feedback on the progress being made toward the achievement of public goals, and on the need to revise such goals in the light of new information about changing environmental conditions and changing public preferences. When the monitoring and evaluation of action aims at understanding the consequences of action so as to improve action, as well as to achieve desired social ends, accountability may be understood as a process of social learning (Giddens 1990). The attention to consequences, both intended and unintended, reconnects monitoring of short-term results with long-term future goals. This connection to the public context of implementation includes the technical assessment of performance-against-plan (‘does the program empirically fulfill its stated objectives?’), but moves beyond it to incorporate practical deliberation on ‘contextual’ questions by interrogating what the organisation is actually trying to achieve: ● ● ● ●

●

Are we (still) on the right track? Are our assumptions (still) valid? Are the objectives (still) relevant to the problem situation? Does the existing set of policy goals and targets (still) represent what we are trying to achieve? Has the pursuit of goals and targets generated any negative side-effects? (i.e. are there indications that relevant new information has been ignored, or that the use of targets and indicators has frustrated performance?) (van der Knaap 2006 p. 287)

This kind of questioning about the relationship between purpose, practice and performance gets to the heart of public accountability in hybrid governance. The aim of such questioning is to induce ‘double-loop learning,’ or the act of accounting for new information to better adjust activities and targets to core policy goals (Argyris and Schön 1996). This requires innovation and creativity, which in turn relies on an agency-centred investigation of structural change. This kind of creative change remains accountable to the extent that it continues to reflect core public values, even in cases where the action itself is not entirely predictable (Considine 2002).

Concluding remarks on accounting for performance Public accountability aims to ensure that those with public authority actively pursue public goals. It is the ultimate test of consent, which is the foundation of authoritative public decision and action (Ranson and Stewart 1994). In the end, consent to the exercise of public authority is a measure of the deliberative processes by which decisions are justified and tested, as Ranson and Stewart explain: [t]he authority or legitimacy of public choice rests upon consent. Consent is not given to each and every act, but is given to public organizations in their capacity to act…. Consent to the exercise of authority rests upon the processes through which decisions are taken and

Accounting for performance: public environmental governance in the shadow of the future

the quality of public discourse. That is the ultimate test of consent. (Ranson and Stewart 1994 p. 4) The multiple and reciprocal relationships that constitute hybrid governance render conventional notions of democratic accountability problematic (Newman 2004). Where actors can be at once principal and agent, managers are required to have multiple identities, and perform multiple tasks, in different contexts: … at one moment being the agent of government, trying to deliver on its policy pledges; at another, a good public servant being held to account through bureaucratic channels to the relevant minister; at another, a member of a partnership body seeking to cut through bureaucracy in order to make something happen; at another, an organisational leader with accountability to staff and other organisational stakeholders; at another, a responsive change agent, accountable to those whom the organisation is seeking to serve … (Newman 2004 p. 20) Different logics of appropriate action are also implied in the variety of rules and norms with which managers are confronted – for example, those flowing from hierarchical accountability, from the market logic of service delivery, from the results-oriented and target-driven logic of policy, and from the participatory logic associated with regional priority-setting (see Newman 2004). Immersed in this field of dispersed agency and power, regional bodies may suffer what Koppell (2005) has amusingly referred to as ‘multiple accountability disorder’! As a result, we may be led ‘optimistically, to mutual and reciprocal flows of accountability or, more pessimistically, to an accountability vacuum’ (Newman 2004 p. 25). The emphasis on holding regional bodies to account for their performance within a resultsbased framework has meant a preoccupation with specifying performance and regulating compliance, where hierarchical accountability relations focus on the reporting of present performance. The social and interactive features of accountability, which underpin the negotiation of future performance, are lost in this regime of NRM-by-numbers. At the end of the day, the possibility of improved performance is undermined, as Ranson explains: The dominant mode of answerability cannot deliver achievement because it defines a mistaken criteria of evaluating performance, emphasizing the external imposition of targets and quantifiable outcomes as the means of improvement.… The financier’s accounts and tables cannot provide the conditions for achievement that grow out of acquiring the internal goods of reflective agency … within learning communities. (Ranson 2003 p. 470) Ultimately, performance measurement should provide ‘the opportunity for learning in the space of governance’ (Ranson 2003 p. 474). A key obstacle to realising this opportunity for learning and improvement in pursuit of strategic outcomes appears to be that governments are not prepared to adjust to hybrid governance arrangements. According to Teisman and Klijn (2002), if governments and politicians view the complexity of partnerships as a threat, they will tend to rely on well-established, formal procedures based on hierarchical relations. Despite recognising the need for cooperation, NRM partnerships have been quickly transformed into hierarchical principal–agent relations in order to maintain the authority and control of politicians over the administration of policy. The control imperative that must remain integral to accountability is the need for an independent evaluation of practice and performance. We have argued that this requirement for ‘external’ scrutiny is properly a function of the public. Citizens view the performance of public

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governance in terms of the efficacy and equity of social outcomes, as well as the competence and fairness of administration. Institutionalising citizen participation as a form of accountability not only provides for the feedback that underpins improved performance in the regions, but is also an essential requirement for democratic justice (Shapiro 1999). Institutionalising a dialogue of accountability with citizens would recover attention to the public values and goals which underpin the authority and legitimacy of NRM arrangements, and which provide the standards by which performance must be evaluated.

Endnotes 1 As Pellizzoni (2005) points out, there is no ‘private accountability’ as such, because to judge an account requires some kind of independent criteria or viewpoint external to the relationship between principal and agent. 2 Indeed, outputs are generating ‘perverse outcomes’ (ANAO 2008 p. 93). The example cited is the activity of broad-scale vegetation planting which – while providing local benefits – may reduce available water downstream. Increased stream salinity is a likely consequence, constraining the economic options of downstream water users. 3 The scope of this contribution does not allow a detailed determination of the existing accountability relationships between regional bodies and civil society actors. The shape of ‘partnerships’ and the mechanisms of accountability are likely to vary greatly between regions. The evaluation of horizontal accountability is therefore focused on the relationships that are formally sanctioned by government policy, on the evaluation of NRM arrangements provided in scholarly commentary – some of which is based on primary empirical data (e.g. Wallington et al. 2008) – and on the evidence generated by several recent ‘independent’ evaluations of NRM. 4 This is the case in all Australian States, except Tasmania (Robins and Dovers 2007). 5 This phrase is borrowed from Axelrod and Keohane (1985).

References Abrahams H (2005). Devolution enhances integration. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 12 (Supplementary issue), 57–61. Acar M, Guo C and Yang K (2008). Accountability when hierarchical authority is absent. The American Review of Public Administration 38, 3–23. ANAO (Australian National Audit Office) (2008). ‘Regional delivery model for the Natural Heritage Trust and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality’. Audit Report No. 21 2007–08. http://www.anao.gov.au/uploads/documents. Argyris C and Schön DA (1996). Organizational Learning II: Theory, Method and Practice. Addison-Wesley, Reading. Aucoin P and Heintzman R (2000). The dialectics of accountability for performance in public management reform. International Review of Administrative Sciences 66, 45–55. Axelrod R and Keohane RO (1985). Achieving cooperation under anarchy: strategies and institutions. World Politics 38, 226–254. Behn RD (2003). Why measure performance? Different purposes require different measures. Public Administration Review 63, 586–606. Bell S and Park A (2006). The problematic metagovernance of networks: water reform in New South Wales. Journal of Public Policy 26, 63–83. Black J (2007). Constructing and contesting legitimacy and accountability in polycentric regulatory regimes. Regulation and Governance 2, 137–164.

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Boström M (2005). ‘Inclusiveness, accountability and responsiveness’. Paper presented at Organising the World. Stockholm, Sweden, October 2005. Bovens M (2005). ‘Evaluating public accountability’. Paper presented at the International Research Colloquium on Accountable Governance, Queens University, Belfast, October 2005. Bovens M (2007). Analysing and assessing accountability: a conceptual framework. European Law Journal 13, 447–468. Bovens M, Schillemans T and Hart P (2008). Does public accountability work? An assessment tool. Public Administration 86, 225–242. Cameron W (2004). Public accountability: effectiveness, equity, ethics. Australian Journal of Public Administration 63, 59–67. Considine M (2002). The end of the line? Accountable governance in the age of networks, partnerships, and joined-up services. Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions 15, 21–40. Craig A and Vanclay F (2005). Questioning the potential of deliberativeness to achieve ‘acceptable’ natural resource management decisions. In Participation and Governance in Regional Development. (Ed. J Martin and R Eversole) pp. 155–174. Ashgate, Aldershot. Cullen P (2005). ‘Reflections on the first decade of regional catchment management and the journey ahead’. Paper presented at the Victorian Catchment Management Conference, Australia, November 2005. Eckley N (2002). Dependable dynamism: lessons for designing scientific assessment processes in consensus negotiations. Global Environmental Change 12, 15–23. Feldman MS and Khademian (2002). To manage is to govern. Public Administration Review 62, 541–554. Giddens A (1990). The Consequences of Modernity. Polity Press, Oxford. Gleeson D and Knights D (2006). Challenging dualism: public professionalism in ‘troubled’ times. Sociology 40, 277–295. Goodin RE (2003). Democratic accountability: the distinctiveness of the Third Sector. European Journal of Sociology 44, 359–396. Grimes M (2006). Organizing consent: the role of procedural fairness in political trust and compliance. European Journal of Political Research 45, 285–315. Habermas J (1987). Theory of Communicative Action Vol. 2. Polity, Cambridge. Head B and Ryan N (2004). Can co-governance work? Regional natural resource management in Queensland, Australia. Society and Economy 26(2–3), 361–382. ITS Global (2006). ‘Evaluation of the bilateral agreements for the regional component of the Natural Heritage Trust of Australia’. Report prepared for the Australian Government, 16 January 2006. http://www.nrm.gov.au/publications. Keogh K, Chant D and Fraser B (2006). ‘Review of arrangements for regional delivery of natural resource management programmes’. Report prepared by the Ministerial Reference Group for Future NRM Programme Delivery, March 2006. http://www.nrm.gov.au/publications. Koppell JGS (2003). The Politics of Quasi-Government: Hybrid Organizations and the Dynamics of Bureaucratic Control. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Koppell JGS (2005). Pathologies of accountability: ICANN and the challenge of ‘multiple accountabilities disorder.’ Public Administration Review 65, 94–108. Lane MB and McDonald G (2005). Community-based environmental planning: operational dilemmas, planning principles and possible remedies. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 48, 709–731. Lane MB and Morrison TH (2006). Public interest or private agenda? A meditation on the role of NGOs in environmental policy and management in Australia. Journal of Rural Studies 22, 232–242.

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Lawrence G and Cheshire L (2004). ‘Managing nature: the promises and problems of regional environmental governance in Australia’. Plenary Address at the Ecopolitics XV Conference, Environmental Governance: Transforming Regions and Localities. Graduate School of the Environment, Macquarie University, Sydney, 12–14 November. Lockwood M, Curtis A and Davidson J (2005). ‘Regional governance of natural resource management: the Australian experience’. Paper presented at the International Symposium on Sustainable Resource Management, Östersund, Sweden, June 2005. Majone G (1996). ‘Temporal consistency and policy credibility: why democracies need nonmajoritarian institutions’. European University Institute, Working Paper RSC No. 96/57. http://www.iue.it/RSCAS/WP-Abs/96_57.html. Mayne J (2007). Challenges and lessons in implementing results-based management. Evaluation 18, 37–109. Moore SA and Rockloff SF (2006). Organizing regionally for natural resource management in Australia: reflections on agency and government. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 8, 259–277. Mulgan R (2000). ‘Accountability’: an ever-expanding concept? Public Administration 78, 555–573. Newman J (2004). Constructing accountability: network governance and managerial agency. Public Policy and Administration 19, 17–33. O’Toole LJ (1997). The implications for democracy in a networked bureaucratic world. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 7, 443–459. Papadopoulos Y (2003). Cooperative forms of governance: problems of democratic accountability in complex environments. European Journal of Political Research 42, 473–501. Paton S, Curtis A, McDonald G and Woods M (2004). Regional natural resource management: is it sustainable. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 11, 259–267. Pellizzoni L (2005). ‘Private means, public goods: antinomies of participatory governance in the environmental field’. Paper presented at the Seventh Conference of the European Sociological Association. Torun, September 2005. Pollitt C, Bathgate K, Caulfield J, Smullen A and Talbot C (2007). Agency fever? Analysis of an international policy fashion. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice 3, 271–290. Power M (1999). The Audit Society. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Pressman J and Wildavsky A (1984). Implementation. University of California Press, Berkeley. Ranson S (2003). Public accountability in the age of neo-liberal governance. Journal of Education Policy 18, 459–480. Ranson S and Stewart R (1994). Management for the Public Domain: Enabling the Learning Society. Macmillan, Basingstoke. Robins L and Dovers S (2007). NRM regions in Australia: the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. Geographical Research 45, 273–290. Rose N (1991). Governing by numbers: figuring out democracy. Accounting, Organizations and Society 16, 673–692. Shapiro I (1999). Democratic Justice. Yale University Press, New Haven. Skelcher C (2006). Does democracy matter? A transatlantic research design on democratic performance and special purpose governments. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 17, 61–76. Skelcher C, Mathur N and Smith M (2004). ‘Negotiating the institutional void: discursive alignments, collaborative institutions and democratic governance’. Paper presented at the Political Studies Association Conference, University of Lincoln, April 2004.

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Skelcher C, Mathur N and Smith M (2005). The public governance of collaborative spaces: discourse, design and democracy. Public Administration 83, 573–596. Stoker G (1998). Governance as theory: five propositions. International Science Journal 155, 17–28. Sullivan H and Skelcher C (2002). Working Across Boundaries: Collaboration in Public Services. Palgrave-Macmillan, Basingstoke. Taylor B, McDonald G, Heyenga S, Hoverman S, Smith T and Robinson C (2006). ‘Evaluation of Regional Planning Arrangements for Natural Resource Management 2005–2006: Benchmark Report II. Healthy Savanna Planning Systems Project.’ Tropical Savannas Management CRC, Australia. Teisman GR and Klijn E (2002). Partnership arrangements: governmental rhetoric or governance scheme? Public Administration Review 62, 197–205. Townley B, Cooper DJ and Oakes L (2003). Performance measures and the rationalization of organizations. Organization Studies 24, 1045–1071. Uhr J (1999). Three accountability anxieties: a conclusion to the symposium. Australian Journal of Public Administration 58, 98–101. van der Knaap P (2006). Responsive evaluation and performance management: overcoming the downsides of policy objectives and performance indicators. Evaluation 12, 278–293. van der Meer F and Edelenbos J (2006). Evaluation in multi-actor processes: accountability, learning and co-operation. Evaluation 12, 201–218. Wallington TJ, Lawrence G and Loechel B (2008). Reflections on the legitimacy of regional environment governance: lessons from Australia’s experiment in natural resource management. Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning 10, 1–30. WalterTurnbull (2005). ‘Evaluation of current governance arrangements to support regional investment under the NHT and NAP’. Report prepared for the Australian Government, December 2005. http://www.nrm.gov.au/publications. Wolf A (2008). Introduction: symposium on accountability in public administration: reconciling democracy, efficiency and ethics. International Review of Administrative Sciences 66, 15–20.

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PART 2 COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT, LOCAL PARTICIPATION AND REGIONAL CAPACITY

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Seeing Engagement Practitioners as Deliberative Hinges to improve Landholder Engagement Toni Darbas, Timothy F Smith and Emma Jakku

Introduction The social landscapes of Australia’s rural regions have diversified beyond their foundation in agriculture (Holmes 2002). Traditional rural policy and administrative arrangements have proved inadequate to manage this new rural complexity (Pritchard and McManus 2000). A key indicator of governance failure is the steady decline of the ecological function of rural landscapes despite the rising importance of these landscapes to a wider range of social and economic interests. Critique of the National Landcare Program (NLP) has been a prominent discussion point in Natural Resource Management (NRM) policy debate. Since the Landcare initiative was launched in 1989 by Prime Minister Bob Hawke, more that 2000 Landcare groups have formed, constituting 30–40% of Australian farmers (Nelson et al. 2004). However, the mid 1990s saw criticism build of the social and ecological utility of Landcare group activities (DAFF 2003; Lee 2004; Lockie and Vanclay 1997; Morrisey 1997; Shankey 2004). It was claimed that the NLP’s engagement of agricultural landholders regarding their management of natural resources had failed to improve the condition of those resources. An important aim of the regional arrangements is to broaden the funding of volunteer NRM effort beyond farmers. The extension of engagement beyond farmers is facilitated in the regional arrangements by making Landcare project funding contingent upon project alignment with regional NRM resource condition targets and investment plans and opening funding to non Landcare groups and interests (DAFF 2003 p. 10). Little policy thought was devoted to exactly how this regional re-scaling of engagement effort would connect with the imagination and practices of landholders, whether agricultural, amenity, peri-urban or indigenous. It was assumed that the act of devolution to the regional level itself would be both popular and effective at the local level (Lee 2004).1 This chapter queries whether engagement practice has in fact been improved by the new regional NRM arrangements. This question is probed with qualitative data on landholder engagement efforts through evaluative projects undertaken in southern Queensland between 2005 and 2007 for three regional bodies.2 The projects had three distinct aims that contribute to this chapter’s questioning of the impact of the regional arrangements upon engagement practice. The South East Queensland Western Catchments (SEQWC) project investigated how to improve engagement of peri-urban landholders throughout the region, and attracted Condamine Alliance (CA) and Queensland Murray Darling Committee (QMDC) engagement 111

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practitioners dealing with peri-urban landholders to participate in research workshop events. The QMDC project examined the use of Landcare officers to facilitate sub-catchment planning and the feasibility of generalising a pilot Environmental Management System program throughout the region’s sub-catchment landholder groups. The CA project evaluated the incentive program of a highly successful Landcare group determined to maintain its funding despite their historical lack of focus upon the degraded areas of the landscape being targeted by CA.3 These cases are used to highlight the importance of NRM engagement practitioners to successful landholder engagement. We argue that engagement practitioners can be understood as forming deliberative hinges between NRM bodies and their landholder communities and that such a hinge is necessary to connect the aspirations of landholders to funding priorities. The comparison of cases is also used to show how the fragmentation of agricultural holdings into smaller peri-urban/amenity blocks necessitates a re-conceptualisation of engagement tasks beyond the peer based learning in landholder groups developed under the NLP. This need to re-examine models of engagement is due to the fact that peri-urbanisation increases the number of landholders and diversity of their land uses while decreasing the levels of NRM knowledge held by those landholders. This argument unfolds through the following six sections. Section one deals with the pattern of peri-urbanisation evident in southern Queensland and draws out the implications of peri-urbanisation for NRM engagement. An interpretive framework is sketched in section two where the terms system, lifeworld, deliberation and reflexivity are introduced and their relevance to analysis of NRM engagement of landholders explained. Sections three to five present the empirical findings of projects conducted for the three adjacent NRM bodies beginning with SEQ where peri-urbanisation is most intense and moving outwards to the Queensland Murray Darling where it is of less concern. The final section uses this case study material to demonstrate that engagement practitioners form indispensible deliberative hinges between NRM bodies and their relevant communities and that reinforcement of this deliberative role will lead to the improvement of natural resources.

Engagement and peri-urbanisation in southern Queensland Review of the socio-economic and institutional ‘assets’ of their regions was a first order (federally ordained) task of the three new bodies in their formulation of their regional NRM plans. The NRM plans of the three bodies reveal that the nature of these assets varied according to distance from Queensland’s capital city. Land parcel sizes decreased and the number of organisations involved in land use planning and landholder engagement increased according to closeness to the capital. The South East Queensland Catchment plan (SEQC 2004 Version 10, Part B, Chapter 4, pp. 1–4) pointed to rapid population growth, poor planning of urban and peri-urban development and poor environmental governance in an institutionally crowded region. 4 CA’s plan noted the displacement of faming by peri-urban communities around Toowoomba (CA 2004 p. 85). This peri-urbanisation, according to personal communications with CA officials, threatened to extend in a linear pattern along the scenic rim of the Great Dividing Range. QMDC, more sanguinely, pointed to the primarily agricultural nature of its region and the strong network of 121 Landcare groups available through which to pursue its objectives (QMDC 2004 p.19). The peri-urbanisation occurring around the horticultural centre of Stanthorpe in the most easterly part of the QMDC region is not noted. As the three NRM plans indicate, peri-urbanisation is most intense in SEQWC, and progressively lessens in intensity as one moves west of the capital to the Condamine and then the Queensland Murray Darling catchments. Increasing peri-urbanisation reflects a trend towards post-production land uses in landscapes of high scenic amenity and those located nearby urban

Seeing engagement practitioners as deliberative hinges to improve landholder engagement

conurbations.5 Peri-urbanisation consumes agricultural holdings via rural residential subdivision at the point when the economic value of the land for amenity purposes is higher that its value for agricultural production (Barr 2003; Hollier et al. 2003). It is fuelled by rural readjustment, the marginal economics of small-scale farming (Quinn 2001a; 2001b) in the face of volatile commodity prices, climatic variability and removal of agricultural subsidies (Whitford 2000). For example, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics forecasted an average loss of almost $65 000 for 50% of farmers in the drought plagued 2006–07 financial year (Wahlquist and McGarry 2006). Early assessments indicate that peri-urbanisation yields a poor NRM prognoses as in the absence of ecologically attuned land use planning, it fragments landscapes with smaller holdings, more diverse land uses and styles of land management as well as the intensification of infrastructure such as roads, fences, house pads and dams. Biodiversity levels decline where peri-urbanisation is permitted to further simplify and disconnect vegetation communities that under agricultural regimes were typically cleared from fertile floodplains but continued to cap ridges (Buxton et al. 2006; Kearney and MacLeod 2006).6 Despite their focus on planning, the regional bodies have at their immediate disposal the mechanism established under the agriculturally focused NLP. That is, subsidising the capital component of on-ground NRM works, rather than provision of income subsidies to maintain ecological function in a landscape.7 Under this NLP mechanism, agricultural landowners have been bearing the labour costs of ecologically renovating their farming systems by implementing practices and technologies such as efficient use of irrigation waters; no-till cropping; capture and recycling of tail water; stock exclusion fencing; stock pads; deep-rooted perennial pastures as well as re-vegetation projects to rehabilitate riparian zones and wildlife corridors.8 Clearly, not all of these practices are relevant to peri-urban and amenity landholders and those that are need to be adapted to be applicable on small non-commercial properties. As facilitators, the NLP Landcare officers are practiced at ushering agricultural landholders through the paperwork necessary to obtain funds for the capital components of on-ground work. Assistance with funding applications overcame barriers for farmers such as time poverty, low levels of literacy and poor networking skills. Further to such assistance, Landcare officers rely heavily upon group-based adult learning techniques in order to bring relevant information and expertise to landholder groups where they can be integrated with the priorities and significant local knowledge held by farmers (often garnered over generations). Landcare officers tap into agricultural landholders’ motivation to reconcile the environmental imperative with economic survival.9 However, at the peri-urban scale, the higher numbers and increased diversity of landholders make it unclear whether engagement via administrative support and group based learning remains feasible. It is also unclear what motivations of periurban landholders are relevant to NRM. The engagement task is also complicated by lower levels of local knowledge about ‘country’ possessed by urban migrants.10 For these reasons the terms of association between local Landcare groups and the new regional bodies emerged as a pivotal issue in the three research projects. The disruption of funding caused by the establishment of the new regional arrangements and decreased security of funding for Landcare groups caused the most disruption to Landcare groups in SEQWC and the least in QMDC in accordance with the utility of those groups to the new NRM bodies. QMDC proceeded to use its Landcare network as the primary vehicle for implementing its NRM plan. CA funded Landcare among other groups such as industry associations. SEQWC recruited its own catchment and sector based ‘community liaison’ officers. The diversity of engagement strategies within southern Queensland raises questions regarding the role of NRM engagement in the regional arrangements generally. Such questions include: what is the utility of existing engagement practitioners such as Landcare group facilitators; what new engagement practitioners are required and what tasks they should address;

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and whether engagement practitioners should be episodically funded or continuously employed by NRM bodies. Four sociological concepts, arising out of a century of debate concerning the nature of modernity and tasks of democracy, afford an interpretive scheme capable of addressing these controversial questions while avoiding taking a position (or being perceived to take a position) in the controversies themselves. It is worth drawing from the debates dealing with modernity and democracy because they explicitly deal with the pain of change and remind us how ubiquitous a phenomenon painful change is. The practices arising out of lifestyles and livelihoods that were originally unproblematic typically generate side-effects that must then be addressed with new institutional arrangements that in turn irritate a multitude of actors who are invested in the former institutional arrangements. Our interpretive scheme, derived from the modernity and democracy debates, is woven from the concepts: system, lifeworld, reflexivity and deliberativeness.

Interpretive scheme The concepts system and lifeworld arise out of debate concerning the novel nature of modern societies in the post World War Two era, the sheer economic, technological and social complexity of which raise doubts as to whether they can control their rate of change or choose the direction of their change (Habermas 1981; Luhmann 1990). An understanding of modernity in recent history as reflexive, constantly confronting itself in the form of unintended sideeffects and so engendering uncertainty and anxiety in its citizens has emerged (Beck 1995; Giddens 1990). Degradation of natural resources by industrial agricultural and peri-urban lifestyles is a classic case of a reflexive side-effect of modernity in both its industrial and postindustrial guises. Such side-effects are described in planning discourse as ‘wicked’ problems (Rittel and Webber 1973) as they have multiple interacting causes, are socially and economically entreched, and suggest no single or immediate solution. The term deliberative is taken from a sisterly debate on how democratic institutions of parliamentary democracy can continue to provide the central steering mechanism for modern societies despite their complexity. The aspect of complexity highlighted here is socio-economic pluralism, particularly in multicultural societies, such that a shared understanding of problems and answers is difficult to construct (Bohman 1996; Dryzek 1990; Habermas 1996; Rawls 1993). Deliberative democratic thinking allows diagnosis of differences of opinion between landholders, regional bodies and other relevant organisations as indicating the need to bring disparate viewpoints into dialogue so as to arrive at a common platform for action. Although the term reflexivity was introduced by theorists of modernity to refer to modernity’s confrontation with its own impacts, it has strong resonance with deliberative democratic theory’s more specific emphasis on reflection as involving confrontation with other points of view (Dryzek 2002). In the scheme used to interpret the case study material below, regional bodies are understood as administrative systems. System refers to formal domains of action; whereby action is channelled with the use of non-negotiable, ‘hard’ rules that possess an either/or logic (Luhmann 1990). Systemic domains are coordinated by money and formal power legitimised by merit appointments or political election (Habermas 1981). The state’s administrative arm is composed of the departments and agencies to which policy tasks are assigned. Although their constantly evolving structures reflect the policy churning and shifts arising out of political debate, administrative systems operate via the logic of program criteria. In these terms, either an activity fulfills a program according to the ‘hard rules’ of system logic and is assigned resources or funding is withdrawn. 11 Withdrawal of funding may not end an activity such as those undertaken by Landcare groups, but it weakens motivation to persist with it, particularly

Seeing engagement practitioners as deliberative hinges to improve landholder engagement

if it is inherently expensive and dependent upon technical and administrative support. It is appropriate to understand NRM bodies as administrative systems because they implement federal NRM policy by codifying the overall environmental task into resource condition targets and investment priorities in order to derive funding criteria for on-ground works. Landholders themselves describe NRM bodies as part of ‘the system’, viewing their codifications as the hoops they have to jump through to obtain funding for on-ground works. In contrast, landholder communities of place and practice belong to the lifeworld, or rather, the many and potentially fragmented lifeworlds characteristic of pluralistic modern societies. The term lifeworld (lived social world) refers to the organic character of social life – the quasinatural monolith of traditions, practices and customs that are continuously reproduced through language used in social interactions.12 Language is the medium of lifeworld coordination because it facilitates mutual understanding and agreement upon courses of action. We experience the lifeworld as a taken for granted horizon of everyday life that informs and conditions our courses of action (Berger and Luckmann 1971; Bourdieu 1990; Certeau 1984; Goffman 1971; Schutz 1973). Everyday life forms a background, a ‘horizon’ within which we think and act (Husserl 1970). We can treat this horizon of the pre-given as unproblematic and conform to prevailing understandings – for example carry on the tradition of productivist farming. Alternatively, we can call portions of it into question so as to exercise our agency – for example decide to redesign our farming system to increase biodiversity or address salinity. In emerging per-urban ‘communities’, lifeworlds are under construction. In contrast to multigenerational farming communities, common assumptions are far less likely to be locally shared. More likely, we would find a bricolage of notions of nature and livelihoods derived from the urban contexts from which these landholders typically migrated. Reflexivity is here defined as the capacity to reflect upon individual, community, or organisational circumstances and performances and act in response to that analysis, in short, to learn. It is an ever open question as to the degree of reflexivity lifeworld and system are manifesting. An administrative system, such as a NRM body, could be self-referential and self-perpetuating, interested primarily in its own continuation (that is, recurrent Federal Government funding). Or it could develop a strategic capacity to assess its impacts and steer itself towards improved performances in the socio-economic domains it seeks to influence in order that the condition of natural resources is progressively improved.13 For an agricultural landholder, reflexivity represents the capacity to understand and proactively respond to forces such as global economic markets, and the environmental imperative in order to continue the tradition of family farming. For a peri-urban landholder, reflexivity involves learning to preserve the rural attributes that motivated their migration in the first place. The alternative to reflexivity is to retreat into longstanding traditions in a rejection of the unfamiliar. In the case of a government agency such retreat could mean turning a blank bureaucratic face to landholders in a refusal to engage with their perspectives on NRM. In the case of landholders it could mean clinging to productivist identities or urban values and refusal to consider the environmental implications of the practises driven by these identities and values. This dichotomy between system and lifeworld permits focus upon those actors who operate at the seam between formal administration and landholder communities, namely, engagement practitioners such as Landcare, sub-catchment and technical and community liaison officers.14 Competent engagement practitioners have the capacity to keep a deliberative interface open between NRM bodies and landholder communities by becoming intimate with their various points of view and representing them to the other party.15 This capacity is only available at positions that bridge system and lifeworld. We posit that the terms of interaction between administrative systems and landholder communities conditions the rate of learning or reflexivity that can occur in either domain. It is explicit in NRM policy discourse that engagement

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practitioners are midwives to landholder reflexivity towards regional ecological goals. Less explicit is the role of engagement practitioners in facilitating regional body reflexivity towards its landholder communities. However, the state and pace of both forms of reflexivity is informative of analyses of the ecological effect of the regionalisation of NRM. They facilitate the instigation and unfolding of reflexivity in rural communities towards novel policy goals. Symmetrically, they are the facilitators of reflexivity in their host organisations regarding which landholder motivations are relevant to NRM and how such wellsprings can best be tapped and enlarged (Carr and Wilkinson 2005; Juntti and Potter 2002). This interpretive scheme could be summarised as pointing to: ●

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structurally innate differences between the administrative systems of NRM bodies and (plural) landholder lifeworlds; the intractable nature of the degradation of natural resources necessitating the construction of a platform of action spanning such systems and lifeworlds, and engagement practitioners’ structural position as hinges between these systems and lifeworlds and thus (potentially) able to function as deliberative agents that foster reflexive learning in both domains.

Thus equipped, we now turn to the interpretation of the empirical material to ask whether NRM engagement is improved by regionalisation in southern Queensland given the impact of peri-urbanisation upon NRM engagement.

Case One: South East Queensland’s Western Catchments The first study was commissioned by the Queensland Government and undertaken in partnership with the regional body South East Queensland Western Catchments (SEQWC). The research was focused on how best to engage the mixture of agricultural and peri-urban landholders characteristic of the region. Three rounds of research were conducted over three years.16 A parallel ecological investigation of the impact of peri-urbanisation upon biodiversity was also conducted and found the NRM prognosis of peri-urbanisation in SEQ was poor (see Kearney and MacLeod 2006). We here draw on the views of engagement practitioners, expressed in interviews and at workshops held by the project teams. 41 interviews with conducted with engagement practitioners located in 29 organisations.17 A demographic transformation of the region was described that was reconfiguring the lifeworld of agricultural communities and establishing new peri-urban lifeworlds. Longstanding farming families were unable to sustain an agricultural way of life and ‘lifestyle’, absentee, commuter or retiree owners were taking up residence on subdivided farms. Family farms were becoming less economically viable in the face of both deregulation (harsher exposure to markets) and re-regulation (higher commodity standards such as quality control). Radical reduction of the region’s dairy industry was mentioned as epitomising this process. Intergenerational continuation (succession) of family farming was eroding for two reasons. Firstly, subdivision of farms was driven by the need to harvest enough ‘superannuation’ to fund retirement. Secondly, farming communities were described as unsustainable in the face of changed societal expectations regarding lifestyles and living standards such that young adults increasingly pursued livelihoods outside farming. The informants observed that the overall loss of social continuity or resilience was a source of distress to the region’s farming communities (Smith et al. 2005 pp. 19–20). The engagement practitioners noted that the pattern of farm subdivision was complex with three factors attracting peri-urban residents into the landscape. A history of short-sighted planning decisions in specific Local Government Areas (LGAs) had attracted residents of low socio-economic means to live on small land lots (1–4 hectares) un-serviced by basic

Seeing engagement practitioners as deliberative hinges to improve landholder engagement

infrastructure such as water and electricity. These residents were described as commonly living in sheds and isolated from mainstream socio-economic life. More recently, well resourced residents able to build prestigious homes on carefully planned, well serviced, rural residential estates had moved to the region. This type of high status, well planned peri-urban development was most intense where highways eased commuting to Brisbane and a development ‘buzz’ had built up. High scenic amenity formed a third reason subdivision occurred and this development was typical along the Great Dividing Range’s scenic rim encircling SEQ (Smith et al. 2005 pp. 19–20). Thus, three different motivations for rural migration were indicated: poverty; social status; and scenic amenity. High levels of environmental awareness, interest in natural resource management, new ideas, and a ‘thirst for knowledge’ were all reported by the informants in their experiences with peri-urban residents of high scenic amenity areas. In contrast, the informants found that farmers would not implement NRM unless offered financial incentives as they were inclined to interpret NRM policy as eroding their property rights and imposing an additional economic burden (Smith et al. 2005 p. 22).18 Relations between peri-urban and farming landholders were described as tense and prone to mutual incomprehension. Newcomers symbolised unwelcome rapid social change and were perceived as naïve ‘freeloaders’ who failed to manage weeds, soil erosion or bushfire risk responsibly (Smith et al. 2005 pp.19–20). Conversely, rising numbers of complaints to Local Government from peri-urban residents regarding agricultural nuisances were reported.19 Not only were engagement practitioners faced with more and more types of landholder lifeworlds, they were also confronted with social tension between them. Consideration of how to tackle engagement were deferred by the 12–18 month funding gap experienced while SEQWC completed a NRM plan and investment strategy and assumed responsibility for funding regional projects. This funding gap suspended the region’s NRM effort. Most catchment centres and Landcare groups were forced to suspend on-ground projects as funding to employ engagement practitioners such as Landcare and Catchment Centre coordinators or purchase capital items such as equipment ceased. Demoralised, these groups and centres survived only through unpaid labour. The loss of experienced Landcare Group and Catchment Centre engagement practitioners meant the loss of detailed knowledge of the behaviour of both landholders and ‘country’. The Landcare movement was described by interviewees as ‘disenfranchised’, with 10 years of capacity building lost and local pockets of high NRM capacity ‘squashed’ (Smith et al. 2005 pp. 21–22).20 Despite these frustrations, the 41 engagement practitioners interviewed noted that the new regional administrative logic offered significant structural advantages in the face of high densities of both organisations and landholders with which they were confronted. Agency representation on the SEQWC board (including all of the region’s local governments) reduced the transaction costs practitioners faced. Similarly, SEQWC’s appointment of three sub-catchment community and three sector (government, industry and indigenous) liaison officers meant practitioners could deal with SEQWC via one person. The liaison officers’ performance was commended, indicating that these regional engagement practitioners had ultimately added value to local (landcare and sub-catchment centre) engagement practitioner effort. The interviewees emphasised that a strategic plan underpinned by sound (physical) science posed significant advantages in the face of the seriousness of the region’s environmental degradation. SEQWC was visualised as a hub capable of weaving isolated local efforts into concerted regional endeavour. A hub was expected to further improve coordination and communication, generalise NRM innovations, capture corporate investment, build partnerships, broker projects and provide technical expertise. The need to broaden NRM engagement beyond farmers to encompass relevant organisations and peri-urban communities was clearly perceived. The engagement practitioners viewed

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the rates of ecological degradation caused by peri-urbanisation as requiring stronger, more ecologically focused land-use planning as well identification of which landholder engagement tools were most effective in order that they could be more widely employed (Darbas et al. 2007; Smith et al. 2007). Effective NRM engagement was understood as at least as important in the context of system as lifeworld, with deliberative hinging with and between local governments and state agencies necessary to foster reflexive learning about the impact of their activities on NRM. In this regard, SEQWC’s local government liaison offer established a local government network that met monthly to coordinate NRM activities, share information and facilitate mutual learning. While the research indicated that agricultural landholders were largely hostile to, and periurban landholders largely unaware of, SEQWC’s NRM plan and investment strategy, increasing social interaction between these lifeworlds was identified by SEQWC and the researchers as an important engagement task. Engagement events (field days) were crafted to include both agricultural and peri-urban landholders and to encourage the reinvigoration the membership of Landcare groups thus building commitment to NRM in both landholder lifeworlds. NRM plan and investment strategy roundtables were also held to connect local engagement practitioners to resources and priority NRM tasks thus deliberatively hinging regional and local engagement practitioners. The regional arrangements have improved NRM engagement in the western catchments of SEQ precisely because the increased number of landholders and landholder orientations under peri-urbanisation makes engagement more complex in both system and lifeworld. The regional body’s re-conceptualisation of engagement emphasises reflexive learning through facilitation of dialogue and coordination. Land-use planning agencies, local engagement practitioners and agricultural and peri-urban landholders are all targeted. SEQWC’s regionally focused liaison officers thus provide multiple deliberative hinges by providing carefully planned forums that convene relevant organisations and individuals, facilitate dialogue with SEQWC and each other, and orient their planning of NRM activities to regional priorities. The following case study, in contrast, yields a fundamentally different picture of the utility of the regional arrangements. These views were expressed by Landcare group members running profitable agricultural enterprises in an area without significant peri-urban pressure.

Case Two: the Brigalow Jimbour Floodplain This case study is based on interviews with members of a well-established Landcare Group centred on the Jimbour and Brigalow floodplains and neighbouring upland areas within the Condamine River catchment. The floodplains are dominated by large cropping enterprises on deep, fertile soils of high water holding capacity. The upland soils are similar but shallower, and the smaller upland properties typically run mixed cropping and grazing enterprises which are less profitable than the floodplain enterprises. This small study was commissioned by the Jimbour-Brigalow Floodplains Group (BJFG) and funded by Condamine Alliance (CA) in order to evaluate the efficacy of the groups’ environmental incentives. 26 in-depth interviews with BJFG’s group members were conducted. These interviewees were randomly sampled from a list of 78 farming households selected to represent a range of enterprise types and degrees of group involvement. This high capacity local group grew out of the floodplain cropping community’s high levels of landholder motivation to improve management of floodwater and soil health in order to sustain the profitability of cropping. The regional arrangements meant that NLP funding for BJFG was now subject to CA’s discretion in terms of the ecological prioritisation of funds. The evaluation highlighted both the effectiveness of BJFG engagement techniques and their limited ecological value.

Seeing engagement practitioners as deliberative hinges to improve landholder engagement

Social capital construction was the key to BJFG’s engagement success. Although they were not asked about social well being, half of the interviewees attributed improved community interaction to BJFG specifically and Landcare generally. The need to facilitate social interaction was due to the district’s depopulation caused by rural readjustment, namely the absorption of unprofitable small properties by larger scale enterprises. Where rural adjustment in SEQ was fuelling peri-urbanisation that was effectively decommissioning agricultural communities, on the floodplains the landholder community was merely reduced. The social gatherings organised by BJFG mitigated the sense of social isolation that resulted when: ‘the little local dozen farms along this one road disappeared’ (Hochman et al. 2005 p.16). The canniness of BJFG’s investment in social capital is revealed by the emphasis interviewees placed on farming peers as their foremost point of reference for consideration of new practices (Hochman et al. 2005 p. 15). Informal BJFG gatherings were described as conducive to building camaraderie, question asking, learning and cooperative problem solving (Hochman et al. 2005 p. 16). The Landcare group’s engagement practitioner (coordinator) dovetailed with the community’s do it yourself ethos by being careful not to ‘force opinions on anyone’ and responding to local priorities rather than being ‘hobbled by the limitations of working within a government agency type situation’. This practitioner was highly valued for offering a rapid, locally attuned extension service. An experienced local farmer, he was viewed as skilled at connecting farmers to financial resources by reducing the distance and paperwork involved: ‘He knows how to organise … how to get funds, how to work the system’ (Hochman et al. 2005 pp. 20–21). The interviewees’ aspirations for their enterprises were agri-environmental in that they desired to improve their environmental performance by reducing use of expensive chemical and fertiliser inputs (Hochman et al. 2005 pp.12–14). At the time of evaluation, the incentives emphasised stewardship of soil, the most common incentive used being partial subsidisation of machinery conversion to support shifts to a minimum/zero till farming system. 21 However, interviewees also praised upcoming spray equipment management workshops and subsidies, anticipating that the training would result in both a reduction in their herbicide use and decreased disputes between neighbours over spray drift. Although highly supportive of the incentives in general, interviewees commented that the incentives favoured larger cropping enterprises who could afford to match the funding dollar for dollar. 22 Livestock and mixed livestock/cropping operators located in upland (non-floodplain) areas were not making extensive use of the incentives (Hochman et al. 2005 pp.18–19). This situation is problematic for the Condamine Alliance which had located the most pressing NRM problems as occurring in the less profitable upland areas as well as the peri-urbanising areas around the regional centre of Toowoomba and along the scenic rim. Asked what they knew about CA, 12 interviewees answered, ‘not a lot’. The remaining interviewees commented that the added layer of accountability had slowed the flow of funds for on-ground works. From these landholders’ point of view the regional arrangements had diluted the availability of funds for on-ground work without adding any value to the Landcare movements’ achievements (Hochman et al. 2005 pp. 22–23). These farmers were highly dependent on their engagement practitioner to translate the NRM policy system into local terms: socially (building social capital); economically (integrated agri-environmental advice) and personally (assistance with applications). Reflexivity towards regional ecological priorities was low in this community and the social capacity garnered under the Landcare Program did not match the ecological degradation at issue in the Condamine catchment. CA managers were consequently focused on how best to generalise the engagement successes of higher capacity groups such as BJFG so as to galvanise NRM volunteer effort in more degraded areas. In this case no deliberative hinge has been established between the NRM body and one of its landholder lifeworlds. Specifically, despite this engagement practitioners’ considerable skill

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in using social networks to extend information and funding to landholders, the techniques have not resulted in any reflexive learning by the NRM body about engagement techniques that could facilitate their transference to higher priority areas of the catchment. Consequently, the reduction and disruption in NRM funding is not compensated for by reflexive learning either in the system about how to galvanise landholders or in the lifeworld about the importance of regional ecological priorities.

Case Three: the Queensland Murray Darling The third case study was commissioned by the Queensland Government and conducted in partnership with the Queensland Murray Darling Committee (QMDC). Adjacent to the Condamine River catchment, the catchment forms the headwaters of the Murray–Darling Rivers. The region is dominated by grazing and cropping enterprises, however, peri-urbanisation of the region’s horticultural south-easterly corner is occurring due to this ‘Granite Belt’s’ scenic attributes. The region enjoys a strong Landcare presence which QMDC has relied upon to progress their objectives. The project asked how social networks influence adoption of NRM practises in order to explore the potential of using landholder groups to facilitate adoption of Environmental Management Systems (EMS).23 Interviews were conducted with six engagement practitioners (Landcare coordinators) in the first stage of research. 24 29 members of the landholder groups they facilitated were interviewed in the second round of research. The sample included grazing, cropping and horticultural enterprises, 10 of whom were undertaking an EMS. QMDC uses the region’s Landcare network as the vehicle to achieve ecological goals by converting existing Landcare groups into sub-catchment planning groups. However, the constitution of groups is negotiable. Groups could remain in their Landcare format if they wished or convene on an alternate basis without losing their paid facilitator. 25 The responsibilities of these engagement practitioners (still called Landcare coordinators) are ensured through a contract between QMDC and the two Landcare Committees in the region) that specifies that 75% of the coordinators’ time will be spent facilitating sub-catchment planning. QMDC also regularly pulls the practitioners together as group to ensure they share their learnings and sharpen their facilitation skills. Sub-catchment planning involves landholders within a defined sub-catchment area pooling information to map the areas’ environmental problems and using their plan to apply for funding to address them. Sub-catchment planning is used to devolve funds, provide information and build farmer capacity to ‘work together to identify their problems and come up with solutions’. This arrangement was viewed by the practitioner interviewees as clear: ‘you know where you stand’. The interviewees viewed the support of QMDC’s regionally available technical staff as indispensable to the sub-catchment planning process. Access to specialised knowledge (regarding vegetation, grasslands, riparian, wetlands, salinity, water quality, GIS, weeds and pests) facilitated the integration of scientific and local knowledge and ‘made our job ten times easier’. According to these practitioners, the sub-catchment planning process was successfully increasing the catchment of volunteer NRM effort by establishing new groups and reinvigorating existing groups (Darbas and Jakku 2005(a) pp. 6–7). In contrast to the Jimbour-Brigalow farmers, most (26) of the landholders interviewees expressed their agri-environmental ambitions in terms of stewardship of the resources underpinning production and the desire to pass their properties on in better condition than they received them (Darbas and Jakku 2005(b) pp. 17–18). Government regulation, drought, limited finances and rural readjustment were nominated by interviewees as barriers to achieving these goals (Darbas and Jakku 2005(b) pp. 18–22). Of the 19 interviewees who discussed property planning as a progressively staged means of achieving agri-environmental goals, 13

Seeing engagement practitioners as deliberative hinges to improve landholder engagement

had a property plan as a result of QMDC’s sub-catchment planning process (Darbas and Jakku 2005(b) pp. 23–24). 12 out of the 29 interviewees spoke at length about the importance of agri-environmental learning to improving land health and profitability. Most of the learning they nominated took place in QMDC funded group processes. The advantages of group participation were nominated as: sharing knowledge; accessing information and expertise; excellent facilitation; networking with people with a common interest in NRM; accessing subsidies for NRM works; comparative benchmarking and learning from looking past the farm boundary (Darbas and Jakku 2005(b) pp. 31–32). Awareness of their regional body was much higher (23 out of 29 interviewees) than among the BJFG interviewees. Around half of these interviewees were supportive of QMDC, particularly the competence and flexibility of QMDC staff toward landholders. The other half commented that QMDC is, or could be, excessively bureaucratic. As in the Jimbour-Brigalow, some cynicism was expressed about the transaction costs of new NRM policy settings: ‘I just see there’s another layer of bureaucracy, another layer of meeting chasers … I’ve seen what money comes out of Canberra and I’ve seen what gets to here, and there is a dirty big hole somewhere in between’ (Darbas and Jakku 2005(b) pp. 33–34). However, QMDC’s stewardship of the Landcare brand functioned to maintain space for dialogue between the regional system and landholder lifeworlds. Being viewed locally as Landcare staff allowed the engagement practitioners to distance themselves from negativity associated with QMDC’s status as a ‘government organisation’ while still pursuing ecological goals in conjunction with landholders. NRM in the Queensland Murray–Darling, as in the western catchments of SEQ, has been improved by regionalisation. QMDC’s engagement practitioners (Landcare and technical officers) function as deliberative hinges by participating in both the landholders’ lifeworld and the administrative system of QMDC and translating the priorities of each to the opposite party. QMDC demonstrates reflexive learning regarding which engagement techniques best harness landholder motivations by convening forums to facilitate learning between engagement practitioners and by building on the Landcare’s achievements in group facilitation with sub-catchment planning. Conversely the landholders are reflexively learning how to integrate NRM with the tradition of family farming by building upon the notion of land stewardship.

Discussion The aim of this chapter has been to query whether engagement practice has in fact been improved by the new regional NRM arrangements. An interpretive scheme was used to distinguish between system and lifeworld and thus highlight the role of engagement practitioners as deliberative hinges between system and lifeworld with the capacity to facilitate reflexive learning in both domains. Sub-questions included: what is the utility of existing engagement practitioners such as Landcare group facilitators; what new engagement practitioners are required and what tasks they should address; and whether engagement practitioners should be episodically funded or continuously employed by NRM bodies. The case study material indicates that regionalisation has improved NRM engagement in the western catchments of SEQ and the Queensland Murray–Darling but not in the Condamine region. All three cases demonstrate that NLP’s legitimacy with agricultural landholders does not automatically accrue to regional bodies just because of they possess funding power. Rather, significant numbers of the practitioners and landholders interviewed indicated that the regional arrangements disrupted and diluted funding for on-ground works. Regionalisation is successful in the western catchments of SEQ and the Queensland Murray–Darling because it has added value. Value has been added by a coordination hub oiled by liaison officers in the case of SEQWC, and facilitated peer-based planning backed up with technical expertise

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in the case of QMDC. In both cases the efforts of local NRM engagement practitioners such as Landcare coordinators are enriched by regional engagement practitioners that strengthen the deliberative hinging of NRM administration systems with other relevant organisations and landholder lifeworlds. These cases indicate that the utility of existing engagement practitioners such as Landcare officers in regionalised NRM arrangements is indeed high but that local engagement can be strengthened by additional regionally focused engagement practitioners. The intensity of peri-urbanisation is clearly a variable in the successfulness of regionalised engagement. The lack of evidence that regionalisation has improved engagement in the case of the in the Condamine may well be because peri-urbanisation is neither dominant nor unimportant making a clear engagement strategy difficult to formulate. Regional bodies such as QMDC can afford to invest heavily in peer based group learning because the numbers and varieties of landholders to engage are limited while the catchment of natural resources so garnered is large. The enlarged scale of agricultural properties and emphasis on continuous adoption of innovations in order to maintain profitability resulting from rural readjustment increases the relevance of the NLP’s engagement techniques. Maintaining Landcare groups by converting them to sub-catchment planning groups has the advantage of harnessing the NLP’s legitimacy with agricultural landholders and unobtrusive engagement of such landholders at a socially meaningful scale. These conditions do not hold under conditions of widespread peri-urbanisation. Periurbanisation increases the number of landholders to engage, the variety of landholder motivations relevant to NRM as well as the variety of land uses at issue, while decreasing the physical catchment of natural resources achieved with engagement. Under conditions of peri-urbanisation, the ecological threats do not match the capacity derived from NLP’s agri-environmental emphasis. Peri-urbanisation entails the fragmentation and pluralisation of landholder communities along with the fragmentation and degradation of the landscapes in which they reside. Peri-urban ‘communities’ are lifeworlds under construction and do not exhibit unifying norms that can be oriented towards land management or longstanding patterns of trust and reciprocity supportive of peer based NRM learning for NRM bodies to draw upon. As the SEQWC demonstrates, peri-urbanisation requires a re-conceptualisation of engagement to include the public organisations controlling, and private organisations implicated in, land-use planning.26 This social-ecological goal can be met with land-use controls that configure subdivisions of farms so as to prevent the disconnection and simplification of remnant vegetation communities and direct new residents towards stewardship of those assets. Examples here include growth boundaries, restriction of subdivisions to relictual (cleared) land, the use of group rather than individual land titles and transferable (permanent) environmental covenants (Buxton et al. 2006).27 In both peri-urban and agricultural contexts, engagement practitioners are indispensible to the crafting of deliberative hinges capable of facilitating reflexive learning in both system and lifeworld domains. Despite the structural significance of their positions, engagement practitioners complain that their employment is insecure and poorly paid (Darbas and Jakku 2005(a) pp. 7–8; Smith et al. 2007 pp. 17–20) and that opportunities to strengthen their professional skill by discussing engagement techniques are rare (Smith et al. 2007 pp. 49–51). Obviously, public monies are limited in the face of the extent and long-term nature of environmental degradation. However, recurrent rather than episodic funding that supports not only the concrete work of engagement but also the re-conceptualisation of engagement tasks and the professional development of engagement practitioners is an indispensible means to the ends of improving the condition of natural resources. A ‘bang for buck’ rationale for the regional arrangements elides the need to construct agreement regarding a program for NRM action in each NRM region with a broader range of organisational and landholder stakeholders. Seeing this deliberative and reflexive task clearly highlights the pivotal role of engagement.

Seeing engagement practitioners as deliberative hinges to improve landholder engagement

Acknowledgements We would like to thank Neal Dalgliesh and Cristine Hall of CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems who undertook interviewing in two of the case studies. Thanks are due also to two anonymous reviewers whose comments have resulted in a much improved text. Funding sources (cash and in-kind): ●

●

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Brigalow-Jimbour Floodplain Group (via the Condamine Alliance) and CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems; The Queensland Agricultural State Investment Plan, South East Queensland Western Catchments Group and CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, and The Queensland Socio-economic State Investment Plan, Queensland Murray Darling Committee and CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems.

Endnotes 1 Early reports are not particularly encouraging as to the coherence of this assumption (Lane and Corbett, 2005, Lane and McDonald, 2005, and Robins and Dovers, 2007). 2 The full findings are documented in six reports and a conference paper (Darbas and Jakku 2005(a); Darbas and Jakku 2005(b); Darbas et al. 2007; Hochman et al. 2005; Smith et al. 2005(a); Smith et al. 2005 (b); and Smith et al. 2007). 3 The projects were all funded by the NAP money. 4 The SEQC plan is more informative than the SEQWC plan on this issue. These initially separate bodies were merged in 2007, a complication that is not discussed in this chapter. 5 By post-production we mean land uses that are orientated towards consumption of rural amenity rather than land uses devoted to agricultural production that generate the main source of household income. The term conurbation arose out of the discipline of geography to describe a metropolitan area resulting from the merging of originally separate urban centres. 6 Simplification of vegetation communities typically occurs when the shrub understory of trees is removed and practices such as mowing and intensive grazing prohibit the regeneration of either the understory or tree species. Disconnection refers to the progressive isolation of bush patches from each other due to increased infrastructure and clearing that makes maintenance or increase of fauna and flora populations less probable. 7 Although income subsidies are provided in the form of drought relief, criticism is building that drought relief undermines effective NRM (Morrisey 1997). 8 Practices listed by Byron et al. (2004 p. 10) in a QMDC landholder survey report. 9 Understanding the social symbolism of farmer behaviour is fundamental to the ability to insert NRM ideas into landholder communities in a non-abrasive manner (see Burton 2004). 10 The term ‘country’ was used by an engagement practitioner interviewee in the context of the western catchments of south-east Queensland (Smith et al. 2005 p. 22) and is derived from indigenous Australia. 11 See Wissemann et al. 2003 for an insider’s description of departmental restructuring according to new policy imperatives in Queensland’s Department of Primary Industries. 12 The fact that in multicultural societies many languages are used in social interactions contributes to the difficulty of agreeing on what in everyone’s interest and therefore what would form an appropriate program of action. 13 This issue is discussed in more depth in a case study of truncated reflexivity regarding the Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment Management Trust (Darbas 2008). 14 The term seam is borrowed from Habermas (1996) who argued that statutory law lies at the seam between system (politics and economy coordinated by formal power and money) and

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lifeworld (lived social worlds coordinated by communication). This understanding of engagement practitioners is indebted to European agri-environmental papers employing the term ‘street-level bureaucrats’ (Juntti and Potter, 2002; Wilson and Hart, 2001). It is important to note that traditionally engagement practitioner positions (extension officers) were understood as provision of a one-way conduit for the extension of agricultural innovations designed to increase production and thus promoted conformity rather than reflexive learning. In the first round of research, the region’s engagement practitioners were interviewed in a review of engagement practice. This was followed by interviews with industry, Landcare and community group members regarding their NRM motivations and engagement preferences. Finally evaluations of 20 engagement events were undertaken. Among the events evaluated were two land-use planning workshops and a benchmarking engagement practice workshop held by the two project teams. These organisations included SEQWC itself, SEQ Water; 10 local governments; State government agencies, peak agricultural industry groups; Landcare and catchment groups; and regional universities. One engagement practitioner described a disastrous effort to engage agricultural landholders over Local Government role in implementing the Queensland Native Vegetation Act which provoked a counter campaign against this legislative ‘assault against property rights’ (Smith et al. 2005 pp. 32–33). This rise in complaints emerged as a discussion point at Planner Day Workshops held by the sister project teams (Darbas et al. 2007 p. 54) For example, one local government relied on its local catchment centre to undertake environmental assessment of development applications. Without catchment centre funding, environmental assessment ceased (Smith et al. 2005 p. 22). Some of these local engagement practitioners took positions as SEQWC liaison officers. A system that maximises soil cover with crop stubble so as to improve soil structure and water storage capacity by replacing the management of weeds by tillage with herbicides. Minimum/zero till is now so widely adopted that tillage was described by the interviewees as ‘recreational’. Most interviewees (19 of 29) supported the incentives because they increased economic viability, and thus motivation, to undertake works to address environmental problems on their properties (Hochman et al. 2005 pp. 12–13). EMS is a procedural ‘plan, do, review’ management cycle that, at its most formal, complies with the International Standards Organisation’s EMS specifications (ISO 14001). This sample was out of a total of eight practitioners. Two refused to be interviewed on the basis that they were too new in their positions to have anything useful to communicate. The youth, inexperience and high turnover rates of the practitioners were identified as problems for QMDC (Darbas and Jakku 2005(a) pp. 7–8). Examples include weed infestation, organic and industry groups (Darbas and Jakku 2005(a) pp. 8–9). These public institutions include local governments, the Local Government Association of Queensland, and the Queensland Department of Planning. Private organisations include housing development companies such as Lendlease. A growth boundary has now been adopted in SEQ (England 2007). These land use control mechanisms were nominated and discussed at Planners Workshops held by the peri-urban ecology and engagement project teams (Darbas et al. 2007 p. 54).

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Community engagement in natural resource management: experiences from the Natural Heritage Trust Phase 2 Megan Farrelly

Introduction There has been growing worldwide interest in regional-scale, community-based environmental planning and management which can be attributed to the widespread acceptance of the need for sustainable development, and the increasing demand for public involvement in decision-making processes (e.g. Shaw and Kidd 2001; Carr 2002). Indeed, over the last few decades the boundaries between government and civil society have become blurred, reflecting a shift from away from the traditional notion of government towards a governance approach, which embraces participatory decision-making (e.g. Cheshire et al. 2007). In Australia, the transformation to a governance approach can be traced through the evolution of federal funding initiatives, from the National Landcare Program, to the Natural Heritage Trust (NHT) and more recently, ‘Caring for our Country’. The Federal Government has long chosen to support voluntary approaches and to encourage attitudinal change for pressing land and water management issues, over ‘command-control’ regulations and legislation (Ewing 2000). Since the early inception of local farmer groups to collectively tackle soil conservation and rural land degradation in the 1980s (see Bradsen 2000), a great number of local environmental and natural resource management groups have formed to undertake on-ground action, traditionally with the support of State agency extension officers, group coordinators and local governments (Lockie and Vanclay 1997; Conacher and Conacher 2000; Curtis 2003). In 1999, a national discussion paper on future policy directions for Australian rural natural resource management suggested devolving funds and authority to regional groups, with communities and government working in partnership to plan, negotiate, implement and monitor regional activities (NRMMC 1999). In 2000, the Australian Government announced the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality which aimed to, ‘motivate and enable regional communities to use coordinated and targeted action to prevent, stabilise and reverse trends in dryland salinity’ (ANAO 2004 p. 27). Program delivery required the formation of regional, community-based groups to develop and implement nationally accredited regional plans and nationally approved investment strategies. In May 2002, it was announced the NHT extension (NHT2), would also adopt regional delivery mechanisms (Environment Australia 2003). 129

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The NHT2 regional delivery model provided a unique background to examine the appropriateness of the decentralised, participatory approach to integrated, environmental and natural resource planning and management in Australia. An emphasis of the NHT2 was on ‘regional empowerment and ownership through integrated regional planning’ (NHT2 2002) and the devolution of decision-making powers to the regional scale was an attempt to achieve integration (Abrahams 2005). This provided an excellent opportunity to examine the NHT2 governance approach. This chapter draws from research undertaken between 2002 and 2005, and presents one component of a larger research project (see Farrelly unpublished). Focusing on a Western Australian NHT2-delimited region, the outcomes of 36 semi-structured interviews based on the experiences of stakeholders involved in creating an NHT2-required, regional NRM strategy. Stakeholders interviewed included representatives from government agencies (Federal, State and local), regional NHT2 group members and local community group members. First, a brief overview of natural resource management (NRM) in Western Australia is presented, followed by a short description of the northern agricultural region. The next section is framed using the planning processes involved in creating an NHT2 regional NRM strategy, and discusses the key regional environmental and natural resource management decision-making opportunities. This includes the formation and representativeness of the regional NRM group and the opportunities for stakeholder engagement. Finally, the case study material is reviewed in the context of the regional environmental governance approach adopted by the Federal Government in association with regional community members, and highlights the difficulty inherent in promoting decentralisation without providing the necessary support. This chapter represents one of three case studies undertaken by the author, other insights drawing from this research have been documented elsewhere (Farrelly 2005; Farrelly unpublished).

Natural resource management in Western Australia Natural Resource Management (NRM) in Australia is a state responsibility. In Western Australia (WA) natural resources are managed by several departments, all with different regional boundaries, but they typically coordinate on a range of projects and issues. There are six NHT2-required, community-based regional NRM groups in WA. Each one is recognised by the State Government as having responsibility for strategic NRM planning following the signing of a memorandum of understanding. However, unlike regional groups in Victoria or South Australia, regional groups in WA do not have statutory backing. The Department of Agriculture is the lead coordinating agency in the northern agricultural region and was assigned to provide technical support and advice, though other relevant agencies (i.e. Department of Environment) also contribute. It is the responsibility of these lead agencies to ensure regional groups have the skills and capacity to carry out their roles (Auditor-General of Western Australia 2004). The State-based NRM Council operates from the Department of Agriculture’s offices and aims to conserve and sustain the State’s natural resources through partnerships and provides advice to the State Government on NRM issues. While the State Government retains the ultimate responsibility for the quality of the State’s natural resources, it remains heavily reliant on local and sub-regional groups to implement the necessary onground actions for protecting, preventing and/or rehabilitating natural environments. Northern agriculture region The northern agricultural region covers approximately seven million hectares with almost 400 kilometres of coastline (Figure 9.1). The region’s 60 000 residents are predominantly located in the major townsite of Geraldton with the rest of the population spread between smaller coastal

Community engagement in natural resource management: experiences from the NHT2

Figure 9.1

Northern agricultural catchments council region. Source: Farrelly and Conacher (2007)

and rural nodes. There are 17 local government areas, and the region’s economy is based on broadacre agriculture (wheat, cereal, pulse crops), mining, fishing (rock lobster) and tourism. The northern agricultural region is loosely divided into four sub-regions based on natural catchment areas (see Figure 9.1). The sub-regions include the Yarra Yarra, West Midlands, Greenough and Moore River. The northern agriculture region has a number of pressing NRM issues including conflicting agricultural land uses; threatened ecological communities; limited knowledge of coastal and marine systems; declining soil and water quality, and invasive species (Commonwealth of Australia 2005). A number of local and sub-regional groups in the northern agricultural region are attempting to address the numerous environmental and natural resource management issues. Robins and Dovers classify the northern agricultural region as a ‘single engine’, defined as being remote (largely from the NHT Secretariat in Western Australian and Canberra) and with no or poor representation of universities and research centres (Robins and Dovers 2007). The authors argue that these external factors influence the capacity of regional groups to undertake effective natural resource management.

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Regional environmental and natural resource management Formation of a regional NRM group A previous attempt at developing and sustaining a regional coordination group occurred in 1996 which had been hailed a ‘partnership between the rural community groups, government agencies and local government authorities’ (NAIMS 2000). However, following the withdrawal of Department of Agriculture’s support, the group ceased operating. In 2002, following the NHT2 announcement, the group reformed as the Northern Agricultural Catchments Council (NACC). The aims of NACC, set out in the regional strategy, are to conduct sound NRM planning; adopt an asset-based approach; develop sound, logical and practical management actions; link with community aspirations; promote broader understanding in NRM, and coordinate activity throughout the region (NACC 2004). To achieve fair representation across the large region, NACC has delimited four sub-regions and the management committee operates as a federation with two voluntary, community representatives from each sub-region. The committee also has representatives from five State agencies, three other individuals from across the region and an independent, voluntary chairperson. Membership of the group is free and once subscribed to NACC, members have voting rights to appoint community representatives at the annual general meeting. Over $2.5 million of NHT2 funding was allocated to the group in 2002–03 (13% of the State’s total) to help establish the group, undertake priority actions and support facilitators and coordinators (Commonwealth of Australia 2004). Indeed, there were so few existing staff in the region that 45% of the 2002–03 budget went towards employing staff and hiring consultants. Using the typology developed by Ross et al. (2002) for community participation in Australian NRM, NACC represents a ‘composite stakeholder body’ relying on careful composition, trust, good communication and strong relationships with subsidiary groups. There are a number of subsidiary groups operating at different scales in the region. For example, there are four formalised sub-regional groups (Moore River, Yarra Yarra, West Midlands and Greenough) and numerous local groups. The Moore River and Yarra Yarra sub-regions have wellestablished community groups, formed during the mid- to late-1990s to develop strategies to encourage integrated catchment management. On the other hand, the West Midlands subregional group only formed in 2000 and a Greenough sub-regional NRM advisory panel was created in 2005. These sub-regional groups act as a coordinating mechanism for local groups’ who are typically relied upon, along with local community groups, to implement regional priorities. At the local scale, there are several active land district conservation committees; some have renewed themselves as integrated groups like the Mingenew–Irwin Group, although most remain inactive. Overall, NACC was broadly considered to be representative of the regional community, although many remained sceptical, suggesting certain individuals were too parochial and would have trouble thinking beyond their local patch. Also, concern was expressed over the lack of confidence in NACC’s abilities to manage the region given its size, diversity of people, industries, land uses, and production value. Many local respondents failed to see the relevance of NACC and perceived the group as simply another layer of bureaucracy, an unnecessary administrative expense. Interestingly, concerns were also raised around the loss of expertise from the local community groups as key leaders were drawn into the ‘bigger picture’ focus of regional groups. Despite concerns over the group’s relevance, respondents believed that managing the environment at a regional scale would encourage more strategic and coordinated management, better interconnections and interactions with stakeholders, and provide a more holistic view of the region. However, many remained unconvinced the new initiative

Community engagement in natural resource management: experiences from the NHT2

would lead to improvements on-ground, suggesting a larger role for local community groups was required, particularly as such groups were perceived as ‘implementers’ for ‘delivering outcomes’. Creating a regional NRM strategy NACC was charged with coordinating the production of the regional NRM strategy. Guidance, funding and support were provided by the Commonwealth, with financial, in-kind and technical support from the State Government. There was widespread recognition amongst respondents that the capacity of NACC to develop and implement the regional strategy was limited. Prior to regional investment there were few staff or local-level coordinators, and it was considered difficult to attract and retain staff for any length of time. With foundation funding the capacity of the region to create a regional strategy increased dramatically. 1 As was pointed out by one respondent: NACC had something like [a] maximum of four to six [Landcare coordinators] in any one year. When we came to this new phase … NACC went in strategically and said this is how we want to set this up … and we now have three or four times as many people. Rather than focus on strategically building the internal capacity of NACC to develop a regional strategy, the group hired a strategy coordinator to compile technical information and write the document and a strategy facilitator was also contracted to undertake the community engagement process and to act as communications facilitator. This reflected the short time frames imposed on regional NRM groups by Governments to compile their regional strategies. Adding to the challenge was the limited baseline data for NACC to build from. To support NACC, regional NRM officers were employed to help collect, collate and synthesise technical information on matters such as biodiversity and water, land, coastal and marine environments, and local NRM officers were hired to engage with local communities therefore providing a two-way channel for information and to connect local community groups to NACC. Despite this support, getting underway proved difficult and those involved spoke negatively about the process. For example, there were significant delays in the Commonwealth agencies providing information pertinent to developing the regional strategy and yet, soon after receiving this information it had become obsolete as the Federal requirements changed. This created a sense of instability within the regional group, creating a perception amongst respondents that the NACC was struggling with a ‘messy process’. Furthermore, information delays led to time constraints being placed on other aspects of regional planning, most noticeably the community engagement process. Indeed, the regional community group members found it difficult trying to reconcile the tensions between keeping the planning process open and transparent for community member, while adhering to the direction of the Federal Government. However, it was also pointed out by State respondents that there was limited capacity within the regional group to comply with Federal Government requirements without agency support. Building the requisite legitimacy of NACC for the regional community was high on their priorities. However, NACC’s management committee made an interesting decision to ignore any pre-existing strategies or sub-regional plans when developing the current regional strategy. This decision was based on the perception that previous strategies involved limited community engagement, and that the strategies were fundamentally different from the Federal Government requirements. Furthermore, using these existing strategies was also perceived as being ‘too political’ due to tension amongst sub-regional groups (due largely to the varying success in winning government grants). Conversely, representatives who had been involved in developing the earlier version of the current NACC strategy indicated the process had been

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Figure 9.2

Process of creating the NACC regional NRM strategy. Source: Farrelly and Conacher (2007)

excellent, involving many local residents, but they also acknowledged the lack of implementation which they attributed to insufficient resources (human and financial). NACC agreed upon a highly structured process to develop the regional NRM strategy, but one that involved establishing a range of innovative activities to engage individuals throughout the region (NACC 2004). Figure 9.2 outlines the various stages in developing the regional NRM strategy, indicating the various stages and stakeholders involved. Key NRM leaders identified by NACC members were interviewed to determine NRM drivers, blockers and aspirations, and community leaders formulated a vision for the region: ‘aspire to be part of a vibrant community in a diversified economy with a healthy environment’ (NACC 2004). The aims of the strategy are to ‘provide scientifically sound but practical on-ground actions to enhance our resource condition’ and to meet objectives in line with Commonwealth, State and regional

Community engagement in natural resource management: experiences from the NHT2

Table 9.1 Avenues for stakeholder input into the development of the regional NRM strategy for NACC (Source: Farrelly and Conacher 2007) Process

Avenue for stakeholder input into the strategy

Review existing plans and strategies

No direct input, built on original draft regional NRM strategy

Engage stakeholders and broader community

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Interviews with NRM, community leaders Photolanguage project [8]a Bus-trips to share ‘whole of region’ perspective ‘Your View MATters’ workshops [53] ‘You Decide’ workshops [4]b Local vermin hunt [1]c Local government meetings [4] Indigenous meetings [4] Public comment period (a) Public meetings for comment on strategy [6]

Notes: a. The photolanguage project was run throughout the sub-regions encouraging individuals to describe their land management practices through a visual medium. b. This workshop was designed primarily to help define the priorities for the investment plan, but also assisted in developing the regional NRM strategy. c. The local vermin hunt was held in one sub-region to highlight the problems of invasive species. [n] indicates the number of workshops held.

priorities. An asset-based approach was used. Assets were defined as, ‘anything we value that is based on our local natural resources or which is impacted on by management, or neglect, of these resources’ (NACC 2004). Regional NRM officers collected, collated and synthesised the relevant information for each asset. It is important to note the considerable paucity of baseline information in the region for each of the assets identified, thus considerable work was required to develop an understanding of the region. In comparison to regional groups which applied a multi-criteria analysis approach (see Hajkowicz 2007; 2008), NACC used an asset-based methodology largely designed by the community engagement consultant in collaboration with the regional group members. Regional targets were identified using a variety of approaches, including bus tours, photolanguage projects and regional workshops (Table 9.1) to ensure everyone had an opportunity for input. 2 Over 1000 management actions were identified by stakeholders through these processes. Following a review of their scientific validity, the targets were ranked and used during ‘You Decide’ workshops with the community to identify priority areas for funding. The process outlined in Figure 9.2 was undertaken over four to five months and resulted in many of the regional strategy team feeling ‘burnt out’. The time demands on those involved were intense; the regional strategy facilitator indicated that at least 13 months would normally be required to obtain meaningful participation from all stakeholders. Similarly, the time demands made of volunteer community regional group members was great; they were required to attend numerous meetings/workshops across the region in addition to holding down their own employment. The strategy was reviewed by a State assessment panel and, following revision, was launched for public comment over a six-week period. While public submissions were considered, how the feedback was incorporated into the revised strategy, if at all, remains unclear. Accreditation was achieved and the document launched in October 2005, eight months after receiving a letter from the joint steering committee supporting accreditation. 3 To implement the actions detailed in the regional strategy, NACC was required to seek funding from the NHT2 by preparing an investment plan to be approved by the joint steering committee. An Investment and Program Coordinator (different from the regional strategy

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coordinator) was employed to assist in sorting and assessing project proposals. The ‘You Decide’ workshops determined where the community would preferentially invest funds (Figure 9.2) by providing community stakeholders with ‘50 resource units’ to allocate to the ranked targets. Due to poor timing, the workshops coincided with seeding for many farmers and consequently few locals attended in the farming areas. Eventually the community priorities were packaged into 14 programs and an ‘expression of interest’ call was made to community groups to submit project proposals based on one or more of the listed programs. Project submissions were made in the absence of supporting documentation to assist groups in preparing strategic project proposals that specifically addressed the various target hierarchies. Indeed, the quality of submissions was of concern; they lacked specificity and were akin to NHT projects in their scope. Key individuals involved expected to lose the goodwill fostered in the community over the course of developing the regional strategy. This was attributed to the lack of information and the limited feedback available for proponents regarding the status of their proposal. The investment plan was eventually submitted in late February 2005 for approval. Eight months later the plan was accredited and launched alongside the regional NRM strategy, with a budget of $8.05 million. Stakeholder Involvement NACC was determined that in developing the regional strategy, they would take an explicit ‘bottom-up’ approach and involve the community extensively. By engaging the community early, NACC considered they would be building a foundation for the ongoing relationship with regional stakeholders. A range of both passive and active mechanisms for stakeholder engagement were adopted. For example, passive communication involved print and radio media, letters and brochures; whereas multiple, active communication approaches (Table 9.1) were used to engage the community and to maintain their interest throughout the time required to prepare the strategy. However, despite their best efforts, the NACC found it difficult to obtain a balance between informing and overloading the community with too much information. For example, while respondents regarded their involvement in the variety of engagement processes as worthwhile, they also found it difficult justifying the time required to attend all the meetings: ‘by the fourth meeting I just couldn’t justify the time any more’. Overall, despite the extensive engagement of community in decision-making processes, NACC was perceived to focus more on finalising the regional strategy than ensuring local groups were active and contributing to regional outcomes. This reflects the top-down agenda of the Australian Government rather than addressing the needs of regional community members (Robins 2007). Furthermore, during the course of interviews, stakeholders also questioned the inherent complexity and legitimacy of the prioritisation process (‘You Decide’ workshops, Table 9.1). For example, one respondent failed to reconcile how they personally could prioritise activity in an area they knew very little about: … how does one make a judgement call on something of which I have no information on nor am I acquainted with the topic … How is it a fair and equitable process to get someone who is uninformed and unfamiliar with a situation to rank its significance to the region? Surprisingly, despite predominantly positive comments regarding the engagement process, only one respondent indicated they would ‘own’ or adopt this document once it was accredited. Other respondents were content with their local group’s current operation and felt it unnecessary to adopt the objectives of the regional strategy. The only fundamental impact the regional strategy would have on the local group would be to change the language used in applying for future funding.

Community engagement in natural resource management: experiences from the NHT2

State and local government involvement State agencies and local government councillors were represented on the NACC, while regional NRM officers were co-located in State agency offices. This allowed for interaction within host agencies to locate and access technical information required by NACC and the NRM community. In addition, some of the 13 local NRM officers were provided office space in local government offices; this allowed for better connections to the local communities they service. State agency representatives assisted in interpreting the Australian government’s requirements and produced guidelines to assist regional groups in the accreditation of their regional NRM strategies. While relevant NRM agencies were involved with regional groups, the State planning agencies were notably absent. Although good working relationships were experienced, many State agency representatives had difficulty understanding the process of community engagement and there were problems reconciling community and State agencies’ wants and needs. Furthermore, agencies were apparently ‘horrified’ that community groups would be handling so much money and this in turn generated an antagonistic attitude towards the Federal Government and the entire regional process. Local governments have historically been involved by providing key administrative infrastructure for local Landcare coordinators and through sponsorship of Envirofund applications. NACC also had Councillors from various local government offices as members of the regional group. Despite local government officers being invited to all meetings and workshops most chose not to attend. Notwithstanding the value and purpose of NACC, limited involvement by local government organisations was a result of insufficient time, resources and staff, a common issue in Australia (e.g. Wright 1995; Wild River 2003).

Discussion The NHT2 is an ambitious attempt at enacting a regional governance approach to environmental and natural resource management through integrating and coordinating the onground efforts of many local community groups to achieve strategic and targeted outcomes. The NACC case study demonstrates the complexity of implementing centralised government policy at heterogeneous subsidiary scales. While the regional scale is supported as a middleground approach (Carr 2002), there remain inevitable tensions between being locally relevant yet regionally focused (Ewing 2003; Lockwood et al. 2007). Such a shift was always bound to attract some criticism, particularly at the local scale. Historically, Australian Governments’ funding initiatives have supported and nurtured the development and operation of many local-scale environmental community groups, particularly Landcare groups (see Curtis 2003). While regional-scale delivery was considered an appropriate platform for localising and implementing national policy, respondents called for further devolution of decision-making roles to subsidiary levels, more on-ground action and reduced levels of bureaucracy. Those who support decentralisation often quote the principle of subsidiarity (decision-making devolved to the lowest level at which it can be effectively managed) (e.g. Ewing 1999; Lane et al. 2004), whereas detractors suggest it is a process for governments to abdicate their environmental responsibilities (e.g. Martin et al. 1992; Gomez-Fort et al. 1997; Kenney 1999). The devolution of authority to regional groups has fuelled the inevitable hierarchical tensions between the States and Commonwealth and the States and regional groups. Rather than simply stating the roles and relationships in bilateral agreements, there is a need for further emphasis and explanation regarding stakeholders’ expectations, roles and responsibilities and their interdependencies emphasised. Although regional, community-based groups have the autonomy to guide the development and implementation of a regional plan and investment strategy, questions have been raised

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regarding the level of decision-making afforded to regional NHT2 groups (Paton et al. 2004). A true governance approach requires shared decision-making; indeed decentralisation is meant to be the antithesis of ‘command-control’. Yet State and Federal agency representatives were far from relinquishing control, and both played a large role in determining the direction of regional strategies. Although supporting the governance approach through the NHT2, the Federal and State governments often remain reluctant to surrender the necessary power, authority and consequently the ability to influence change, which should ultimately be devolved to and/or shared with regional groups (Pearce et al. 2004; Warner 2006). This has been aptly described as a tension between democracy and technocracy, where technical and scientific information is preferred over local knowledge (Lane et al. 2004a). At the same time, the capacity of such groups to undertake comprehensive regional planning must be questioned (Robins 2007). Inclusiveness Regional groups and their Boards must be considered legitimate by the communities they represent, yet concerns were raised regarding parochial and patch-protecting members who lack necessary skills to carry out their roles. While skilled and experienced people are necessary, considerations of spatial distribution and personal motivations also need to be included. Often the motivating reason for a community member to become involved is a local issue, therefore disregarding his/her local ‘patch’ to focus on region-wide issues is difficult. Also, ‘local elites’ or ‘charismatic individuals’ can inhibit representatives from expressing their opinions (Lane et al. 2004a), thus greater awareness of political, local-social relations is needed when appointing members (Mahanty and Russell 2002; Lane and McDonald 2005). Indeed, is comprehensive representation necessary? How can domination of the regional agenda by one individual (or groups of individuals) be avoided? This is complex, for broad stakeholder representation can both improve and hinder group processes and effectiveness (Leach and Pelkey 2001). Too many interests can lead to increased conflict and protracted discussions. While some tension can promote dialogue, increased dissent may result in a stalemate or limited implementation. How then can regional groups overcome the inherent problems of representing the community? If group numbers are restricted then it is incumbent upon the representatives to regularly canvass communities (they supposedly represent) for their viewpoints. Perhaps the period of time individuals are appointed to groups could be reduced, thus generating a faster turnover and incorporating fresh perspectives. However, greater turnover could result in a shortage of voluntary community leaders prepared to make the commitment required by regional groups, particularly if Australia is approaching the limits of volunteerism in NRM (Curtis 2000; 2003). Subsidiary scales Although there is a strong vertical hierarchy expressed in the WA case study, all levels are interdependant. For example, while regional groups may achieve economies of scale (Jennings and Moore 2000), most implementation occurs at the local scale. Ultimately, it is the individual landowners and managers making day-to-day decisions about land management who will effect change. Thus, regional NRM groups must be perceived as legitimate and capable of delivering outcomes, not only by the Federal Government (to receive funds) but also by the communities they represent. Further considering the principle of subsidiarity, subregional groups are well-placed to engage local communities in discussion about local priorities in relation to regional priorities, and helping to coordinate on-ground activities. Indeed, Michaels et al. (1999) suggested that a regional group operates as a ‘hub’ connecting local groups. However, considering the size and diverse problems of most Australian NHT2 regions, additional sub-regional ‘hubs’ can improve the link between local and regional groups. Furthermore, the sub-regional scale could help overcome some of the limitations of unrepresentativeness and parochialism. Such benefits have been recognised in the Landcare literature on the

Community engagement in natural resource management: experiences from the NHT2

development of networks (‘group of groups’), which are said to bridge the gap between local and regional planning bodies (Sobels et al. 2001). Revisiting the lateral (as opposed to hierarchical) typology of community participation in NRM (Ross et al. 2002), a sub-regional group presents a strong case to be considered as an additional participatory body situated between the ‘community collective activity’ groups (e.g. Landcare groups) and ‘composite stakeholder bodies’ (e.g. regional NHT2 groups). Although the sub-regional scale is a more appropriate scale to engage with local community members, it may prove difficult to achieve the required community engagement given the number of ‘disillusioned and disengaged’ (Paton et al. 2004 p. 263) community members and ‘angry and frustrated’ Landcare groups (Lloyd 2004 p. 25). Engagement in decision-making The NHT2 required state and local government representatives to collaborate with local community members to undertake an extensive regional planning process, which in many regions had not previously been done. Collaborative planning takes time, often up to four years (Leach et al. 2002), yet the regional groups did not have the luxury of time as their financial future depended upon delivering a final product. The NHT2 focused on ‘regional empowerment and ownership through integrated regional planning’ [author’s emphasis] (NHT2 2002). Yet comprehensive community involvement for regional–scale planning is difficult and time consuming; there are many people and large areas to cover, therefore consultation efforts tend to be most appropriate (Chenoweth et al. 2002). Individuals become involved for different reasons, thus a variety of participatory opportunities should be provided. Innovative techniques need to be developed to capture community members’ imagination and enthusiasm; new learning experiences are considered a significant factor in creating long-term volunteer motivation (Ryan et al. 2001). Engaging with stakeholders helps to encourage a more knowledgeable community, yet despite the NACC’s best effort, it was surprising to find that participating in regional priority-setting processes or commenting on regional plans did not necessarily lead to ‘ownership’ of the regional plan. Instead, many respondents spoke positively about their local planning activities and preferred to follow their ‘own’ locally relevant plan. However, this may not be a negative. Many case study respondents suggested they would have to package their projects (targets) to reflect regional objectives, which community respondents perceived to be ‘quite broad’, in order to receive funds, thus implementing the regional plans. The guidelines and criteria developed by governments to instruct the business of regional NRM groups under NHT2 are comprehensive, but at what cost? The extensive requirements were blamed for regional groups diverting all their attention to process efficiencies over maintaining existing regional programs and relationships, a common dilemma in integrated environmental planning (Margerum and Whitall 2004). The emphasis on product over process will have implications for regional plan implementation, because a prerequisite for converting collaborative planning to implementation is effective support from the individuals who ultimately implement the plan. If local community groups do not find planning processes open and transparent, or are not involved in strategic priority-setting processes, they are likely to be alienated from the regional groups. Such estrangement would make it increasingly difficult to achieve regional outcomes. This will be of concern to regional groups that have neglected to adequately engage local community members. This may partly be addressed by improving forms of institutional communication, an often overlooked aspect of community capacity, yet an integral part of making integrated environmental planning and management operational, helping to improve coordination. Although NACC explicitly engaged with the community through a variety of communication tools, there was a heavy reliance on passive communication, mostly Internet postings. While the Internet is a fast and cost-effective mode of communication, not all rural areas have equitable access, nor does everyone have the appropriate skills, time or inclination to

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access to it (Gibson 2003). Therefore, web-based communication should not be the core focus for information dissemination, nor should it preclude the need for ongoing (inter)active, faceto-face forums for debate and constructive argumentation (Lane and McDonald 2005). Community capacity If community-based management is to be scaled up to the regional level, with greater responsibilities, accountability and the expectation of generating self-sufficient regions, then regional group members must possess organisational, social and ecological knowledge as well as welldeveloped learning capacities (Cortner and Moote 1999). The sophistication of regional groups, such as NACC, increased with the NHT2 initiative. Yet, little support was provided towards building the capacity of the voluntary regional group members to deal with internal group processes, accountability and governance responsibilities. This is reminiscent of the Landcare literature which highlighted the pressing needs of local voluntary community groups in terms of administrative and managerial assistance and training in group procedures, project design, leadership and succession planning (Curtis 1998; 1999). While existing regional groups would benefit from experience and existing networks, newly formed groups, such as NACC, had to spend time developing operational capacity and creating networks among local community groups. This ultimately leads to differences in the way regional groups carry out regional planning. For example, NACC undertook an explicit community-focused, bottom-up approach, as compared to other regions where ‘over-consulting’ was avoided and instead ‘participation by proxy’ along with other targeted forms of consultation was used (Farrelly 2005). The capacity, capability and understanding of regional groups have been questioned, particularly in relation to their use and interpretation of scientific data (CSIRO and BOM 2004) and the methods used in prioritising activities for the region (Paton et al. 2004). Strategic capacity-building interventions are required to support regional groups to develop the necessary capabilities for strategic environmental and natural resource planning, management and implementation, something many state government agencies have previously failed to achieve (Hooper et al. 1999). Also, to encourage ongoing engagement with local community groups, attention must be directed towards assisting groups in writing the increasingly complex, technical, and strategic project proposals required to secure funds. Training is particularly important in areas of group operations, for example, meeting processes, facilitation and creating networks, and for building trust among group members (Thomas 1999). As stakeholders move in and out of the system and new technologies are produced, capacity-building programs need to be continuous and open to all stakeholders. Furthermore, highly skilled and capable regional groups will hopefully be able translate their knowledge and skills into influence at the local, State and Federal policy levels. Although there will always be a degree of reluctance by community representatives to engage with government institutions (Carr 2002), they can provide access to human, technical and financial resources often not available without their support (Koontz et al. 2004). At present, State agency officers’ roles with the NHT regional groups continue to be that of topdown, expert, technical advisers and in many ways are yet to shift towards the facilitative roles of educator, supporter and public relations officer; a common problem in integrated environmental planning and management (Cortner and Moote 1999).

Concluding remarks If the Federal Government is to continue to devolve authority to regional, collaborative, environmental planning and management groups, there needs to be realistic expectations of what

Community engagement in natural resource management: experiences from the NHT2

regional, community-based groups can achieve (Kellert et al. 2000). Governments must be prepared for limited immediate environmental outcomes and provide realistic funding allocations, although this does not typically align with political public accountability requirements. There needs to be clear, early engagement with regional and local groups regarding any future changes to the regional funding initiative to address perceived shortcomings. This chapter has outlined a number of difficulties regarding community engagement processes in regionalscale environmental and natural resource management. Successful implementation of regional priorities will ultimately depend on the willingness and capacity of individuals at both the regional and local scale to undertake on-ground activities. Regional–scale management is perceived by local and regional group members as an appropriate scale for strategic and coordinated management; however, further attention needs to be directed towards improving the perceived legitimacy and capability of regional groups, regional group representation, strengthening the roles of sub-regional groups, more open and transparent planning processes, and ongoing stakeholder involvement.

Acknowledgements This research was supported by a postgraduate scholarship and funds from Land and Water Australia. Special thanks to Dr Arthur Conacher for advice and support throughout the research. Suggestions by an anonymous referee also helped to improve the manuscript.

Endnotes 1 NHT2 allocated foundation funding to regional NRM groups to assist in the regional plan development or refinement (Commonwealth of Australia, 2004 p. 9). 2 Photolanguage projects involved willing community members documenting their impressions of the region’s significant natural features and everyday lifestyle through the medium of photography. 3 The joint steering committee, consisting of Federal and State Government representatives, reviews and recommends the investment plan for approval from Federal Ministers.

References Abrahams H (2005). Devolution enhances integration. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 12, 57–61. Auditor-General for Western Australia (2004). ‘Report on ministerial portfolios at November 1 2004 and performance examination of management of natural resource management funding, report 9’. Government of Western Australia, Perth. Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) (1997). ‘Commonwealth natural resource management and environment programs: Australia’s land, water and vegetation resources’. Audit Report No.36, Australian Government Publishing Services, Canberra. Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) (2001). ‘Performance information for Commonwealth financial assistance under the Natural Heritage Trust: Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Department of the Environment and Heritage’. Audit Report No.43, Australian Government Publishing Services, Canberra. Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) (2004). ‘The administration of the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality: Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Department of Environment and Heritage’. Audit Report No. 17, Australian Government Publishing Services, Canberra.

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Bradsen JR (2000). Landcare policies and programs in Australia. In Soil Conservation Policies and Programs: Successes and Failures. (Eds T Napier, SM Napier and J Tvrdon) pp. 515–533. CRC Press LLC. Campbell A (1994). Landcare: Communities Shaping the Land and the Future: With Case Studies by Greg Siepen. Allen and Unwin, Sydney. Carr A (2002) Grass Roots and Green Tape: Principles and Practices of Environmental Stewardship. Federation Press, Sydney. Chenoweth JL, Ewing SA, and Bird JF (2002). Procedures for ensuring community involvement in multijurisdictional river basins: a comparison of the Murray-Darling and Mekong River basins. Environmental Management 29, 497–509. Cheshire L, Higgins V and Lawrence G (Eds) (2007). Rural Governance: International Perspectives. Routledge studies in human geography, Routledge, Oxford. Commonwealth of Australia (2000). ‘Mid-term review of the Natural Heritage Trust: the response’. Environment Australia and Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry Australia, Australian Government Publishing Services, Canberra. Commonwealth of Australia (2004). ‘Annual report 2002–03, Natural Heritage Trust’. Department of Environment and Heritage and Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Australian Government Publishing Services, Canberra. Commonwealth of Australia (2005). ‘Annual report 2003–04, Natural Heritage Trust’. Department of Environment and Heritage and Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Australian Government Publishing Services, Canberra. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and Australian Bureau of Meteorology (CSIRO and BOM) (2004). ‘Scientific advice on natural resource management: a report to the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’. Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra. Conacher A and Conacher J (2000). Environmental Planning and Management in Australia. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Cortner HJ and Moote MA (1999). The Politics of Ecosystem Management. Island Press: Covela. Curtis A (1998) Agency-community partnership in landcare: lessons for state-sponsored citizen resource management. Environmental Management 22, 563–574. Curtis A (1999). Landcare: beyond onground work. Natural Resource Management 2, 4–9. Curtis A (2000). Landcare: approaching the limits of voluntary action. Australian Journal of Environmental Management 7, 19–27. Curtis A (2003). The landcare experience. In Managing Australia’s environment. (Eds S Dovers and S Wild River) pp. 442–460. Federation Press, New South Wales. Curtis A, Robertson A and Race D (1998). Lessons from recent evaluations of natural resource management programs in Australia. Australian Journal of Environmental Management 5, 109–119. Dames and Moore (1999). ‘Mid-term review of the National Landcare Program’. Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry – Australia, Canberra. Dovers S (2003). Processes and institutions for resource and environmental management: why and how to analyse? In Managing Australia’s Environment. (Eds S Dovers and S Wild River) pp. 3–12. Federation Press, New South Wales. Environment Australia (1999). ‘Helping communities helping Australia: annual report 1997– 98’. Environment Australia, Australian Government Publishing Services, Canberra. Environment Australia (2003). ‘Helping communities helping Australia: annual report 2001– 2002’. Environment Australia, Australian Government Publishing Services, Canberra.

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Ewing S (1999). Landcare and community-led watershed management in Victoria, Australia. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 35, 663–673. Ewing S (2000). Down the track from Rio: lessons from the Australian Landcare Program. In Soil Conservation Policies and Programs: Successes and Failures. (Eds T Napier, SM Napier and J Tvrdon) pp. 549–566. CRC Press LLC. Ewing S (2003). Catchment management arrangements. In Managing Australia’s environment. (Eds S Dovers and S Wild River) pp. 393–412. Federation Press, Sydney. Fargher J (1999). ‘Mid-term review of the Natural Heritage Trust: integrated regional summary, final report’. Dames and Moore – NRM, Adelaide. Farrelly M (2005). Regionalisation of environmental management: a case study of the Natural Heritage Trust, South Australia. Geographical Research 43, 393–405. Farrelly M (unpublished). An evaluation of integrated environmental planning in selected Australian Natural Heritage Trust regions. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Western Australia, Australia. Farrelly M and Conacher A (2007). Integrated, regional, natural resource and environmental planning and the Natural Heritage Trust Phase 2: a case study of the Northern Agricultural Catchments Council, Western Australia. Australian Geographer 38, 309–333. Gardner A (1999). The administrative framework of land and water management in Australia. Environmental and Planning Law Journal 16, 212–257. Gibson C (2003). Digital divides in New South Wales: a research note on socio-spatial inequality using 2001 census data on computer and Internet technology. Australian Geographer 34, 239–257. Hajkowicz SA (2007). A comparison of mutli-criteria assessment and unaided approaches to environmental decision-making. Environmental Science and Policy 10, 117–184. Hajkowicz SA (2008). Supporting multi-stakeholder environmental decisions. Journal of Environmental Management 88, 607–614. Hooper BP, McDonald GT and Mitchell B (1999). Facilitating integrated resource and Environmental management: Australian and Canadian perspectives. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 42, 747–766. Howard Partners (1999). ‘Mid-term review of the Natural Heritage Trust: review of administration’. Commonwealth of Australia, Australian Government Publishing Services, Canberra. Jennings S and Moore SA (2000). The rhetoric behind regionalization in Australian natural resource management: myth, reality and moving forward. Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning 2, 177–191. Kellert SR, Mehta JN, Ebbin SA and Lichtenfeld LL (2000). Community natural resource management: promise, rhetoric, and reality. Society and Natural Resources 13, 705–715. Koontz TM, Steelman TA, Carmin J, Korfmacher KS, Moseley C and Thomas CW (2004). Collaborative Environmental Management: What Roles for Government? Resources for the Future, Washington DC. Lane MB and McDonald G (2005). Community-based environmental planning: operational dilemmas, planning principles and possible remedies. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 48, 709–731. Lane MB and McDonald GT and Morrison TH (2004). Decentralisation and environmental management in Australia: a comment on the prescriptions of the Wentworth Group. Australian Geographical Studies 42, 103–115. Leach WD and Pelkey NW (2001). Making watershed partnerships work: a review of the empirical literature. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management 127, 378–385.

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Leach WD, Pelkey NW and Sabatier PA (2002). Stakeholder partnerships as collaborative policymaking: evaluation criteria applied to watershed management in California and Washington. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 21, 645–670. Lloyd B (2004). Standing by our brands. Australian Landcare Journal March, 25–26. Lockie S and Vanclay F (1997). Critical Landcare. Centre for Rural Social Research, Charles Sturt University, New South Wales. Lockwood M, Davidson J, Curtis A, Griffith R and Stratford E (2007). ‘Strengths and challenges of regional NRM governance: interviews with key players and insights from the literature’. Report No. 4, Pathways to good practice in regional NRM governance: Tasmania. Mahanty S and Russell D (2002). High stakes: lessons from stakeholder groups in the biodiversity conservation network. Society and Natural Resources 15, 179–188. Margerum RD and Whitall D (2004). The challenges and implications of collaborative management on a river basin scale. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 47, 407–427. Martin P and Woodhill J (1995). ‘Landcare in the balance’: government roles and policy issues in sustaining rural environments. Australian Journal of Environmental Management 2, 173–183. Michaels S, Mason RJ and Solecki WD (1999). The importance of place in partnerships for regional environmental management. Environmental Conservation 26, 159–162. Natural Heritage Trust (NHT) (2002). ‘Natural Heritage Trust: guidelines for interim regional arrangements’. Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra. http://www.nht.gov.au. Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council (NRMMC) (1999). Managing natural resources in rural Australia for a sustainable future. Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Australia, Australian Government Publishing Services, Canberra. Northern Agricultural Catchments Council (NACC) (2004). ‘Draft regional natural resource management strategy: northern agricultural region of Western Australia’. Northern Agricultural Catchments Council, Western Australia. Northern Agricultural Integrated Management Strategy Group (NAIMS) (2000). ‘Draft regional strategy, northern agricultural integrated management strategy: a partnership between the rural community, government agencies and local government authorities’. Northern Agricultural Integrated Management Strategy Group, Western Australia. Paton S, Curtis A, McDonald G and Woods M (2004). Regional natural resource management: is it sustainable. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 11, 259–266. Pearce G, Ayres S and Tricker M (2005). Decentralisation and devolution to the English regions: assessing the implications for rural policy and delivery. Journal of Rural Studies 21, 197–212. Reeves G (1999). ‘Final report mid-term review of the Natural Heritage Trust: bushcare program’. Centre for International Economics, CSIRO, Canberra. Robins L (2007). Community-based NRM boards of management, are they up to the task? Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 14, 111–122. Robins L and Dovers S (2007). NRM regions in Australia: the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. Geographical Research 45, 273–290. Ross H, Buchy M and Proctor W (2002). Laying down the ladder: a typology of public participation in Australian natural resource management. Australian Journal of Environmental Management 9, 205–217. Ryan R, Kaplan R and Grese R (2001). Predicting volunteer commitment in environmental stewardship programmes. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 44, 629–648.

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Shaw D and Kidd S (2001). Sustainable development and environmental partnership at the regional scale: the case of sustainability north west. European Environment 11, 112–123. Sobels J, Curtis A and Lockie S (2001). The role of landcare group networks in rural Australia: exploring the contribution of social capital. Journal of Rural Studies 17, 265–276. Thomas CW (1999). Linking public agencies with community-based watershed organisations: lessons from California. Policy Studies Journal 27, 544–564. Warner JF (2006). More sustainable participation? Multi-stakeholder platforms for integrated catchment management. Water Resources Development 22, 15–35. Wild River S (2003). Local government. In Managing Australia’s Environment. (Eds S Dovers and S Wild River) pp. 338–362. The Federation Press, Canberra. Woodhill J (1996). Natural resources decision-making beyond the landcare paradox. The Australasian Journal of Natural Resources Law and Policy 3, 91–114. Wright I (1995). Implementation of sustainable development by Australian local governments. Environmental and Planning Law Journal 12, 54–61.

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Landcare bowling alone: finding a future in the ‘fourth’ phase Erlina Compton, Katrin Prager and Bob Beeton

Introduction Of the surge of responses to land and water management problems in Australia (Burnup 2006), Landcare stands out. Generally understood as having a range of meanings depending on the context (Campbell 1992; Lockie 1996; Campbell 1997; Lockie 1997; Cary and Webb 2000; Lockie 2001), Landcare predominantly refers to small groups of landholders working cooperatively to address land and water degradation problems, but can also refer to a philosophy described as ‘the Landcare ethic’ (Roberts 2003). It also refers to the National Landcare Program as well as to an overarching organisational structure. There is also the broader and more nebulous ‘landcare movement’ (Lockie 1997; Lockie 1999). Landcare’s popularity and apparent success has been attributed to the way it respects local knowledge, empowers communities and delivers practical solutions to natural resource management problems (Marriott et al. 2000). Some authors have highlighted the benefits of Landcare to include the creation and enhancement of social capital among participants (Sobels et al. 2001; Cramb 2005; Webb and Cary 2005), which in turn is a critical requirement for improvement in natural resource condition (Pretty and Ward 2001). We use a bowling game analogy to connect the evolution of Landcare and natural resource management to Putnam’s account of the changes to social capital stocks in American communities (Putnam 2000). We do so by tracing Landcare’s beginnings, likening these to a 10-pin bowling game where people get together to talk, share ideas, socialise and ‘play’ the natural resource management game, through to where the game begins to be derailed as a result of changes to government natural resource management delivery programs. The ultimate threat is the abandonment of Landcare, risking the loss of its associated social capital and empowerment illustrating how policy change can affect grassroots organisations. Landcare and natural resource management (NRM) in Australia have evolved over three distinct phases to date and a fourth phase is in its early implementation. The third phase saw significant changes to natural resource management delivery arrangements which have had considerable impacts on local Landcare. Today Landcare is at a crossroads, with declining participation and groups disbanding in some areas (Curtis and Cooke 2006), and evidence of general frustration and disillusionment. This chapter explores the impact of changes to NRM program delivery over two decades on local Landcare groups and offers an interpretation of these using the concepts of social capital 147

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(Coleman 1988; Putnam 1995) and empowerment theory (Rappaport 1987; Zimmerman 1995). Three studies were carried out in Tasmania and Victoria adopting a grounded theory methodology (Glaser 1992) with the intention of allowing insights to emerge from the data. The data illustrates Landcarers’ perception of regional bodies, natural resource management, the planning process, funding availability and administration, group composition and activity, and visions for the future. The chapter also reports what groups perceive as necessary for survival. In keeping with this approach, we present our findings as a narrative account utilising an extensive array of direct quotations in order to give voice to the Landcare volunteers. We then interpret and draw conclusions from our findings and propose implications for NRM program design.

Comparing multiple cases: research methodology This chapter is based on the findings of three case studies. Although designed and executed independently, their results have been compared (Yin 2003) and found to show convergent themes. The first case study was conducted in the Maffra and Districts Landcare Network (MDLN), located in the West Gippsland catchment management region in Victoria (May– August 2006); the second conduced in Tasmania’s three regions NRM North, NRM South and Cradle Coast NRM (December 2006); and the third in Central Victoria: North-East, NorthCentral and Goulburn Broken catchment management regions (February 2007). The three studies are herein referred to as the West Gippsland study, Tasmanian study and Central Victorian study respectively. Each study was guided by grounded theory methodology (Glaser 1992), a systematic qualitative research methodology in the social and behavioural sciences emphasising generation of theory from data in the process of conducting research. Thus the studies aimed to explore the views and perceptions held by Landcare members without any preconceived theoretical platform. The findings of the three case studies were compared in order to provide a broader base for insights and conclusions. West Gippsland study The West Gippsland study is part of a larger study of community land management interventions. From May to August 2006, a study of 16 Landcare Groups involving 17 focus groups (140 participants) was conducted. The focus groups explored group’s function (type of activities conducted and the impact of these activities), health (level of activity, membership), support (members views on the level of support received and required) and their visions or doubts for the groups future (Compton et al. 2006; Compton and Beeton 2008). The focus groups were analysed according to the open coding method (Strauss and Corbin 1990) consistent with grounded theory methodology (Glaser 1992). Tasmanian study and central Victorian study The research carried out in Tasmania and Central Victoria represents the Australian component of a study comparing Landcare and NRM in Australia and Germany (Prager and Vanclay, submitted). From December 2006 to February 2007, 50 qualitative in-depth interviews together with participant observation (Miles and Huberman 1994; Lamnek 1995) at Landcare meetings and group activities were conducted to explore the meaning of Landcare and NRM, the groups’ situation and issues of funding and decision-making. These areas correspond to the group health and function and support issues explored in the West Gippsland study. The statements that formed answers to the questions were categorised and frequencies noted. Additional statements were collected if they referred to several questions, or to a specific point of interest.

Landcare bowling alone: finding a future in the ‘fourth’ phase

The quotations used to illustrate Landcarers’ perceptions of their situation reflect their particular situation and context. The ‘care’ groups’ relationship to regional bodies (termed Catchment Management Authorities in Victoria and NRM bodies in Tasmania) is heterogeneous. Tasmania and Victoria have different Landcare support structures. While Victoria has its own State Landcare program and a higher density of Landcare facilitators and coordinators, there is less support of this kind in Tasmania. In addition, regional bodies have a longer tradition in Victoria with CMAs having been established in 1997. Quotations are marked according to the origin of the interviewee: Maffra and Districts (MD), Tasmania (T) and Central Victoria (CV).

Changes to natural resource arrangements in Australia: four phases Natural Resource Management arrangements in Australia have undergone significant evolution since the early days of Landcare (Ewing 2000; Broderick 2005; Farrelly 2005; Williams 2007). Broderick and Farrelly also provide insights into the impact on the NRM evolution on local community based groups in Western Australia and South Australia respectively. This chapter adds depth and scope to these insights by complementing findings from other states and by showing that the introduction of the regional model has not had the same effects everywhere. We propose that Landcare has evolved over four distinct phases, with each ‘phase’ being triggered by changes to government program design. Phase 1 – ‘early Landcare’ was characterised by an emphasis on community ownership of catchment based groups (Kirner 2000) supported by the National Landcare Program which commenced in 1989 (Curtis and De Lacy 1994; 1998). Phase 2 – ‘NHT’ began with the Natural Heritage Trust (NHT) in 1996 which provided a significant boost to Landcare support and drove a general increase in activity and projects. Phase 3 – ‘regional delivery’ is marked by the implementation of NHT 2 which began in 2002. NHT 2 provided an interim funding year for the newly created 56 regional bodies to develop accredited regional plans (Farrelly 2005). Phase 3 placed Landcare under threat as these new arrangements were slow to deploy (Australian National Audit Office 2008) and there was considerable negative reaction by local Landcare groups to the funding hiatus despite the intention to implement interim year funding arrangements. Following the November 2007 elections, the new Labor Government announced a new program called ‘Caring for our Country’ which has integrated a number of programs including the NHT, National Landcare Program (NLP) and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (NAP) ‘into a consolidated program’ (Australian Government 2008). This represents the imminent Phase 4.

Findings Phase 1 and 2 – Landcare bowling along to 2001 From 1986 to 2000 Landcare enjoyed a period of growth and minimal intervention. A complex mix of interests and the availability of project funds meant that Landcare was appealing to rural landholders and represented a community driven way to address land and water management issues. There were limited guidelines; however, the positive side of this was that a variety of community-driven models appeared which reflected local values.

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In West Gippsland the interim year of NHT2 created chaos in the Maffra and Districts Landcare Network. Just as projects and capacity were developing and on-ground works were building, the funds stopped. These changes caused initial confusion and then anger in some Landcare members during NHT2 resulting in a disconnection between Landcare groups and government (Compton et al. 2006). This experience was also reflected in Tasmania with disenchantment becoming apparent ‘When Landcare first started it was nearly a religion. It has lost the fundamentalism and purity of its early days’ (T). People were excited about the opportunities that lay ahead. They saw Landcare as a chance to educate and reform the community, teaching children today to value and manage resources for a sustainable future. Although NHT1 had been funding groups other than Landcare, it was only when the shock of 2002 became apparent that members in Central Victoria realised the significance of the changes that were upon them. ‘There was a time a couple of years ago when I thought there was not really much future for the Landcare group because a lot of our activities were taken over by government organisations’ (CV). In addition the growth in accountability demands and the increasing complexity of grant applications caused confusion ‘The grant process has become more bureaucratised’ (T). Up until then, Landcarers decided what activities were important to them, rather than projects being judged by a distant authority. Projects were of a size that volunteer groups could handle. Groups were held together by a common goal and understanding, by a wish to contribute. With the government program accountability requirements increasing, volunteer enthusiasm was waning. Phase 3 – Reactions to the regional model: a gutter ball Varying perceptions of regional bodies There are differences in the ways that Landcarers perceive regional bodies ranging from positive and optimistic to indifferent, dismissive and even fearful. Some Tasmanian Landcarers found that ‘the NRM bodies can get a better overview and can achieve efficiencies’ (T). In Central Victoria the CMAs ‘grew and grew and became much more important. I think it has worked well, the idea of having one authority over a whole catchment’ (CV). Some interviewees stated that the establishment of the regional bodies has made life easier for Landcare groups: ‘it has taken a fair bit of the load off groups in organising things’, (CV) – which is also the perception of the MDLN Board in West Gippsland. However, others share the view of a Central Victorian Landcare member who reports that the CMA ‘did not have much effect except to make some people realise they were part of a bigger scheme’ (CV). A Tasmanian farmer said, ‘we try to avoid NRM as much as possible’, and in farmer circles, ‘there’s a lot of fear out there when it comes to NRM issues’ (T). 1 Quite a drastic reaction was reported by a volunteer in an urban Landcare group. When ‘government imposed this NRM regional stuff which goes across a diverse set of catchments and cultures … they lost a lot of the original Landcare people’ (T). Tasmanians and Victorians alike are worried about Landcare groups becoming redundant. ‘What worries me is that the Catchment Management Authority will have the complete control over what goes on. They run everything. Once they have that complete control the actual Landcare groups might fall out of existence’ (CV). Overall, the negative responses prevailed for several reasons. Farmers do not like to ‘get organised’ by a government body but prefer to group together on their own initiative. Similarly, if people are invited to comment on regional plans and projects but do not feel their comments are taken into account, they feel powerless. This is particularly frustrating since wanting to contribute and change something is often the initial driver for local people for becoming involved in Landcare.

Landcare bowling alone: finding a future in the ‘fourth’ phase

Regional planning processes: consultation without engagement Landcare groups in West Gippsland report that they have been bypassed, as priorities are set by external agencies. ‘Well I always think of Landcare was how it started out as it was supposed to be bottom up…. And it sort of changed; the money’s come down from on high’ (MD). There is a feeling of loss of ownership of the planning processes. People criticise the fact that much of the decision-making power was taken over by the regional bodies. ‘So all of a sudden now if we want to do anything on this river it’s got to agree with what some people said at a meeting three years ago as to what the priorities are going to be in the various catchments across this region. And this hamstrings completely the decision-making at a local level’ (MD). Experiences in Tasmania were similar. ‘We have little say in what we deem to be priorities in our local areas, even though we have gone through an extensive consultative process’, and ‘local Landcare groups are a fair way removed from the regional process, there is not a huge amount of understanding of that process’ (T). The quotes illustrate the trade-off between local decision-making and regional planning that loses the community support if engagement stops at consultation. Decisions that are beneficial at the local level might not seem so at the regional scale and vice versa. Engaging people rather than just consulting them requires different skills and approaches that are not yet typical of regional bodies. Certainly, regional plans and priority targets need ‘translation’ to become meaningful to local people, and for them to be able to recognise in what ways they have contributed and why it is still reflecting their ideas. Funding allocation and administration: varying views Landcare members report that it is no longer necessary to be a group member to get funds for projects on individual properties. ‘Everyone has got more savvy about finding the money…you didn’t need to come to the meetings anymore’ (MD). Some members do not see this as a problem: ‘I still don’t think you should have to tie the funding back to the Landcare group’ and they recognise the efficiency to be gained. ‘But then is it just [a] sheer business thing…look I need to plant a thousand trees and I will ring the person who I know I can get the trees from instead of stuffing around with the local group’ (MD). Others are disempowered by the changes and groups question their existence: ‘For some projects that we thought were a good thing to do, funding is available readily to individuals so they don’t have to go through the Landcare group. In fact, at one stage we were thinking what are we here for, there’s no point…what’s a Landcare group for?’ (CV) Others feel that it is unfair: ‘Now you don’t even have to be a Landcare member to get the money. I’m annoyed about that’, and that the arrangements are responsible for the decline in group activity: ‘there [are] people…that have never had anything to do with the Landcare group and they have probably got more out of it than most of the people that have been involved…because they’re dealing directly between themselves and the Landcare facilitator…and I think…that could be the downfall of the Landcare group’ (MD). Tasmanian and West Gippsland groups report that they think there has been a reduction in the amount of funds available since NHT2. ‘I think there seems to be less money available and it’s harder to get and my perception is it’s all a little bit hard and I couldn’t be bothered’ (MD). Some Landcarers even suspect that much of the funding ‘disappears’ on the way down from the top: ‘Government gives the funding to the Catchment Management Authorities and they supervise. Personally I’m very disappointed with them. It is a semi-government department getting government funds to keep themselves in business. They take a percentage of those funds and they do very little to help the Landcare people’ (CV). The feeling of disempowerment has been recognised by the MDLN Board as a view held by other groups in the region ‘It’s causing a bit of angst….that it is taking power away as they see it from local groups. And they are not happy about this regional funding model’ (MD).

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Table 10.1 Perception of Landcare in Tasmania by Landcare members and employees of regional bodies in Tasmania Landcare described by Landcare members

Landcare described by employees of regional bodies

s Groups of local people, working together s Local action, on-ground projects s Caring for the land, restore, environmental/ ecological issues s Good/balanced land management, sustainable productive agriculture s Rivers, tree planting, remnant vegetation, weed and pest control, soil, school groups s Understanding, learning, discussing, encouraging

s Partnerships, cooperating, networking s Community-driven, community empowerment, grassroots action s Big picture but act local s Farmer-based, industry, sustainable productive agriculture, soil erosion s Government funding program s Environmental/conservation issues

Central terms used in the description

Central terms used in the description

s Volunteers s Passion s Enthusiastic s Local people s Terrific people s Neighbours s Sense of togetherness s Long term, future generation s ‘It was nearly a religion’

s ‘Free labour force’ s Ethic s ‘Vehicle for harnessing community and individuals environmental concerns’ s ‘Band aid approach by Australian Government’, ‘hit and miss’ s ‘Feel good optimism’ s ‘Entry point into conservation for farmers. Permission for farmers to say and act like they care.’ s ‘Formal agreement’ s ‘Religion replacement’

These points of difference are really a discussion about the very purpose of Landcare; whether it is a community development and empowerment program or a cost-effective land management program. Can it be both under the regional model? We believe that trade-offs cannot be avoided. What works well for one program, will not necessarily be as beneficial in terms of the other. For running a cost-effective program contractors and technical specifications are needed. Funds can be easily accounted for and achievements measured in numbers. Community development, however, requires different tools to measure success. It is much more process-oriented and long-term, and empowering communities necessarily infers that other instances have to share their power. Perception of Landcare and NRM today: where is the game? The Landcare groups we see today are positioned somewhere between holding onto the past where an emphasis on local ownership and a focus on sharing ideas and resources gave it popular appeal, and the future of NRM where emphasis on strategic allocation of resources to address regional priorities means an uncertain role for local Landcare. It is pertinent to examine how both Landcarers and those entrusted with the role to support Landcare, the employees of regional bodies, perceive both Landcare and NRM and their respective roles. In the Tasmanian study Landcare members and the employees of regional bodies were asked ‘What is Landcare? What does it mean to you?’ Table 10.1 summarises common responses from interviews in Tasmania. Interviewees in Tasmania were also asked about their perceptions of NRM. This term has been introduced in recent years and appears to cover ‘Landcare Plus’, promoting NRM as an extension of Landcare and including any natural resources and related issues such as mining, forestry, air, biodiversity, along with a broader set of relevant actors – all depending on the

Landcare bowling alone: finding a future in the ‘fourth’ phase

Table 10.2: Perception of NRM in Tasmania by Landcare members and employees of regional bodies in Tasmania NRM described by Landcare members s ‘It doesn’t mean anything’; impersonal; not a good name s ‘It does not have much relevance to us’, hard to access s Top down, bureaucracy s Big picture, better overview s Social, environmental, economic aspect s Mining, forestry, air s ‘Too soon to judge’ s ‘Structured to the big end of town’

NRM described by employees of regional bodies s Intermediary, networking, integration, coordination s Government structure, regional approach s Access to funds s Big picture: strategies, targets, priorities s Monitoring and reporting, outcome focussed s Triple bottom line s Politics/ political implications

respective context and speaker. Table 10.2 presents meanings both Landcare members and regional body employees attribute to the term. While members of the NRM system made generally positive remarks, the descriptions of Landcare members feature positive, cautious and negative comments. Landcare members in Victoria had many similar views to their Tasmanian counterparts. In contrast to Tasmania, in Victoria the term NRM was not directly connected to the new regional model of delivery. This is in part due to the Victorian arrangement that established 10 Catchment Management Authorities with a focus on water-related issues. Thus, there were not as many statements in Victoria regarding NRM as a distinct arena, indicating that respondents had not yet assimilated the term. Landcare is described as action, delivery on ground; process-oriented; community-driven, and something that involves passion. In contrast, NRM is about planning and the big picture; outcome-oriented; government is more involved, and NRM means more bureaucracy and accountability. The question remains whether these two concepts are compatible or what kind of balance can be struck. Situation of groups today: keeping the game alive Changing group composition and dynamics: varying levels of participation and activity Across the two studies a similar pattern of Landcare group composition and activity level emerges. We identified three types of groups. There is ‘Landcare on farms’ and ‘Landcare in towns’ (T) as well as mixed groups. Farmer-based groups focus on production and sustainable management issues and usually work on private land. They continue to survive but many are experiencing declining activity: ‘The meetings are not very frequent. Nobody has much time and nobody has much energy to do anything really. It’s a bit pathetic; it has deteriorated over the last few years’ (T). Farmerbased groups notice the decline in participation: ‘when we first started the…group they came in droves…and then they just dwindled away’ (MD). The mixed groups are made up of landholders that earn their income off-farm, or they have a mixed membership of full-time farmers, hobby farmers and towns-people. Mixed groups generally have more of a community focus, are often looking after public land and tend to be socially oriented. A member characterises such a group: ‘That is a unique group and it will take a lot of work to keep this group together because you got two opposed components’ (T). These groups are less frequent in Tasmania than in Victoria. These mixed groups are experiencing increasing activity.

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Landcare groups in towns have a strong focus on environmental protection and predominantly work on public land with their membership base being largely town residents with an interest in environmental issues. These groups tend to have a medium to high level of activity, often having only been established for a shorter time than some of their neighbouring farmer oriented groups and have a larger membership base to draw upon. The Tasmanian groups close to the regional body’s headquarters are well supported, new groups are forming and they are active. However, there are also regions where there are almost no Landcare groups left. These typically are groups who are geographically located some distance from regional bodies and its associated support services. The decline in membership of farmer-based groups is not necessarily a reflection of the level of on-ground land management projects that are occurring as farmers are implementing projects through devolved NHT2 grants. Landcare members are often aware of this and explain the decline in group membership by the fact that many past members are now independently implementing Landcare projects on their own properties. One Landcarer described it in this way: ‘Now they get in there and they do their planting and so forth, but it’s generally on their farm and it just seems to me … that this may be why there is a drop … off of the people’ (MD). For those groups who have gone into recession there is evidence that links between group members do still exist. ‘Groups go through cycles depending on how big they are, how many active members they have. Although we are in abeyance, nobody has lost interest in it, everybody is just exhausted’ (T). This points to a latent form of social capital that if given the right conditions could re-emerge and thrive. However, disbanding a group does not occur without consequences. Significant social capital is lost. Across all groups, the following key points were repeatedly mentioned in interviews and group discussions: ●

●

●

Groups still have a strong on-ground focus. They prefer these activities over dealing with funding and associated paperwork. People reduce their involvement in or drop out of Landcare because of emotional and physical exhaustion, frustration with paperwork, projects taking too long, as well as the demands of drought. Landcarers find it difficult to recruit new people, especially younger people who are less involved in Landcare. The majority of groups have either very young members (School Landcare) or are made up of older, often retired, residents (55+). For people in their 20s to 40s, Landcare is not a priority. Among members it is difficult to find office bearers.

Group visions: a mixture of outlooks of the future When Landcarers talked about the future, the recurring theme was ‘more funding’, ‘more facilitators’ and ‘someone on the ground’. This is a particularly strong message coming from groups with predominantly farmer members. The diverse perceived futures include dissonant voices that lack real aspiration for what can be done and how it can be done: ‘It’s hard to see where we can head in the future, I think this group has just about run its race’ (MD). In groups where ‘most of the things that were obvious have been done’ it is hard to find something that keeps them going (CV). Other groups admit ‘There is not a lot of long term planning…. no strategic plan as to where we want to go, it is rather reactionary’ (CV). On the other hand, there are groups which have united visions of their future. ‘We seem to have adopted a thirty year plan’, (MD); and ‘…but now our groups are doing much more action planning themselves, talking more about what their core values are; that helps us to make decisions about where we get our funding from’ (CV). Some groups undertook action planning to define goals and discuss a vision; others were involved in drawing up a local area plan.

Landcare bowling alone: finding a future in the ‘fourth’ phase

Regardless of the name or specific contents, having a document that group members have discussed and agreed on which outlines future projects and activities, boosts the groups’ enthusiasm. Phase 4: What do Landcarers say they need? Setting up the pins again There is considerable overlap in the data collected from the two studies regarding the support that groups perceive as necessary. Central is financial support for projects, insurance and incorporation but also support for administering and implementing the projects, a role usually undertaken by a facilitator. In West Gippsland, the topic of funding was raised by every group while it was not as predominant in Central Victoria and Tasmania. Funding drives these Landcare group’s focus, it creates a reason for them to come together. The views of each group on the role that funding plays and the way it is administered differ across the groups, but the message is constant – ‘If they cut the funding, that’s it’ (MD). A few of the groups interviewed in Tasmania maintain their volunteer activities without accessing funding. However, they receive in-kind support from local councils such as supply and delivery of material or the pick up after a rubbish collection working-bee. Such support makes it easier for Landcarers to carry out their activities, makes them feel appreciated and welcome. Just as groups are different, the extent differs to which funding determines their activities and provides incentives. In common with many areas of community development, there is evidence of interdependence between funding and facilitation. For many groups a facilitator’s skills are essential to gain funding; at the same time funding is essential to employ a facilitator. A facilitator contributes to many aspects of community functionality. Groups expect a Landcare facilitator to be a local person who knows the area, who will stay in the job long term, is accessible, and act as the grassroots representative. Tasmanian groups do not have access to facilitators in the same way as in Victoria. In Tasmania each of the regional bodies employs a Landcare Coordinator. 2 These, however, rarely reach the fringe of the regions nor can they have intensive contact with all of the groups. Several Victorian groups identified the issue of the facilitator employment arrangements. Some are satisfied with the CMA or local council employing the facilitator which relieves administrative chores: ‘As far as employment is concerned the CMA taking over employment responsibilities has been a huge advance’ (MD). While others acknowledge the efficiency gains, they feel that their facilitator has been ‘hijacked’ by the CMA (MD). There are also concerns that such an arrangement undermines the chance of the facilitator to speak freely as a voice for the grassroots.

Discussion We have presented a narrative account of the first three phases of Landcare told by those who have been involved. We have connected and compared two bodies of data that, despite the differences in methodology, location and sample size show a remarkable convergence of views. Although this cannot be claimed to be representative of all Australia we suspect that Landcare groups across the country are in a similar situation. These views paint a picture that caused us to question the future of Landcare. Putnam describes social capital as, ‘features of social organisation such as networks, norms and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit’ (Putnam 1995 p.67). Our bowling analogy is used to connect our ideas of Landcare and social capital to those of Putnam’s analysis of rural America (Putnam 2000). The game began with Landcare ‘bowling

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along’, as it was built on a foundation of ownership, control, social capital and empowerment (Kirner 2000). The first two phases (the decade of Landcare and NHT1) were characterised by learning on the run, a sense of achievement by community groups who experienced success in mobilising resources and building enthusiasm for a new view of NRM. While this approach had its problems, the principle achievements were in terms of the collective and individual empowerment that resulted from the ownership, control and resource mobilisation characteristics of early Landcare. With the introduction of NHT2 (Phase 3) this level of control and ownership was taken away from local Landcare, a process which in essence was disempowering. The real outcome of these new arrangements to local Landcare was not anticipated, particularly the degradation of social capital. It seems that in an attempt to empower regions, the local arena was disempowered as an unintentional by-product, leaving Landcare ‘bowling alone’. The result of this is exhibited by the statements of loss, confusion and frustration of our study participants. Today Landcare members are clinging to their past desires for control and ownership while trying to find a future. In many cases Landcare groups are struggling to see where they fit in the regional arrangements and have yet to come to terms with the promotion of NRM replacing ‘good old Landcare’. Landcare groups are experiencing varying levels of membership and activity. The majority, particularly those with predominantly farmer members, are at a crossroads where members are deciding whether to keep going or leave, while mixed and town groups are moderately, and in some cases, highly active. This can be partly explained by the existence of such grants as Envirofund, which worked well for these latter group types who often access funds and work collectively. These groups have been less affected by the regional delivery arrangements. While farmer-based group members are now getting access to devolved grants as individuals, this reduces the function of a group in collective activity. The future is perceived as bleak for these groups, while the lifestyle and town groups can see a future. Landcare groups’ internal characteristics offer another explanation for their different outlook. Those with a vision, good connections to support staff, and committed members are likely to persist despite frequent changes in government policy and management complexity. In contrast, groups lacking effective leadership are less likely to receive funding and struggle to accomplish on-ground projects. Groups that started out with the one objective to attract funding are less likely to survive because they are lacking the shared vision and group cohesion. Empowerment theory (Rappaport 1987; Zimmerman and Rappaport 1988; Zimmerman 1995) suggests that the early success’ of Landcare were through empowerment and explains the reactions to the changes to Landcare support. Empowerment is a process whereby people, groups and communities gain mastery over issues concerning them (Rappaport 1987). Empowering processes are those ‘where people create or are given opportunities to control their own destiny and influence the decisions that affect their lives’ (Zimmerman 1995 p.583); characteristics that the first two phases of Landcare exhibited. The state of psychological empowerment occurs when a person achieves critical understanding, has a proactive approach and perceives personal control and is actively engaged in one’s community (Zimmerman 1995). While Landcare was ‘bowling along’ (Phase 1 and 2), it operated in an environment where Landcare groups were involved closely in developing projects in their local area, members were gaining mastery over these activities as they learnt and gained control over Landcare processes. This is not to discount the limitations of Landcare activities to achieve longer term, natural resource management outcomes which in part drove the push for the current regional approach to natural resource management delivery today. When NHT2 (Phase 3) transferred significant control to the regional level Landcare groups felt disempowered. The resources they helped mobilise, the control they once had, the skills

Landcare bowling alone: finding a future in the ‘fourth’ phase

they developed and critical awareness of their socio-political environment were taken to another arena. Landcare at the local level, particularly farming groups, had diminishing reasons to meet, and the social capital that developed as part of the early empowering processes declined. The varying forms of social capital such as bonding and bridging social capital (Putnam 1995, 2000; Adler and Kwon 2002; Benn and Onyx 2003) also offer insight. Bonding social capital is inwardly looking and exclusive (Putnam 2000) and is characterised by strong bonds of solidarity and trust with emphasis on maintenance of norms and sanctions (Benn and Onyx 2003). Bridging social capital is by contrast outward looking and refers to the external networks (Adler and Kwon 2002). In this study groups exhibiting high levels of bonding social capital and low levels of bridging social capital tend to have been impacted by the changes in terms of declining membership and participation. Those with both low levels of bonding and bridging social capital are generally in recess. Groups exhibiting high levels of both bonding and bridging social capital tend to have a positive future (Compton and Beeton 2008). Groups lacking leadership, a shared vision and access to outside resources are examples of those with low levels of both bonding and bridging social capital while the groups with committed members and access to a coordinator are an example of a group exhibiting high forms of both bridging and bonding social capital. We agree that, ‘within community Landcare, both bonding and bridging relations contribute to achieve positive NRM outcomes’ (Webb and Cary 2005 p.128). However, making funding available to individuals makes groups redundant and social capital erodes. This in turn means that ‘a fundamental ingredient to the success of natural resource management’ is lost (Webb and Cary 2005 p.119). Our study portrays a dissonance, where according to local communities and landholders studied, the original purposes of Landcare have been overtaken by growing national priorities. Previously empowered Landcare members have been left in a state of disempowered confusion while regional bodies have focused on their own establishment, the creation of processes and the development of planning. This has created a hiatus for the grassroots-based Landcare. There is a potential complementarily of the two arenas of action, the community Landcare and the regional arrangements. There is a need to ‘simultaneously harness the energy and knowledge of localities, while maintaining the regulatory and policy capabilities of the states and the Commonwealth’ as Lane et al. suggest for Australia’s system of environmental governance (Lane et al. 2004 p. 401). Farrelly (2005) and Lane and McDonald (2005) argue that the effective delivery of NRM depends on the links between government and community, i.e. on links between policy makers and groups or individuals carrying out policy and programs. Landcare has previously been able to fill this gap.

Conclusion Our data suggests that the first two phases of Landcare were based upon empowering processes and the creation of social capital. Social capital loss can now partly be attributed to the regional NRM delivery arrangements. The development of a delivery capacity through regional bodies has not yet found a mechanism where empowerment and social capital can be reinvigorated. To do this will require resolution of the conflicts that have occurred and better integration of the two distinct but complimentary paths to improved NRM outcomes. We agree that ‘the rationale for a decentralised, regional approach to environmental management has some merit’ and also feel that ‘there is considerable need for reflection now, rather than 20 years on’ (Lane et al. 2004 p. 400).

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The motivation for participation in Landcare is both social and practical and reflects many of the characteristics of grassroots community empowerment and social capital building. The potential of this for achieving NRM outcomes is recognised by regional bodies. There is an open question as to whether the higher levels of government share in this recognition, particularly in the light of the recent introduction of the new ‘Caring for our Country’ program of the Australian Government. This is an opportunity to consider how this new program can be used to help recoup what has been lost and rebuild the social capital, and empower not only the regional, but the local. These issues of governance are made more complicated in a society where the composition of Landcare organisations is perceived to be dominated by producer organisations yet both traditional production and environmental outcomes are now required by society. This said, the recent findings of high levels of residual support for rural people in urban communities, suggests that the opportunity exists in the fourth phase of Landcare for the mobilisation of the Landcare community and its positive social capital characteristics to compliment and work with regional bodies (Witt et al. 2007). The consequential building of rural social capital and the delivery of outcomes would enjoy wide support in Australian society at large.

Acknowledgements The West Gippsland study was supported by a doctoral scholarship from the Australian Landscape Trust and Mr R McLean. The research was approved by the School of Natural and Rural Systems Management Ethics Committee. The Tasmanian and Central Victorian study was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research. The research was approved by the University of Tasmania Human Research Ethics Committee (Reference Number H9195). Thanks to all the people who agreed to be interviewed or contributed in other ways to this research.

Endnotes 1 In Tasmania the term NRM is often used synonymously with the regional body. 2 The position of Landcare Coordinator is termed differently in each region: NLP Industry Coordinator, Industry and Landcare Liaison Officer, Community Landcare Coordinator.

References Adler PS and Kwon S-W (2002). Social capital: prospects for a new concept. The Academy of Management Review 27(1), 17–40. Australian Government (2008). Caring for our Country. http://www.nrm.gov.au/funding/ future.html. Australian National Audit Office (2008). ‘Regional delivery model for the Natural Heritage Trust and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality: ANAO Audit Report No. 21 2007–08’. Canberra. Benn S and Onyx J (2003). ‘The colonisation of the local: the power relations of Landcare’. Paper presented at the Academy of Management Conference, Seattle. Broderick K (2005). Communities in catchments: implications for natural resource management. Geographical Research 43(3), 286–296. Burnup C (2006). ‘Landcare – how a good idea became a great national initiative’. Paper presented at the International Landcare Conference, Melbourne, October 2006.

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Campbell A (1992). Taking the long view in tough times: landcare in Australia. National Soil Conservation Program, Canberra. Campbell A (1997). Facilitating Landcare: conceptual and practical dilemmas. In Critical Landcare. (Eds S Lockie and F Vanclay) pp. 143–152. Centre for Rural Social Research, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga. Cary J and Webb T (2000). Community Landcare, the National Landcare Program and the Landcare Movement: the social dimensions of Landcare. Social Sciences Centre Bureau of Rural Sciences, Canberra. Coleman JS (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. The American Journal of Sociology 94, S95–S120. Compton E and Beeton R (2008). ‘An accidental outcome: social capital and its implications for Landcare and the “status quo”’. Paper presented at the International Symposium of Society and Resource Management, The University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont. Compton E, Hayne W and Beeton RB (2006). ‘Six years in a cement mixer: a Landcare journey through changing times’. Paper presented at the International Landcare Conference, Melbourne, October 2006. Cramb RA (2005). Social capital and soil conservation: evidence from the Philippines. The Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 49(2), 211–226. Curtis A and Cooke P (2006). ‘Landcare groups in Victoria: after twenty years: a report to the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, National Landcare Program, Monitoring and Evaluation Project’. Institute for Land, Water & Society & National Landcare Program, Charles Sturt University. Curtis A and De Lacy T (1994). Landcare: does it make a difference? Johnstone Centre of Parks, Recreation and Heritage, Charles Sturt University, Albury. Curtis A and De Lacy T (1998). Landcare, Stewardship and Sustainable Agriculture in Australia. Environmental Values 7, 59–78. Ewing S (2000). ‘The place of Landcare in catchment structures’. Paper presented at the International Landcare 2000 Conference & Exhibition, Melbourne Convention Centre, Melbourne. Farrelly M (2005). Regionalisation of environmental management: a case study of the Natural Heritage Trust, South Australia. Geographical Research 43(4), 393–405. Glaser BG (1992). Emergence vs Forcing: Basics of Grounded Theory Analysis. Sociology Press, Mill Valley, CA. Kirner J (2000). ‘Landcare: its origins’. Paper presented at the International Landcare 2000 Conference & Exhibition, Melbourne Convention Centre, Melbourne. Lamnek S (1995). Qualitative Sozialforschung (3rd ed. Vol. 2: Methoden und Techniken). Psychologie Verlags Union, Weinheim. Lane MB and McDonald G (2005). Community based environmental planning: operational dilemmas, planning principles and possible remedies. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 48(5), 709–731. Lane MB, McDonald GT and Morrison T (2004). An agnostic view on regionalism, decentralisation and other silver bullets: a response to Thom. Australian Geographical Studies 42(3), 398–403. Lockie S (1996). Sociocultural dynamics and the development of the landcare movement in Australia. Unpublished PhD thesis. Charles Sturt University, Albury. Lockie S (1997). Beyond a ‘good thing’: political interests and the meaning of Landcare. In Critical Landcare. (Eds S Lockie and F Vanclay) pp. 29–43. Wagga Wagga. Lockie S (1999). Community movements and corporate images: ‘Landcare’ in Australia. Rural Sociology 64(2), 219–233.

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Lockie S (2001). Community environmental management?: Landcare in Australia. In Rurality Bites: The Social and Environmental Transformation of Rural Australia. (Eds S Lockie and L Bourke) pp. 243–256. Photo Press, Annandale. Marriott S, Nabben T, Youl R and Polkinghorne L (2000). Landcare in Australia: Founded on Local Action (2nd edn). Melbourne. Miles MB and Huberman AM (1994). Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook (2nd ed.). Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, Calif. Prager K and Vanclay F (submitted). Landcare in Australia and Germany: comparing structures and policies for community engagement in natural resource management. Society and Natural Resources. Pretty J and Ward H (2001). Social capital and the environment. World Development 29(2), 209–227. Putnam RD (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy 6(1), 65–78. Putnam RD (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon & Schuster, New York. Rappaport J (1987). Terms of empowerment/exemplars of prevention: toward a theory for community psychology. American Journal of Community Psychology 15(2), 121–148. Roberts B (2003). ‘Land ethics: philosophical clap trap or necessary action driver?’ Paper presented at the National Landcare Conference 2003, Darwin, Northern Territory. Sobels J, Curtis A and Lockie S (2001). The role of Landcare group networks in rural Australia: exploring the contribution of social capital. Journal of Rural Studies 17(3), 265–276. Strauss A and Corbin J (1990). Basics of Qualitative Research. Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Sage, London. Webb T and Cary J (2005). Social capital and natural resource management: an application to Landcare. Rural Society, 15(2), 119–131. Williams JA (2007). Success attributes of regional NRM systems in Australia. Unpublished PhD thesis. The University of Queensland, Gatton. Witt B, Witt K, Carter RW and Beeton R (2007). Urban people’s views of farmers, rural land management and conservation: Clarifying ‘he public interest’ in rural land management and rural issues for better communication and relationship building. The University of Queensland, Gatton. Yin RK (2003). Case Study Research: Design and Methods (3rd ed.). Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA. Zimmerman MA (1995). Psychological empowerment: issues and illustrations. American Journal of Community Psychology 23(5), 581–599. Zimmerman MA and Rappaport J (1988). Citizen participation, perceived control, and psychological empowerment. American Journal of Community Psychology 16(5), 725–750.

11

Indigenous natural resource management: overcoming marginalisation produced in Australia’s current NRM model Rosemary Hill and Liana Williams

Introduction This chapter interrogates the complex issue of securing meaningful Indigenous participation in natural resource management (NRM) in Australia. Despite the rhetoric about participation, the needs of Indigenous communities have been poorly accommodated, with Indigenous organisations receiving less than 3% of NRM funds allocated by the Australian government between 1996 and 2005 (Tables 11.1 and 11.2). Nevertheless, Indigenous people continue exercising their responsibilities for environmental management through highly innovative projects, such as fire management for carbon abatement, even though poor access to resources is exacerbated by poor recognition of rights and the withdrawal of industries and services from the remote regions where Indigenous people dominate. This chapter begins by briefly discussing the key concepts of our theoretical framing, deliberative democracy and collaborative planning as they relate to Indigenous NRM in Australia. We then provide an analysis of systematic marginalisation of Indigenous peoples from Australian government NRM funding sources, highlighting the underlying causes. We investigate the importance of this marginalisation through a discussion of both the equity considerations and the significance of Indigenous NRM to Australia. We then present a case study in the wet tropics NRM region of north-eastern Australian, where Indigenous peoples have been relatively more successful in obtaining funding. Our wet tropics case study provides a focus on a key aspect of the Indigenous marginalisation that occurred in NHT2: the extent to which the marginalisation resulted simply from the recognised failure of regional bodies to implement the conceptualised deliberative collaborative processes (Allan and Curtis 2005; Wallington et al. 2008). Our analysis demonstrates that high-quality collaborative planning processes were used in the wet tropics. We also consider the wet tropics approach to managing several key risks associated with collaborative processes for Indigenous peoples: replicating power asymmetries; non government organisations’ (NGO) neo-colonialism; avoiding contentious issues, and extending government influence at the expense of social learning. This analysis of risks focuses attention on structural issues of more significance to national-level Indigenous NRM policy: the role of Indigenous civil society organisations, the Indigenous polity and native title/land rights implementation. We conclude that better Indigenous engagement in and access to funding for NRM will result if a specific 161

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Indigenous NRM funding stream is established, with a focus on building Indigenous NRM civil society; supporting fourth-sector brokering entities who can partner ‘for-benefit’, providing opportunities for Indigenous-specific planning, and making linkages to outcomes from native title-brokered Indigenous Land Use Agreements. This chapter draws on two distinct areas of research. Information on Indigenous participation in the Natural Heritage Trust draws heavily on the work of Lane and Corbett (2005), Williams (2005) and Lane and Williams (2008) which have examined quantitative data on funding to Indigenous communities combined with detailed interviews with Indigenous Land Management Facilitators (ILMF) and Federal bureaucrats involved in NHT implementation and oversight. This research is used as a contextual basis for exploring outcomes from participatory Indigenous NRM co-research in the wet tropics region, supported through the Rainforest Cooperative Research Centre and the Marine and Tropical Science Research Facility, drawing on the work of Hill (2008, 2006), Hill et al. (2004), Larsen and Pannell (2006), Talbot (2005), Pannell (2008) and WTAPPT (2005). We conclude that improved Indigenous involvement in NRM through specific Indigenous NRM funding initiatives is an urgent national imperative to achieve equity. The new Australian Government ‘Caring for our Country’ policy which allocates 6.7% of funds to Indigenousspecific projects is welcome, but does not yet meet equity requirements as the Indigenous estate comprises some 20% of the Australian continental land mass (Altman et al. 2007). Increasing the funding level provides opportunities to move beyond equity considerations and address two of the nation’s most important policy challenges: uplifting Indigenous socio-economic status, and developing sustainable land management systems, including in areas of high conservation significance.

Deliberative democracy, collaborative planning and Indigenous NRM Deliberative democratic approaches to environmental planning have arisen in part from recognition of the diversity of human cultures and a critique that representative democracy techniques focus heavily on power struggles, material distribution and on who should get what without addressing differences in human understandings of the world (Healey 1996). The focus in deliberative democracy is on development of shared understanding between stakeholders to reach decisions that participants believe are fair and reasonable, recognising that there is not one absolutely ‘right’ solution (Miller 1992; Smith and Wales 2000). Throughout this chapter, we conceptualise ‘collaboration’ and ‘collaborative planning’ as mechanisms or tools used to bring deliberative democracy into an NRM decision-making process. The concept of collaboration is rapidly becoming one of the dominant ideas of natural resources policy and politics in the 21st century (Daniels and Cheng 2005; Kemmis 2001; McKinney and Field 2008; Wondolleck and Yaffee 2000). Proponents of collaboration claim its benefits arise because it includes all affected parties, takes less time and resources than more conventional agency-driven public participation, results in more informed and creative solutions, builds social capacity, improves environmental outcomes, and acts as a means of integration between top-down and bottom-up approaches (Lurie and Hibbard 2008; McKinney and Field 2008; Susskind et al. 1999). The theoretical framing of deliberative democracy as a means of addressing differences in human understandings of the world suggests that such processes should be more capable of enabling the meaningful participation of Indigenous people in NRM decision making and planning. Indigenous people in Australia have a profoundly different understanding about the world to the settler societies that now dominate their political choices, reflected in sui generis customary law

Indigenous natural resource management: overcoming marginalisation produced in Australia’s current NRM model

systems, now partly recognised through the Australian and various State Native Title Acts. Collaboration can operate in many different ways to assist communities with a different culture and history to the dominant society: as a means of self-defence, a response to complexity; to achieve effectiveness, efficiency, respect and equity, and to build social institutions that provide for ongoing fair negotiations (Borrini-Feyerabend et al. 2004). There are however, many well-documented concerns within both deliberative democracy and NRM collaboration that also suggest such processes may contain inherent flaws in relation to achieving Indigenous participation. Rockloff and Lockie argue for the development of strong capacity-building strategies to ensure that uneven access to resources and spokespeople does not hinder deliberative processes by favouring a well-established and powerful elite (Rockloff and Lockie 2006). Collaboration can de-legitimise conflict, co-opt environmental advocates; exclude certain interest groups and lead to lowest common denominator solutions for NRM (McKinney and Field 2008). The regional NRM arrangements in Australia during the period 2002–05 are recognised as seeking to enshrine the place of citizens in decision making, reflecting a deliberative democratic and collaborative turn in NRM (Pannell 2008). Effective regional community engagement was viewed as the means of overcoming the recognised marginalisation of Indigenous peoples in NHT1 (Lane and Corbett 2005; Dames and Moore 1999), reflected in the publication of national Indigenous engagement protocols for NRM (Natural Heritage Trust 2004a, b and c). In the next section we consider the extent to which this deliberative turn empowered Indigenous peoples, firstly presenting an analysis of the outcomes from the earlier NRM arrangements.

The Natural Heritage Trust: empowering communities? The Natural Heritage Trust promised a new era of environmental management in Australia. Inspired by the success of the community movement Landcare, the first phase from 1997 to 2002 was based on the belief that adequately resourced local communities would effectively address environmental issues in a locally appropriate manner. Somewhat revolutionary as a national program, it challenged the status of the distant scientific experts through its emphasis on community participation. Indeed, ‘a community empowered to invest in, and take responsibility for, ecologically sustainable management’ was one of the key result areas for the initial phase of the Trust (Environment Australia 1999 p. 3). Applications for funding to deliver local environmental outcomes, usually by community groups, were assessed first by Regional Assessment Panels and subsequently by State Assessment Panels who would then make recommendations to the Minister. As a result of ‘concerns expressed by Indigenous and other stakeholders about the low level of access by indigenous groups to mainstream land management programs’ (Commonwealth of Australia, 1998 p. 15), and in an attempt to secure an equitable approach to NRM under the NHT, a network of Indigenous Land Management Facilitators was introduced. This network of only 11 (and later 13) facilitators was charged with improving Indigenous access to the NHT. Despite the rhetoric, the first phase of the NHT was criticised as ‘socio-economically insensitive’ in its approach (Dames and More NRM 1999 p. 1). Table 11.1 shows that the NHT1 delivered only 2.3% of total funds to Indigenous organisations – a figure far below the proportion of the Indigenous estate (Lane and Williams, 2008). 1 Although modest increases can be observed in some States towards the end of the first phase, the amount of funding allocated indicates a startlingly low level of Aboriginal participation in Australia’s major environmental management funding program. Further analysis of NHT1 by Lane and Corbett (2005) suggests Indigenous interests were both poorly understood and inadequately represented on local and regional assessment panels. Combined with the largely

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Table 11.1: Percentage of total NHT1 funds allocated to Indigenous organisations by state and year 1996–97–2002–03 1996/97 1997/98 1998/99 1999/2000 2000/01 2001/02 2002/03 Total % % % % % % % NHT1 %

State ACT

0.0

0.8

2.1

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.5

NSW

1.4

0.6

0.5

0.7

0.7

0.7

0.0

0.7

NT

7.9

18.4

14.2

19.4

25.9

26.2

0.0

20.1

QLD

1.2

1.1

1.0

1.8

7.3

9.8

2.4

4.0

SA

2.6

5.5

5.0

4.4

4.0

5.2

0.0

4.7

TAS

0.0

1.5

0.5

0.8

0.9

0.8

0.0

0.7

VIC

1.0

0.3

0.4

0.3

0.8

1.2

0.0

0.6

WA

0.0

1.8

1.1

1.2

1.4

2.1

0.0

1.5

National

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

1.2

0.0

0.2

Overall

1.3

1.8

1.5

1.8

3.0

3.6

0.4

2.3

Source: adapted from Parliament of Australia (2005, pp. 203–204).

agricultural agenda, Indigenous proposals that did not reflect this priority were largely unable to secure funding with the assessment panels failing to understand the often culturally driven proposals from Indigenous communities. In addition, Lane and Corbett found Indigenous communities had limited capacity to apply for funding, either because they were absorbed by basic social justice, welfare and survival issues, or struggled to navigate the complex application process. The second phase of the NHT sought to redress some of these problems providing for ‘increased ownership in the development and implementation of solutions to local and regional environmental problems’ (Commonwealth of Australia 2004 p. iii). This time newly-formed regional bodies would add a layer of protection from localised power struggles and parochialism. Regional bodies would become the centre point of NRM planning and implementation, working in collaboration with local communities, business and research organisations to develop regional plans and investment strategies. Several policy measures were put in place to try and increase or safeguard Indigenous interests in this phase. The Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council Indigenous Reconciliation Action Plan explicitly established a requirement for Indigenous involvement and service delivery from all NRM agencies. Criteria and guidelines for accreditation of Integrated Regional NRM Plans stipulated that, among other requirements, they must: ●

●

●

involve Indigenous communities, local government, state agencies, resource managers, industry and communities, academic/scientific community and environmental groups where relevant; incorporate Indigenous knowledge, where appropriate, in accordance with agreed protocols and with prior approval of the Indigenous custodians of the knowledge, and show how regional and site specific Indigenous and historic heritage legislation, policies and plans are incorporated (Smyth et al. 2004).

Indigenous engagement protocols for NRM were released by the Australian government (Natural Heritage Trust 2004 a, b and c). Furthermore, in 2005, the promotion of ‘Indigenous community participation in planning and delivery of regional NRM outcomes’ was adopted as the seventh national objective of the NHT (Smyth 2005 p. 6).

Indigenous natural resource management: overcoming marginalisation produced in Australia’s current NRM model

Table 11.2: Percentage of Total NHT2 Funds for Indigenous Organisations by State and Year (2002–03 to 2002–05) State/Territory ACT NSW

2002/03 %

2003/04 %

2004/05 %

2002–05 %

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.7

0.8

1.4

0.8

11.9

15.2

7.8

12.2

4.8

2.5

0.8

2.0

SA

3.4

3.0

2.0

2.7

TAS

2.3

0.8

0.2

0.7

VIC

0.7

0.3

0.1

0.4

NT QLD

WA

0.1

2.0

1.6

1.4

National

3.5

3.8

2.3

3.0

TOTAL

2.4

2.8

1.7

2.2

Source: adapted from Parliament of Australia (2005, pp. 203–204).

Despite the efforts to formalise and thereby increase Indigenous involvement and ownership in NRM planning and decision making under NHT2, Lane and Williams (2008) present Government funding data to 2005 which paints a depressingly familiar picture of Indigenous involvement. Under NHT2, to 2005 only 2.2% of funding was allocated to Indigenous organisations as shown in Table 11.2.2 Indeed, there is a notable decrease in funding to Indigenous communities across all states and territories. Lane and Williams (2008) suggest changes made to the NHT were not sufficient to overcome many of the issues that had restricted Indigenous access to funding in the first phase of the Trust. Detailed interviews with Federal bureaucrats and members of the ILMF network suggested that some regional bodies were either unwilling or struggling to adequately consult with Indigenous communities and incorporate their priorities and perspectives into regional plans. This was, in part, due to narrow Federal Government guidelines and priorities that again excluded Indigenous cultural NRM priorities. Finally, nothing had changed to increase the ability of Indigenous communities to participate. Communities felt they could either not meet the costs of participation, or NRM was seen as a low priority among the many competing demands on Indigenous communities. There are two persistent themes surrounding low Indigenous access to funding across each phase of the NHT. First, that western-European concepts of NRM often exclude or attribute a low priority to concepts held by Indigenous people and second, that although many Indigenous communities may acknowledge the importance of looking after the country and fulfilling their customary obligations to the greatest extent possible, their capacity is already stretched dealing with other issues. This analysis of the NHT is just one example of the continuing challenge for Indigenous communities to get funding and have meaningful involvement in NRM decision making processes that affect on their own land, or land in which they have significant interest. They are not new, nor particularly shocking revelations; indeed these and many other constraints are well documented in a range of programs and policies (O’Faircheallaigh and Corbett 2005; Sutherland and Muir 2003; Howitt 2001; Lane 2002; Worth 2005; Baker Davies and Young 2001). What these reviews highlight is the pervasive nature of these problems, despite some notable exceptions further analysed in the case study below. We now consider the significance of this ongoing marginalisation of Indigenous peoples in the Australian NRM system.

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Indigenous marginalisation from NRM: does it matter? The importance of the Indigenous NRM contribution is underlined by a recent estimation that Indigenous estate now comprises some 20% of the Australian land mass, 18% held under statutory title, and a further 2% through recognised native title (Altman et al. 2007). More than 98% of this Indigenous estate lies in remote and very remote Australia, where Indigenous people make up almost half of the population (Taylor 2006). This Indigenous estate contains areas of high conservation value resulting from three key attributes: rich diversity of ecosystems reflecting continental-scale environmental gradients; significant portions of relatively ecologically intact ecosystems with connected and functioning ecological processes, and the persistence of many species that are extinct, rare or declining elsewhere (Altman et al. 2007). Management of wildfires, invasive weeds and feral animals is critical to the ongoing ecological health of these landscapes (Garnett and Sithole 2007; Woinarski et al. 2007). Clearly on an equity basis, the allocation of less than 3% of National funding to organisations responsible for managing the 20% of Australia with such outstanding conservation significance and important management challenges represents a policy failure. However, Indigenous peoples have frequently asserted a reason beyond equity for supporting their engagement in management of the land: that it leads to both healthier country and healthier people (Burgess et al. 2005; Hill 2003; Johnston et al. 2007). Gilligan (2006) reports that involvement in environmental management of the country has many positive outcomes for Indigenous social well-being: increased levels of school attendance; reduced substance abuse, and more functional families. Garnett and Sithole (2007) found that Indigenous people taking part in contemporary land and sea management practices, particularly those living on their traditional lands, exhibited lower rates of diabetes and lower levels of cardio-vascular disease, and that there was a significant inverse association between these health risks and levels of NRM participation. Traditional burning practices implemented by Indigenous peoples’ NRM have been demonstrated to offer a unique opportunity for the conservation of biodiversity (Bowman et al. 2007, 2004; Bowman and Prior 2004; Franklin et al. 2008; 2005; Garnett and Sithole 2007; Yibarbuk et al. 2001). An analysis of different outcomes from NRM on European and Aboriginal tenures demonstrated that weeds were more frequent on the European tenures, while feral animals were most abundant on Aboriginal tenures (Franklin et al. 2008). Sithole and her co-authors’ associated community-driven evaluation of Indigenous land and sea management concluded that from the Indigenous perspective, these successful NRM and health outcomes depend on its links to Indigenous culture and law/lore (Sithole et al. 2008). Our research in the wet tropics region of north-east Queensland, similarly highlights the importance of connections between NRM and Indigenous people’s sui generis customary-law systems. Their relationships to land and sea, and associated cultural obligations to their country form part of an ongoing adaptive management system that has achieved sustainability over a very long period (Hill et al. 2007). This system encompasses traditional ecological and management knowledge; management practices based on that knowledge, including monitoring and feedback systems; Indigenous social systems that support and control both the knowledge and practices, and an Indigenous world view and ethics that emphasises reciprocity and interconnections between people, country and natural phenomena (Aboriginal Rainforest Council 2007; Hill 2008; Hill 2007; Hill et al. 2004; Talbot 2005). For example, Indigenous techniques for harvesting materials including fish, wood, bark, grass, and lawyer cane are important to ensuring sustainable use of the rainforests, and linked to ecological knowledge of seasonal indicators (Hill et al. 2004; Worboys 2002; Roberts et al. 1995; Talbot 2005; Pedley 1992). A contemporary multi-level governance system developed through NGOs including the Rainforest Aboriginal Network, Bama Wabu, the Aboriginal Rainforest Council and the

Indigenous natural resource management: overcoming marginalisation produced in Australia’s current NRM model

Girringun Aboriginal Corporation, plays a critical catalytic role in protecting these practices and underlying knowledge systems, and in bringing forward an Aboriginal world view into the environmental management discourse (Aboriginal Rainforest Council 2007). Indigenous health has proven particularly intractable to policy solutions in Australia, where life expectancy gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians remain at 17 years (HREOC 2006). Sustainable environmental management has proved similarly intractable, with ongoing measurable declines in Australian environmental condition since European settlement (Beeton et al. 2006). Indigenous NRM therefore has significance beyond the principles of equity: the opportunity to uplift Indigenous health and socio-economic disadvantage, and to achieve sustainable management of high conservation value landscapes through Indigenous adaptive management systems based on sui generis customary law with proven contemporary outcomes for biodiversity conservation. We now turn our attention to the promise of collaboration and argue for an innovative approach to secure important social and environmental outcomes for Indigenous and nonIndigenous Australians.

Overcoming Indigenous marginalisation in NRM The potential of collaboration The original role proposed for regional bodies in the new system of environmental governance associated with NHT2 for 2004–08 was that of an independent, non-governmental regional organisation. They were to facilitate deliberative planning processes inclusive of the range of stakeholders and wider publics, providing the basis of their community support, and their ability to move beyond the intractability of environmental and natural resource issues (Head and Ryan 2004; Wallington et al. 2008). Nevertheless, regional NRM bodies are widely recognised having failed to deliver on inclusive, community-based collaborative approaches (Allan and Curtis 2005; Wallington et al. 2008; Worth 2005). The wet tropics NRM region stands out as a place where investment into Indigenous NRM has been proportionately larger than other parts of Australia during NHT2. During the 2007–08 financial year, approximately 11.9% of the overall budget of Terrain NRM (the regional NRM body, incorporated as an NGO) was allocated specifically to Indigenous NRM, significantly higher than the national average (Allan Dale, CEO Terrain NRM, 23 June 2008, pers.comm.). We examine what occurred in the wet tropics in order to test whether these more successful outcomes result from high quality implementation of deliberative democracy through collaborative approaches or from alternative methods. Wet tropics region case study The resources for Indigenous NRM in the wet tropics case study have been directed primarily towards two very significant initiatives: the Cultural Heritage Mapping Project (CHMP); and Country-based NRM action plans at the local tribal-group scale (Allan Dale, CEO Terrain NRM, 23 June 2008, pers.comm.). The CHMP enables local Traditional Owner groups to document, store and apply their cultural heritage information in relation to the management of their traditional country. The project utilises digital media and a computer-based information system adapted from successful applications trialled at Uluru and Vanuatu.3 Cultural heritage is interpreted very widely and the system allows for inclusion of aspects such as knowledge of plants and animals, location of cultural sites, tracks and other places, techniques for sustainable harvesting, dreaming stories, language and cultural practices such as basket weaving, food preparation, artefact production and dance. The country-based plans document

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the priorities and protocols for NRM action by particular tribal groups, of which there are 18 within the wet tropics region (Girringun Aboriginal Corporation 2007). In addition to the cultural mapping and country-based planning initiatives, NHT funding has been directed through Terrain NRM to support environmental management of lands returned through Indigenous Land Use Agreements with Kuku-Yalanji and Mandingalpi Yidinji Traditional Owners under the Native Title Act 1993 Reprint 1. These important projects grew out of the preparation of Australia’s first Aboriginal Cultural and Natural Resource Management Plan, commonly known as the Bama Plan (WTAPPT 2005), supporting Lane and Hibbard’s (2005) view of the transformative power of planning for Indigenous rights and status. The decision by Aboriginal people in the wet tropics to produce their own NRM plan in NHT2 reflected both their frustration with Indigenous participation in NHT1, and a strong desire to break new ground by promulgating their vision for caring for country and culture in a holistic sense (Hill et al. 2002; Larsen and Pannell 2006; Pannell 2008). The participatory processes employed in preparation of the Bama Plan included extensive consultation and consensus-building through facilitated community workshops and Indigenous advisory groups (Larsen and Pannell 2006). The decision-making model was based on the concept that the Bama Plan should reflect the priorities and desires of Traditional Owners. Smyth et al. (2004) examined the wet tropics as one of six case studies of Indigenous engagement in NRM, and identified 10 attributes associated with success, all of which were demonstrated in the wet tropics case (see Box 11.1). In addition to these factors, Larsen and Pannell (2006) highlighted the challenge encountered during formulation of the Bama Plan to broaden the narrow Federal Government framing of NHT2/NRM around ‘resource condition’ in order to accommodate the Indigenous perspective. The wet tropics Traditional Owners framed their view of NRM around aspects like cultural knowledge, language maintenance, young and old people being on country together; in effect, all the elements of the ongoing Indigenous adaptive management system (Hill et al. 2007; Pannell 2008). The Federal Government, on the other hand, framed the NRM process in biophysical parameters, specifying that targets should be set for measurable matters such as land salinity, nutrients in aquatic environments, soil condition, etc. Such an ability to reframe the situation is identified as one of the key criteria for successful deliberative planning, alongside the need for a common purpose, inclusive processes, broad rather than formal representation, multiple approaches to communication, working at an appropriate scale, starting with a level playing field, using facilitators, and focusing on mutual learning (Daniels and Cheng 2005). All of these aspects were included in the Bama planning process to some degree, although the processes were not ‘inclusive’ focusing on separate opportunities for Aboriginal people. The wet tropics collaborative planning demonstrates many attributes of good practice in supporting community deliberation. Collaboration is also recognised as including weakness that may jeopardise Indigenous NRM participation (McKinney and Field 2008). Four inherent weaknesses of deliberation through collaborative planning were identified in the literature as salient to the wet tropics case study: power asymmetries; avoidance of conflict/contention; extension of government influence, and NGO neo-colonialism. Cheng and Mattor (2006) have highlighted the risk posed by power asymmetries while Young (2001) argues that deliberative processes always favour the powerful, replicating the existing power relations and further entrenching the disadvantage of the marginalised. A tendency exists to avoid potentially contentious issues or to undermine the legitimate democratic mechanisms established to make decisions through the courts and parliaments (Daniels and Cheng 2005; Poncelet 2001). In the Australian experiment with collaborative natural resource management, Allan and Curtis (2005), Lane and Morrison (2006), and Wallington et al. (2008) all highlight the key

Indigenous natural resource management: overcoming marginalisation produced in Australia’s current NRM model

Box 11.1 Attributes of successful Indigenous NRM Engagement (Smyth et al. 2004) 1. Time and timing that allows Indigenous people to set time frames that are compatible with their own cultural protocols 2. Dedicated resources available for Indigenous people 3. Engagement methods that support Indigenous approaches 4. Effective leadership in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous organisations 5. Recognition of the special relationship of Indigenous people with their country 6. Capacity building of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous parties 7. Recognition of the diversity among Indigenous peoples 8. Recognition of the importance local country-based scale (associated with tribal groups) within the regional scale 9. Social and economic objectives addressed as complementary to NRM 10. Effective and ongoing communication.

risk of governments using the collaboration to extend their policy influence rather than to promote social learning and genuine community empowerment. In addition, NGOs have been portrayed as continuing a neo-colonial approach to engagement on natural resource management, ignoring Indigenous and local peoples’ interests and capacities while pursuing strict protection regimes that infringe cultural and political rights (Chapin 2004; Holt 2005). Lane (2003) demonstrates how conservation NGOs and forestry companies served to exclude Indigenous people from the outcomes of collaborative forest agreement processes in Australia. Smyth et al. (2004) notes that some Indigenous people, conscious that race relations are tense in many rural areas, express concern that devolution of NRM to the Regional NRM NGOs will further entrench Indigenous marginalisation. The responses in the wet tropics case study that seem to have averted these risks are presented in Table 11.3. While the success factors focus attention on the processes needed to overcome Indigenous NRM marginalisation through collaborative planning, the consideration of potential risks places greater emphasis on structural factors that may be of more importance in future policy design: access to resources for Indigenous-specific NRM; linkages to native title outcomes, and the roles of both Indigenous civil society organisations and flexible ‘brokers’ such as Terrain NRM as partner organisations. We now consider these three factors in greater detail.

The structural factors in overcoming Indigenous NRM marginalisation: indigenous polity, native title implementation and Indigenous civil society The resources made available in the wet tropics region for specific Indigenous NRM projects (that reflect the Indigenous framing of NRM) highlights the broader opportunities for Indigenous participation that could be available from separately identified Australian government funding for NRM. While the wet tropics regional NRM body supported funding Indigenousspecific projects, Smyth et al. (2004) report that Indigenous peoples’ projects have been rejected because they contained too much focus on culture, reflecting the mis-fits identified

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Table 11.3: Wet tropics region responses to manage the inherent risks in NRM collaboration that tend to entrench Indigenous marginalisation Risk

Wet Tropics response

Replicate existing power relationships, entrenching marginalisation

Bama Plan completed separately first through Traditional Owner-run processes; specific Indigenous projects reflecting Indigenous priorities about cultural mapping and country-based action funded; staged inclusion of Indigenous interests in more general NRM projects

Avoid inherently contentious issues, and undermine the court processes for resolving such conflicts, such as the Native Title Act

Native title processes directly supported by the Regional NRM NGO (Terrain NRM) e.g. funding for environmental management associated with the Yalanji ILUA and the Mangingalpi ILUA

Collaboration used to extend government influence, not promote social learning or genuine community empowerment

Direct support from and partnerships with Indigenous civil society organisations and key government agencies (particularly the Wet Tropics Management Authority)

NGO neo-colonialism

Direct support from and partnerships with Indigenous civil society organisations and the Regional NRM NGO (Terrain NRM)

early in this chapter. The concept of ‘inclusiveness’ recognised in the best-practice standards (Lockwood et al. 2008) should not be interpreted as involving Indigenous peoples broadly as one of many stakeholders. Rather, support for separate Indigenous projects and planning enables a staging process that can bring a stronger a more effective Indigenous polity and adaptive system into the broader NRM process at later stages of the planning cycle, thereby reversing the current marginalisation. The various native title acts and land rights laws in the Australian States and Territories have been established to resolve conflicts over the Indigenous rights and interests in relation to the environment. No amount of collaboration can resolve conflict over Indigenous environmental rights outside these processes (HREOC 2007). In addition, many co-management regimes have been developed by governments to address co-existence of Indigenous rights in places such as national parks and conservation reserves (Bauman and Smyth 2007). However, Indigenous Prescribed Bodies Corporate (PBCs) established to hold and take responsibility for land recognised as having native title find themselves, for the most part, without income or readily available assets, and without the necessary skills to be able to generate them (National Native Title Council 2006). For example, Lhere Artepe PBC had to sell lands acquired through native title negotiations to cover administrative costs (Bauman and Tran 2007). PBCs have two primary roles: ●

●

to protect and manage determined native title, in accordance with the native title holders’ wishes, and to provide a legal entity through which native title holders can conduct business with government, and others, interested in accessing or regulating native title lands and waters (HREOC 2007).

Clearly the first role is essentially Natural Resource Management. Other Indigenous NGOs in Australia that hold land and have associated NRM responsibilities experience similar challenges to the PBCs. For example, Land Trusts established to hold and manage land under the Aboriginal Land Act 1991 (Queensland) frequently lack the resources and training to meet their statutory compliance requirements or to allow action on environmental management and sustainable development aspirations (Queensland Government Natural Resources and Mines

Indigenous natural resource management: overcoming marginalisation produced in Australia’s current NRM model

2005). Linking NRM funding into these native title and land rights regimes therefore can overcome both the inherent weakness of avoiding conflict in deliberative processes, and the lack of appropriate funding for Indigenous NGOs arising out of resolution of Indigenous environmental rights issues. Girringun Aboriginal Corporation (GAC) is an exemplar of both the significance of the contributions of Indigenous civil society organisations focused on environmental management, and the overwhelming challenge they face in the current socio-political context. GAC was started by Traditional Owner groups coming together in 1996 to focus collectively on their land and sea interests, and now represents the Bandjin, Girramay, Gulnay, Warrgamay, Jirrbal, Warungnu, Nywaigi, Gugu Badhun and Djiru tribal groups (Greiner et al. 2007). The Girringun mission is to provide leadership, direction, and assistance in achieving the sustainable social, cultural, spiritual, environmental and economic well-being of the Aboriginal Traditional Owners of Girringun, and other Indigenous people, for the benefit of the region (GAC 2005). Greiner and her co-authors’ study of Traditional Owner well-being clearly identified the contribution made by Girringun to improved rights, involvement with and access of Traditional Owners to country; improved connection to culture, heritage conservation and passing on of traditions, lore and language (Greiner et al. 2007). Together these elements form Country and Culture, one of the three core Indigenous well-being domains identified in the study; the other core domains are Aboriginal (Tribal) Community and Family and Education and Training. Apart from this high importance to Aboriginal people, Girringun is also seen as a ‘one-stopshop’ for many government and non-government organisations needing to engage in land, sea and environmental management. Girringun Aboriginal Corporation hosted the Second Indigenous Land and Sea Management Conference in Cardwell in October 2007, an important national gathering that highlighted both the diversity and strength in contemporary Indigenous NRM, and the capacity of a small Indigenous civil society NGO to organise. Presentations on traditional knowledge recording, cultural mapping, sustainable fishing and sponge farming, country-based planning, cassowary and dugong management, Indigenous protected areas, wetland management, community rangers, carbon abatement through fire management, ghost net removal and Indigenous governance reflect the profoundly positive contribution of Indigenous Australians to NRM, both in remote and closely-settled regions (Girringun Aboriginal Corporation 2007; Hill et al. 2008). Nevertheless in May 2008, less than a year after hosting the highly successful conference, Girringun was engaged in the annual process of losing the majority of staff and relying on the services of unpaid volunteers while the government agencies resolved whether new project funding arrangements for the 2008–09 financial year would be forthcoming (L Pentecost, Girringun Cultural Heritage Officer, May 15 2008, pers.comm.). Such insecurity of funding and staff for an organisation with a proven capacity of overcome Indigenous marginalisation in NRM is a sign of policy failure. Terrain NRM has played a key role in all the responses highlighted in Table 11.3 that overcame the inherent risks associated with collaboration for Indigenous peoples. Terrain’s role as a partner in supporting the Indigenous agenda has been particularly important to avoiding neo-colonialism that has resulted from some environment NGOs interactions with Indigenous peoples (Chapin 2004). Many aspects of the operation of Terrain NRM align it with the emerging ‘fourth sector’, commonly referred to as the ‘for-benefit’ sector, which brings for-profit, not-for-profit, and government operations together into a new ‘for-benefit’ approach, which aims to achieve outcomes across environmental, business, social and cultural domains (Hill et al. 2008). Partnerships with Terrain NRM have enabled the Indigenous NGOs to access support, networks, expertise and resources without the constraints of the high accountability regimes of government or the focus on profit of the corporate sector or the constituency accountability commonly required by not-for-profits. While the lack of clear

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systems of accountability is recognised as one of the weaknesses of the regional bodies (Wallington et al. 2008), it is also clearly a strength of some significance to building Indigenous participation in NRM. The ‘Ecotrust’ organisations in Canada and the USA, also operating as fourth sector entities, have shown outstanding catalytic capability in driving sustainable Indigenous economic development (Hill et al. 2008).

Conclusions As questions are raised over the efficacy of regionalised environmental management under NHT 2 (e.g. Robins and Dovers 2007; Lane 2006; Lockwood et al. 2007; Wallington and Lawrence 2008; Lane and Williams 2008) there is an important opportunity to re-fashion Australia’s major environmental programs to enable, rather than constrain, the involvement of Indigenous communities in the decisions and policies for NRM. Review of Indigenous participation (or lack thereof) under each phase of the NHT has highlighted continuing and familiar barriers, in particular the marginalisation of Indigenous knowledge and the need to support and build the capacity of Indigenous communities. Our analysis of relatively successful NRM planning processes, where Indigenous people gained a higher than usual share of resources, confirmed that high quality processes in implementing deliberative democracy through collaborative planning can overcome Indigenous marginality to some extent – the problem in part is that regional NRM NGOs have not proven capable of the allocated task (Robins and Dovers 2007). In addition, consideration of the approaches used in the wet tropics to overcome the inherent weaknesses of collaboration has identified some structural factors critical to building national-level policy responses to overcome Indigenous marginalisation in NRM: ● ●

●

●

recognition of the need of a separate funding of an Indigenous polity in relation to NRM; recognition of the role of Indigenous civil society NGOs with a focus on environmental management as critical agents for success within this polity; linking of the NRM processes to outcomes established through the native title processes that are delivering increased NRM responsibility to Indigenous peoples, and recognition of the role of fourth-sector brokering organisations who can partner ‘forbenefit’ with Indigenous civil society NGOs.

We argue therefore that Indigenous participation would be greatly enhanced through a separate funding program specifically designed to support Indigenous NRM planning and projects. At the time of writing, the newly elected Rudd Labor Government has announced the replacement of the NHT with ‘Caring for our Country’ which will provide $2.25 billion over five years to manage Australia’s environment. While the exact details of how this program will operate are yet to be announced, the goals of the program emphasise NRM in remote and northern Australia, particularly for Indigenous groups and building the capacity of Indigenous communities to participate (DEWHA and DAFF 2008). This has included the allocation of $90 million to employ additional Indigenous Rangers; $50 million to expand the Indigenous Protected Area network; and $10 million to assist Indigenous people enter the carbon trading market. While a welcome initiative, this total allocation of specific Indigenous NRM funding amounts to only 6.7% of the whole. A wider approach to supporting Indigenous NRM and planning and more funding is needed to achieve the fundamental goal of equity, taking into account the 20% of Australia that forms the Indigenous estate. Our analysis demonstrates that increased commitment to the development of the capacity of Indigenous civil society NGOs and fourth-sector brokering organisations like Terrain NRM is necessary if national programs like the NHT or ‘Caring for our Country’ are to prove effective in supporting Indigenous NRM engagement. Political and

Indigenous natural resource management: overcoming marginalisation produced in Australia’s current NRM model

institutional leadership from the Australian Government can assist in the development of Indigenous civil society organisations and fourth-sector brokers, but the central requirement is for core funding support that enables Indigenous NGOs and brokers entrusted with NRM responsibilities to move beyond the stop-start processes associated with very insecure annual funding cycle, and focus on long term strategic development and ongoing capacity building. A focus on building NRM civil society organisations responsible for delivering outcomes from native title-brokered Indigenous Land Use Agreements and land rights regimes will increase efficacy both in NRM and ensuring the anticipated benefits from recognition of Indigenous native title. Such an approach to Indigenous NRM arrangements is broadly consistent with Putnis and her co-authors’ proposed five-year strategic framework for investment for Indigenous NRM in the Northern Territory, with its emphasis on two major components: investment in Indigenous civil society organisations and the broader institutional network, including brokering entities, and investments in projects for environmental, cultural and biosecurity outcomes, and business development (Putnis et al. 2007). Beyond the achievement of equity in NRM across Australia for lands held by Indigenous peoples, we also argue that overcoming Indigenous marginalisation provides prospects for addressing two of the nation’s most important policy challenges: uplifting Indigenous socioeconomic status, and developing sustainable land management systems. The opportunity is for the strength of contemporary Indigenous adaptive management systems, inextricably linked to traditional knowledge systems, cultural norms, processes and an Indigenous worldview that brought environmental health for past millennia, to be brought to bear within at least the 20% of the Australian continent that forms the Indigenous estate, while value-adding to NRM within the other 80%.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge the support of Terrain NRM and the Wet Tropics Traditional Owners. The authors would also like to thank Dr Marcus Lane for his considerable input into prior stages of this research, and critical input into the formulation of this paper. Finally, we would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on an earlier draft.

Endnotes 1 It is important to note that this figure indicates only the funds allocated to Indigenous Organisations and is therefore likely to underestimate the exact proportion of funding to Indigenous landholders. However, the documented and recognised constraints on Indigenous participation suggest this accurately reflects the frustrations and reality of Indigenous involvement with Australia’s major environmental management program. 2 As above. 3 http://www.arc-inc.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=135&Ite mid= 241.

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Hill R, White B and Wood M (2007). ‘Aboriginal resource use, values of knowledge of natural resources in the Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Area, and integration gaps in current management and research practices’. Summary Report to the Marine and Tropical Science Research Facility, Cairns. Hill R, Harding EK, Edwards DA, O’Dempsey J, Hill D, Martin A and Mcintyre-Tamwoy S (2008). A Cultural and Conservation Economy for Northern Australia. Land and Water Australia and the Australian Conservation Foundation, Canberra. Hill R (2008). Linking cultural and natural diversity of global significance to vibrant economies. In Living in a Dynamic Tropical Forest Landscape. (Eds NE Stork and SM Turton) pp. 430–444. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford. Holt FL (2005). The catch-22 of conservation: Indigenous peoples, biologists and cultural change. Human Ecology 33, 199–215. Howitt R (2001). Rethinking Resource Management. Justice, Sustainability and Indigenous Peoples. Routledge, London. Johnston FH, Jacups SP, Vickery AJ and Bowman DMJS (2007). Ecohealth and Aboriginal testimony of the nexus between human health and place. Ecohealth Online Edition DOI 10.1007/s10393-007-0142-0. Kemmis D (2001). This Sovereign Land: A New Vision for Governing the West. Island Press, Washington, DC. Lane MB (2002). Buying back and caring for country: institutional arrangements and possibilities for Indigenous lands management in Australia. Society and Natural Resources 15, 827–846. Lane MB (2003). Participation, decentralization and civil society. Journal of Planning Education and Research 22, 360–373. Lane MB and Corbett T (2005). The tyranny of localism: Indigenous participation in community-based environmental management. Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning 7, 141–159. Lane MB (2006). ‘Critical issues in regional natural resource management’. Paper prepared for the 2006 Australian State of the Environment Committee, available at http://www.deh. gov.ay/soe/2006/integrative/nrmissues/index.html. Lane MB and Morrison TH (2006). Public interest or private agenda? A meditation on the role of NGOs in environmental policy and management in Australia. Journal of Rural Studies 22, 232–242. Lane MB and Hibbard M (2005). Doing it for themselves: transformative planning by Indigenous peoples. Journal of Planning Education and Research 25, 172–184. Lane MB and Williams LJ (2008). Color blind: Indigenous peoples and regional environmental management. Journal of Planning Education and Research. Online: May 12, 2008; DOI 10.1177/0739456X08317171. Larsen L and Pannell S (Eds) (2006). Developing the Wet Tropics Aboriginal Cultural and Natural Resource Management Plan. Cooperative Research Centre for Tropical Rainforest Ecology and Management, Cairns. Lockwood M, Davidson J, Curtis A, Griffith R and Stratford E (2007). ‘Strengths and challenges of regional NRM governance: interviews with key players and insights from the literature’. Report No. 4 of the project ‘Pathways to good practice in regional NRM governance’. University of Tasmania, Hobart. Lockwood M, Davidson J, Griffith R, Curtis A and Stratford E (2008). Governance Standard and Assessment Framework for Australian Natural Resource Management. Australian Government Land and Water Australia, Canberra. Lurie S and Hibbard M (2008). Community-based natural resource management: ideals and realities for Oregon Watershed Councils. Society and Natural Resource 21(5), 430–440.

Indigenous natural resource management: overcoming marginalisation produced in Australia’s current NRM model

McDonald G, Taylor B, Bellamy J, Robinson C, Walker M, Smith T, Hoverman S, Mcapline C, Peterson A and Dawson S (2005). Benchmarking Regional Planning Arrangements for Natural Resource Management 2004–05 Progress, constraints and future directions for regions. Tropical Savannas CRC, Darwin. McKinney M and Field P (2008). Evaluating community-based collaboration on federal lands and resources. Society and Natural Resource 21(5), 419–429. Miller D (1992). Deliberative democracy and social choice. Political Studies 40, 56–67. Morrison TH and Lane MB (2006). The convergences of regional governance discourses in regional Australia: emerging contradictions and constructive suggestions. Rural Society 16, 341–56. National Native Title Council (2006). Submission to Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee Inquiry into the Native Title Amendment Bill 2006. The National Native Title Council of Native Title Representative Bodies and Service Providers in Australia, Perth. Natural Heritage Trust (2004a). Working with Indigenous Knowledge in Natural Resource Management – Ways to Improve Community Engagement. Natural Heritage Trust, Canberra. Natural Heritage Trust (2004b). Working with Indigenous Knowledge in Natural Resource Management – Guidelines for Regional Bodies. Natural Heritage Trust, Canberra. Natural Heritage Trust (2004c). Working with Indigenous Knowledge in Natural Resource Management – Recommendations for Commonwealth Agencies. Natural Heritage Trust, Canberra. O’Faircheallaigh C and Corbett T (2005). Indigenous participation in environmental management of mining projects: the role of negotiated agreements. Environmental Politics 14, 629–647. Pannell S (2008). ‘Getting the mob in’: Indigenous initiatives in a new era of natural resource management in Australia. In Living in a Dynamic Tropical Forest Lanscape. (Eds NE Stork and SM Turton) pp. 411–419. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford. Parliament of Australia (2005). ’House of Representatives official Hansard (no. 14, August 16, 2005, 200_4)’, available from http://parlinfoweb.aph.gov.au/piweb/Repository/Chamber/ Hansardr/Linked/4111-3.PDF (accessed 19 September 2005). Pedley H (1992). The Aboriginal people of Jumbun compiled and photographed by Helen Pedley: Aboriginal life in the rainforest. Queensland Department of Education, Cairns. Poncelet EC (2001). ‘A kiss here and a kiss there’: conflict and collaboration in environmental partnerships. Environmental Management 27, 13–25. Putnis A, Josif P and Woodward E (2007). Healthy Country, Healthy People: Supporting Indigenous Engagement in the Sustainable Management if Northern Territory Land and Seas: A Strategic Framework. CSIRO, Darwin. Queensland Government Natural Resources and Mines (2005). Discussion Paper Review of the Aboriginal Land Act 1991 (Qld). Queensland Government Natural Resources and Mines, Brisbane. Roberts J, Fisher C and Gibson R (1995). A Guide to Traditional Aboriginal Rainforest Plant Use. Bamanga Bubu Ngadimunku Inc., Mossman. Robins L (2007). Major paradigm shifts in NRM in Australia. International Journal of Global Environmental Issues 7, 300–311. Robins L and Dovers S (2007). Community-based NRM boards of management: are they up to the task? Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 14, 111–122. Rockloff, SF and Lockie S (2006). Democratization of coastal zone decision making for Indigenous Australians: insights from stakeholder analysis. Coastal Management 34, 251–266. Selin S and Chavez D (1995). Developing a collaborative model for environmental planning and management. Environmental Management 19, 189–195. Sithole B, Hunter-Xenie H, Williams L, Saegenschnitter J, Yibarbuk D, Ryan M, Campion O, Yunupingu B, Liddy M, Watts E, Daniels C, Daniels G, Christophersen P, Cubillo V, Phillips

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E, Marika W, Jackson D and Barbour W (2007). Aboriginal land and sea management in the Top End: a community-driven evaluation. CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Darwin. Smith G and Wales C (2000). Citizens’ juries and deliberative democracy. Political Studies 48, 51–65. Smyth DM (2005). Indigenous Engagement in NRM Scoping Group Meeting, 25–26 August 2005, Record of Meeting. DEH & DAFF, Canberra. Smyth DM, Szabo S and George M (2004). Case Studies in Indigenous Engagement in Natural Resource Management in Australia. Canberra. Sutherland J and Muir K (2003). Managing country, a legal overview. In Working on Country. Contemporary Indigenous Management of Australia’s Lands. (Eds R Baker, J Davies and E Young) pp. 24–45. Oxford University Press, Victoria. Talbot L (2005). Indigenous land management techniques of the Djabugay People. Masters thesis submitted in the School of Tropical Environment Studies and Geography, James Cook University, Cairns. Taylor J (2006). Population and diversity: Policy implications of emerging Indigenous demographic trends. CAEPR, Canberra. Wallington TJ and Lawrence G (2008). Making democracy matter: responsibility and effective environmental governance in regional Australia. Journal of Rural Studies 24, 277–290. Wallington TJ, Lawrence G and Loechel B (2008). Reflections on the legitimacy of regional environmental governance: lessons from Australia’s experiment in natural resource management. Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning 10, 1–30. Woinarski JCZ, Mackey B, Nix H and Trail B (2007). The Nature of Northern Australia: Natural Values, Ecological Processes and Future Prospects. ANU E Press, Canberra. Wondolleck JM and Yaffee SL (2000). Making Collaboration Work Lessons from Innovation in Natural Resource Management. Island Press, Washington, DC. Worboys PM (2002). Ma:Mu and cultural values of plants: an environmental and oral history of culturally important rainforest plants Cairns. Honours thesis submitted in the School of Tropical Environment Studies and Geography, James Cook University. Worth D (2005). The Natural Heritage Trust and Indigenous Engagement in Natural Resource Management. National Native Title Tribunal, Canberra. WTAPPT [Wet Tropics Aboriginal Plan Project Team] (2005) Caring for Country and Culture – The Wet Tropics Aboriginal Cultural and Natural Resource Management Plan. Rainforest CRC and FNQ NRM Ltd, Cairns. Yibarbuk D, Whitehead PJ, Russell-Smith J, Jackson D, Godjuwa C, Fisher A, Cooke P, Choquenot D and Bowman DMJS (2001). Fire ecology and Aboriginal land management in central Arnhem Land, northern Australia: a tradition of ecoystem management. Journal of Biogeography 28, 325–343. Young IM (2001). Activist challenges to deliberative democracy. Political Theory 29, 670–690.

12

Decentralised governance for natural resource management: capacity challenges in Australia and Canada Lisa Robins and Rob de Loë

Summary This chapter examines capacity challenges confronting decentralised governance for natural resource management (NRM) in Australia and Canada, as countries with advanced arrangements and therefore informative arenas of learning. 1 While acknowledging that decentralised organisations are numerous and take many forms in both contexts, the chapter focuses specifically on Australia’s network of 56 designated NRM regions and 115 decentralised NRM organisations in Canada, and their ‘participatory-oriented’ governing boards comprising principally, but not exclusively, persons from the local/regional community. These organisations have diverse historical, social, cultural, political, economic and ecological contexts, and have emerged through both bottom-up and top-down influences and processes. As a population, they are ever-changing and evolving. Successive federal governments in Australia have taken an increasingly strong role in shaping the NRM arena. In Canada, federal governments have largely confined their role to the establishment of co-management arrangements in the territories, which have arisen from land claims agreements and associated legislation negotiated with First Nations peoples. While governments at federal and state/provincial/territorial levels have devolved significant responsibilities to these organisations, further effort and investment is needed to understand or address their capacity issues, individually or collectively. Typically, governments expect these organisations to achieve comparable standards of planning, implementation, monitoring, reporting and evaluation, despite their significant contextual and capacity differences. This chapter explores these capacity challenges, with emphasis on the existing or potential roles of these decentralised organisations in addressing issues that have regional or nationwide importance. In doing so, it is suggested that state/provincial/territorial and federal governments in Australia and Canada could better support and guide decentralised organisations through more purposeful and strategic capacity development. The research has relevance to capacity development more broadly than in Australia and Canada, and extends to fields beyond NRM.

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Introduction The philosophy of decentralisation, also referred to as ‘distributive governance’ (Bakker 2007), is underpinned by the principle of ‘subsidiarity’. Subsidiarity advocates the devolution of tasks to the lowest capable level of governance (Marshall 2008). Decentralisation may be ‘democratic’ or merely ‘administrative’. ‘Democratic’ decentralisation devolves authority and resources from central government to independent or semi-independent state or non-state actors at local/regional level, compared to ‘administrative’ decentralisation where this transfer is confined to administrative functions (Hutchcroft 2001). There are long-established examples of community-based decentralised governance arrangements. For example, the first catchment-based Conservation Authorities were created in Ontario in 1946, modelled on the Muskingum Conservancy District in Ohio (Mitchell and Shrubsole 1992). These examples aside, natural resource management (NRM) based on decentralised, locally-organised bodies has until recently been relatively rare. This is changing, with numerous examples of community-based, decentralised governance arrangements emerging worldwide (Kemper et al. 2007; Ribot 2002). This trend reflects increasing community interest in and expectation of participating in the process of public policy development and implementation (Illsley 2003; Ivey et al. 2004; Eversole and Martin 2005). Such arrangements are primarily justified on the basis of enhanced efficiency, equity, democracy and accountability, and improved local/regional participation, ownership and commitment (Ribot 2002; Kellert et al. 2000; Bradshaw 2003; Davidson et al. 2007; Wallace 2003). While the benefits of community-based NRM are well documented, the shifting of responsibilities and accountability from governments to decentralised organisations often fails to provide the requisite power and resources, and support for capacity development (Head and Ryan 2004; Lane et al. 2004; Macadam et al. 2004; Paton et al. 2004; Armitage 2005; Broderick 2005). Morrison and Lane (2006 p. 349) argue, ‘we cannot take the capability of new regional governance structures for granted. Their capability needs to be systematically developed’. According to Marshall (2008), governments generally over-estimate how quickly young organisations may develop capacities to perform high level tasks, while Ostrom et al. (1999) add that their capacity for self-(re)organisation also tends to be under-estimated. This chapter examines decentralised governance for NRM in Australia and Canada, as countries with advanced arrangements and therefore informative arenas of learning. It focuses especially on their ‘participatory-oriented’ governing boards, whose members principally comprise people from the local/regional community with interests in NRM planning and management, such as landholders, councillors, Indigenous communities, local industries and environmentalists. The term ‘participatory-oriented’ rather than ‘community-based’ is used here as governments often play a strong role in the appointment of members to these bodies, providing resources, and establishing their mandates and agendas. Alan and Lockwood (2000) use the term ‘state-sponsored community participation’ with reference to Australia. The chapter focuses on challenges for capacity development of these organisations to take strategic actions at the local/regional level that contribute to issues of nationwide importance. While how to address these challenges is not discussed here, readers are referred to a related paper (Robins 2008a) which presents a framework that may be used as a tool by those with responsibilities for and/or an interest in more holistically and strategically targeting effort and investment in capacity development, especially governments delivering national programs.

Decentralised governance arrangements in Australia and Canada Decentralised governance arrangements for NRM in Australia and Canada provide informative and comparable arenas of learning for exploring capacity development challenges. Both

Decentralised governance for natural resource management: capacity challenges in Australia and Canada

countries are constitutional monarchies, federal parliamentary democracies, and former British colonies. Their constitutions primarily vest powers for land and water management at state/provincial or territorial levels (Brown 2006; Reeve et al. 2002; Muldoon and McClenaghan 2007). The federal government in Australia has used tied grants associated with national NRM programs as a mechanism for influencing land and water management at local-to-state level. Bilateral agreements are signed with state/territory governments through what sometimes can be a protracted and contested process (ITS Global 2006). The regional arrangements have been especially influenced and moulded to deliver nationally-directed agendas through the Natural Heritage Trust Extension (NHT2) (2002–03 to 2007–08) and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (NAP) (2000–01 to 2007–08). In contrast, the role of Canada’s Federal Government in influencing and directing NRM at the local/regional level within provinces is limited and in many respects, shrinking (Hill et al. 2007). Instead, NRM arrangements at this level have been created primarily by provincial governments to meet their specific agendas. For instance, Ontario’s Conservation Authorities were established to permit a more effective response to issues such as flooding (Mitchell and Shrubsole 1992). Québec’s watershed organisations were created in 2002 under the Québec Water Policy to deal with issues in 33 priority watersheds (Brun and Lasserre 2004). By virtue of its constitutional responsibilities, the Canadian federal government plays a stronger role in the territories. Australia Australia has 56 designated NRM regions (Figure 12.1), each with a regional organisation (except in the case of two non-statutory advisory bodies) governed by a participatory-oriented board. They range in area from 1 840–1 850 000 km 2, but are mostly regional rather than local or supra-regional in scale. These quasi-independent organisations variously comprise statutory authorities, incorporated associations, limited liability companies and body corporates (Robins and Dovers 2007a): ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

The ACT NRM Council (Australian Capital Territory) 13 Catchment Management Authorities (New South Wales) The Natural Resource Management Board (Northern Territory) 14 Natural Resource Management Bodies (Queensland) Eight Integrated Natural Resource Management Boards (South Australia) Three Natural Resource Management Committees (Tasmania) 10 Catchment Management Authorities (Victoria) Six Regional NRM Groups (Western Australia).

Legislative frameworks have established ‘independent’ peak advisory bodies reporting to state governments in the case of New South Wales (Natural Resources Council), South Australia (Natural Resources Management Council), Tasmania (Natural Resources Management Council) and Victoria (Victorian Catchment Management Council). In Queensland, the 14 NRM bodies have formed and contribute to an overarching coordination and advocacy organisation, the Queensland Regional NRM Groups Collective. The functions of the 56 regional NRM bodies vary and reflect their diverse histories and relationships with state/territorial governments (Dore and Woodhill 1999; Head 2005; Moore and Rockloff 2006). Some have been established recently to access resources under the NHT2 and/or NAP, while others have emerged in response to local concerns about NRM issues or have been driven by the policies and investment strategies of state/territory governments (Jennings and Moore 2000; Morrison and Lane 2006; Robins 2007). They are variably reliant on volunteerism (Syme and Johnston 2006). Virtanen (cited in Moore and Rockloff 2006 p. 274) suggests, ‘there is little evidence of real power transfer’ and describes the process as one of ‘de-concentration rather than decentralization’.

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Australia’s 56 designated NRM regions (reproduced from Robins and Dovers 2007b)

These entities are now the primary vehicles through which major national NRM programs are delivered. This ‘regional model’ has been purposefully homogenised and professionalised through the intervention of federal governments (Keogh et al. 2006). The principal mechanism for achieving homogeneity is the requirement for a regional plan and investment strategy, which must be accredited by the Federal Government in order to access resources (Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council 2002; Council of Australian Governments 2000; Australian Government 2008). A plan must identify the region’s assets for protection, targets for protecting these assets, and management actions to achieve the identified targets. Canada In contrast to Australia, where a national network of decentralised NRM bodies exists, each Canadian province and territory (Figure 12.2), ‘is conducting its own, largely independent, experiment’ in decentralised governance for NRM (de Loë and Kreutzwiser 2007). As a result, the literature describes and explores a diverse range of organisations and arrangements in particular provinces and territories (e.g. Bakker 2007; Hanna and Slocombe 2007; Ivey et al. 2004). Robins (2008b) reports on a selection of 115 organisations that highlight the emerging role of decentralised bodies in natural resource management. These organisations are the focus in this chapter. ● ●

Eight Watershed Planning and Advisory Councils (Alberta) The Fraser Basin Council (British Columbia)

Decentralised governance for natural resource management: capacity challenges in Australia and Canada

● ● ● ● ● ●

18 Conservation Districts (Manitoba) Four Land and Water Boards (Northwest Territories) Planning Commission and Water Board (Nunavut) 36 Conservation Authorities (Ontario) 33 Watershed Organizations (Québec) Three Regional Land Use Planning Commissions, nine Renewable Resources Councils and the Water Board (Yukon).

These organisations were identified as collectively forming the potential foundations of nationwide decentralised arrangements for watershed management on the basis of the following criteria (reproduced from Robins 2008b p. 4): ●

●

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they have a board of management principally, but not exclusively, comprising people from the local/regional community (i.e. people with watershed planning and management interests, such as landholders, councillors, local industries, environmentalists, Indigenous communities, etc.); they are responsible for aspects of integrated watershed management (but not solely confined to specific issues, such as fisheries or riparian enhancement); they are legally independent or quasi-independent from senior governments (but generally reliant on government for their financial support and subject to their intervention, directly or indirectly) and have dedicated paid staff (i.e. not government committees or local community groups); they operate below the national scale (but not cross-province or trans-national scale), and they represent the dominant and larger-scale organisational network for watershed management in the respective province or territory.

Overarching organisations also existed at the time the research was conducted. These included statutory advisory bodies in the case of Alberta (Alberta Water Council), Manitoba (Manitoba Water Commission, Conservation Districts Commission) and Yukon (Yukon Land Use Planning Council), and coordination and advocacy bodies in the case of Manitoba (Manitoba Conservation Districts Association), Ontario (Conservation Ontario) and Québec (Regroupement des Organisations de Bassin Versant du Québec). The decentralised arrangements noted above that exist in provinces (British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec) are concentrated in the south near the border with the United States, where the population is highest. Many are based on catchment boundaries, or are in the process of being aligned with catchment boundaries. They range in area from 500–240 000 km2, and primarily have a local focus. Most can be described as not-for-profit, non-government organisations. However, Conservation Authorities (Ontario) and Conservation Districts (Manitoba) are established by statute as incorporated bodies. Some organisations have charitable status or are associated with a charitable foundation. Their functions vary and reflect their diverse histories and relationships with provincial as well as local governments. In the territories, decentralised organisations, including non-government advisory bodies and regulatory authorities, have been established following land claims agreements and associated legislation negotiated between federal governments and First Nations peoples. Some were established in the mid-1990s, but most are more recent. Their jurisdictional area is regional to supra-regional in scale (16 000–1 994 000 km 2). This reflects both land claim areas and sparse populations (31 000–42 600 persons).2 In the case of Nunavut and Yukon, the jurisdiction of the organisations identified collectively encompasses the respective territory. The functions of the 115 organisations considered vary widely. For example, the Nunavut Planning Commission, created under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, is responsible for

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Figure 12.2: The 13 provinces and territories of Canada (Prepared by Clive Hilliker, The Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University)

developing land use plans, and creating policies and objectives to guide resource use and development throughout Nunavut (Government of Nunavut nd). In contrast, Québec’s Watershed Organisations were established with the primary goal of developing Water Management Master Plans that form the basis for voluntary ‘basin contracts’ (Brun and Lasserre 2004).

Capacity development This section examines capacity development challenges facing the bodies described, with particular emphasis on their ‘participatory-oriented’ governing boards, while acknowledging that decentralised organisations are numerous and take many forms in both settings. It draws information derived primarily from previous research by Robins (see Robins and Dovers 2007a; Robins 2008b), based on literature and website reviews and, additionally in the case of Canada, interviews with key informants (see Acknowledgements). These two papers provide detailed descriptions of the specific governance arrangements in each jurisdiction, including historical contexts. Research outcomes in both papers are presented in the form of a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis. The conceptual model shown in Table 12.1, based on the ‘Four-Capital Model’ (Ekins 1992), was used as an analytical device in the conduct of that research to clarify (but not constrain) the nature and scope of capacity building in the minds of research participants and to facilitate structured discussion around capacity development. Complementary findings from previous research on capacity building by de Loë provided additional evidence and insights in support of the analysis and conclusions (e.g. Ivey et al. 2002; 2004; de Loë and Kreutzwiser 2007).

Decentralised governance for natural resource management: capacity challenges in Australia and Canada

Table 12.1:

Conceptual model for capacity development Social capital

Human capital Knowledge. Skills. Experience.

Cognitive (social norms)

Structural (networks)

Institutional capital

Economic capital

Trust and reciprocity. Values, attitudes and behaviour. Commitment. Motivation. Sense of place.

Networks. Relationships.

Governance arrangements.

Infrastructure. Financial resources.

(Modified from Moore et al. 2006)

This section is therefore structured according to the human, social, institutional and economic dimensions of capacity development. While recognising their interconnectedness, the discussion points that follow are grouped under the most relevant heading. Human capital In Australia, regional organisations have between five and 75 staff members (Robins and Dovers 2007a). The variability in Canada is greater, where the provinces employ between 0.5 and 400 people, and territorial organisations have two to 11 staff members (Robins 2008b). In Ontario alone, the total number of employees is 3000 (Conservation Ontario 2007). Staff numbers vary greatly both within and between jurisdictions in both Australia and Canada. In Canada, some organisations practise staff sharing, which provides access to technical expertise. The number of board members is similarly variable. In Australia, the range is six to 20 persons. Increasingly, the trend is towards smaller executive-style boards focusing on strategy and policy. The difference is somewhat more pronounced in Canada at four to 36 members; however, the territories have uniformly smaller boards of four to nine members. Effective dialogue and administration have been identified as challenges to the operation of larger boards (Blomquist et al. 2007; WalterTurnbull 2005). Smaller boards reportedly had difficulties with complex, broad NRM agendas; however, this is often managed in part through spreading the workload to special purpose committees, which also enable more comprehensive exploration of the issues and broader stakeholder engagement (Lockwood et al. 2007; Fenton and Rickert 2008). Attracting and retaining good staff and board members is sometimes problematic, especially in remote areas where organisations are competing directly with booms in the natural resources sector where better salaries and career opportunities may exist (e.g. Alberta, Queensland, Western Australia). Retention of corporate memory and sustaining relationships and networks can be adversely affected where turnover of staff and board members is high. Kelly (2001) suggests that the key to successful partnerships and collaborations is ‘who’ is involved and their attitudes, skills and experience, rather than the processes, and that these ‘human’ elements can be the most difficult element in building capacity. Fenton and Rickert (2008) report staff turnover in Australia at 11% in the case of 60% of regional NRM organisations within the previous 12 months. The most advanced NRM regions in Australia, according to WalterTurnbull (2005), have longer serving, skilled, experienced Chairs and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). Burnout is an implicating factor in the turnover of staff and board members. In Australia, Moore (2005 p.29) identifies ‘attracting and keeping skilled staff in a remote locations’ and ‘burnout’ as issues that need addressing. According to Peters (2006), excessive responsibilities, continual change (also see Macadam et al. 2004; Farrelly 2005; Hillman and Howitt 2008) and uncertain funding arrangements are the chief determinants of burnout of community NRM leaders. Similarly, an examination of the history of Conservation Authorities

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by Mitchell and Shrubsole (2007) identifies volunteer burnout as a concern. Some board members in Australia reportedly commit as much as 3–4 days per week to fulfilling their duties (WalterTurnbull 2005). In Canada, Fraser Basin Council Board membership is estimated to be a 0.25 full-time equivalent position. The Grand River Conservation Authority Board meets twice monthly, and members are also required to serve on committees, and attend functions, events and municipal council presentations. Numerous commentators report the challenging task, faced by staff and board members alike, of integrating and accessing science and knowledge to inform decision-making, and note the need to develop capacity in this area (Hooper et al, 1999; Davis et al. 2001; Ivey et al. 2002; Keogh et al. 2006; Knowledge for Regional NRM Team 2006). This challenge extends to the recognition and inclusion of local and Indigenous knowledge (Campbell 2006; Whelan and Oliver 2005; Rixon et al. 2007). In an evaluation of regional salinity plans in Australia, Sinclair Knight Merz (2006) found widely variable use of science and best practice models. Informants indicated that consideration of and access to structured approaches to developing human capital (e.g. competency-based training, mentoring and coaching, personal and professional development, etc.) is generally inadequate. Social capital Decentralised organisations in Australia and Canada are mostly ‘at arm’s length’ from governments. The extent to which they are dependent on government support and resources is variable. In Australia, NRM organisations are highly dependent on financial resources provided by governments. In Canada, experiences are mixed. Conservation Authorities in Ontario generally receive some funds from the provincial government (Ivey et al, 2002), but their reliance on this revenue source is relatively small compared to the other Canadian organisations examined. The quasi-independent status of decentralised NRM bodies in Australia and Canada enables them to position themselves as knowledge brokers and to advance environmental agendas and present different perspectives on issues. However, organisational agendas, priorities and activities in both contexts are strongly determined by their dependency on governments for financial resources (Michaels et al. 2007). This creates tension with the participatory philosophy underpinning decentralised governance. Wallington and Lawrence (2008 p. 277) argue, ‘a sense of shared responsibility amongst regional actors has been sidelined by the procedural demands of accountability’. Effective partnerships are impeded, according to Whelan and Oliver (2005), by inequitable power sharing arrangements. This concern is strongly evident in Australia, where the federal government accredits regional plans and investment strategies (e.g. Farrelly and Conacher 2007; Wallington et al. 2008). This power imbalance can also breed mistrust (e.g. Macadam et al. 2004; Head 2005), with regional actors as the subjects of scrutiny and government actors as overseers and judges. Establishing a more equal footing between actors, and operating more independently of governments, can prove difficult (e.g. Morrison and Lane 2006). Through the National Land and Water Resources Audit, the Australian Government has invested in the development of indicators to assess the capacity of regional organisations and the social and institutional foundations of NRM (Fenton 2006), culminating in an Australia-wide assessment using some 50 indicators in four categories of recognition, partnerships, engagement and capacity (Fenton and Rickert 2008). Most regional bodies perceive themselves as having moderate to high capacity across the identified indicator categories. South Australia, where significant institutional restructuring has recently taken place, recorded lower overall capacities. Recognition by governments of the scope for and benefits of developing active networks of decentralised entities is limited, especially in Canada, but growing in the Australian setting. A 10-year review of Australia’s Cooperative Venture for Capacity Building (CVCB) research program by Kelly et al. (2006) identified collaboration as a missing capacity throughout the

Decentralised governance for natural resource management: capacity challenges in Australia and Canada

NRM system, within research and development corporations, government agencies and regional NRM organisations as well as between them. Specifically, the need for greater collaboration between stakeholders was identified in several domains, including institutional arrangements, resourcing, research and data collection, and training and education. Some analysts have suggested that building social capital at the national level in the case of Canada is significantly impeded by the absence of federal government engagement and policy direction (Shrubsole and Draper 2007). This is a point reinforced recently by the Canadian Water Resources Association (de Loë 2008), Pollution Probe (Pollution Probe 2008) and the Gordon Water Group of Concerned Scientists and Citizens (Morris et al. 2007). Larger and more established regional NRM organisations in Australia, according to Fenton and Rickert (2008), were found to have greater access to information external to the organisation. Campbell (2006 p. 7) concluded that, ‘it is too hard for people in any part of the system to find out what is happening and what is being learned elsewhere – or has been learned already.’ This observation applies equally well to Canada, and reinforces the need to develop opportunities for cross-organisational sharing and learning in both countries. Initiatives that aim to address this need exist in both Canada and Australia. For example, the Stewardship Canada website (Wildlife Habitat Canada 2008) was created to provide a national clearing house for groups involved in stewardship in Canada to share information and resources. The need for joint initiatives has been raised in Alberta in response to duplication of effort amongst Watershed Planning and Advisory Councils (The Red Deer River Watershed Alliance 2006). A similar desire to share information and knowledge has been expressed by regional organisations in Australia, according to Morley and Thompson (2006), but the opportunities to do so are currently limited. A positive example of networking and sharing across jurisdictions is the national forums for board Chairs (and/or CEOs) convened by the Australian Government. A similar Canadian example is the Manitoba Conservation Districts Association’s ‘2006 Learning Experience Tour’, which connected managers and board members from 34 Conservation Districts with South Nation Conservation Authority (Ontario) and Conservation Ontario (Manitoba Conservation Districts Association 2007). Ongoing arrangements were also identified, such as regional twinning relationships (e.g. Knowledge for Regional NRM Team, 2006). The Fraser Basin Council and Grand River Conservation Authority have convened joint meetings of their respective Boards under a twinning arrangement. Institutional capital The barriers to integrated governance for NRM at the national level are more significant in Canada compared to Australia. This is primarily a function of the absence of federal government engagement and direction in Canada. As in Australia, policies and strategies to guide planning, prioritisation and investment decisions exist at the provincial/territorial level in Canada, but are not framed within a broader national strategy. Provincial-level strategic plans that provide a larger context for decentralised organisations exist in some cases. For example, Alberta’s Watershed Planning and Advisory Councils function within the overarching provincial framework established by the Water for Life strategy (Alberta Environment 2003). Similarly, Québec’s Watershed Organisations operate within the framework of the Québec Water Policy (Brun and Lasserre 2004). While regional NRM bodies in Australia have strategic plans and investment strategies accredited by federal government, independent reviews have found that most lack scientific rigour (e.g. Pannell and Ridley 2008; Australian National Audit Office 2008). Pannell and Ridley (2008 p. 3) remark, ‘regional salinity plans in the NAP have mostly been weak’. Conversely, Fenton and Rickert (2008) report that most regional NRM bodies perceive themselves as having adequate capacity, including resources (but, perhaps paradoxically, indicated having insufficient staff), to review and update their plans and investment

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strategies. The NSW Natural Resources Commission (2006 p. 19) points to the Hunter–Central Rivers and Namoi Catchment Management Authorities as ‘particularly good’ examples of strategic NRM plans. Plan implementation in both countries is constrained by, among other concerns, underdeveloped governance systems (e.g. WalterTurnbull 2005; de Loë and Kreutzwiser 2007; Lockwood et al. 2007; Australian National Audit Office 2008), particularly in the case of smaller organisations, although Fenton and Rickert (2008) found evidence of developmental improvement in this regard. Survey results on ‘organisational cohesion’ (the shared vision between staff and board members) indicated significant variation among organisations, particularly between the judgements of staff, the CEO and the Chair in the case of numerous issues (Fenton and Rickert 2008). Furthermore, in Australia in particular, administrative and reporting requirements by governments are widely considered unreasonable, and are typically output-based and fail to support adaptive management and continuous learning (e.g. Allan and Curtis 2005; Head 2005; Keogh et al. 2006). The mandates of the suite of decentralised organisations examined in this chapter are highly diverse. This reflects differences in the policy and institutional settings (particularly at the state/provincial/territorial level) from which they have emerged. The variability in processes and terms for board composition and appointment is one such example. While mandates need not necessarily be consistent across organisations, enabling instruments could be improved in both countries to better match mandates with supporting powers. Decentralised arrangements in Ontario, Manitoba and Québec have strong connections to municipalities. This is especially so in Ontario where each Conservation Authority Board comprises municipally appointed members, 75% of whom are elected municipal politicians (Conservation Ontario 2007). Grand River Conservation Authority, for example, has 26 members directly appointed by 22 municipal councils representing 34 upper and lower tier municipalities (Grand River Conservation Authority, nd). In Québec, municipalities must be represented on the boards of Watershed Organisations (normally a minimum of 20% of their membership). However, other sectors (e.g. industries, environmental groups) also sit on these boards (Environment Québec 2004). Municipal authorities are critical actors in NRM at local-to-regional scale, especially with respect to land use planning (Carter et al. 2005; Reeve and Brunckhorst 2007). However, they are widely perceived as inadequately represented in and engaged with the regional arrangements in Australia (e.g. Wild River 2005). Peak organisations are in place in most jurisdictions in both countries. These fall into two broad categories: ‘independent’ advisory bodies (Alberta, New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Yukon), and coordination and advocacy bodies (Manitoba, Ontario, Queensland, Québec). The former are principally government-established (mostly the case in Australia) and the latter collectives initiated by the decentralised organisations (mostly the case in Canada). Organisations with a coordination and advocacy role are especially useful in providing smaller entities with a political voice. This is a key function of Conservation Ontario, which was described by an interviewee as, ‘an essential piece of the model’s architecture’. These peak organisations have potential to work more effectively across jurisdictions. It is suggested that they could be further developed and supported, and should be established in jurisdictions where they do not already exist to facilitate greater cross-organisational sharing and learning. Economic capital Adequate staffing is fundamental to achieving NRM plan objectives. The differences in staff numbers, both within and between jurisdictions, are sometimes stark. These inequities extend to remunerations of both staff and board members. Such differences may become more apparent

Decentralised governance for natural resource management: capacity challenges in Australia and Canada

Table 12.2: Five-year financial summary for the Wimmera Catchment Management Authority (Victoria) (Source: Wimmera Catchment Management Authority 2007 p. 46)

Revenue from government Other revenue Total revenue

2006–07 $’000

2005–06 $’000

2004–05 $’000

2003–04 $’000

2002–03 $’000

12 315

10 943

12 736

7231

7386

611

746

757

465

287

12 926

11 689

13 493

7696

7673

and potentially divisive as cross-organisational networking improves. Staff, technical resources and information are more accessible to wealthier organisations. More poorly-resourced organisations often compete against well-resourced entities for the same scarce resources. While smaller organisations struggle to meet the administrative and reporting demands of governments, wealthier ones are better placed to expand and capture more resources. Robins and Dovers (2007b) examined budget allocations under the NHT2/NAP (using figures to June 2005). The work developed a suite of exploratory indicators that reflect external factors affecting the capacity of NRM organisations to meet their responsibilities (namely regional setting and complexity, physical remoteness, access to political and bureaucratic decision-making processes, access to information, profile of regional NRM issues, and proximity to learning and research centres). Using these indicators, regions were clustered into 10 classes, which were found to attract varying budget allocations. For example, the average budget of a ‘Class 4’ region was around $5 million compared to $16 million in the case of a ‘Class 5’ region. In most cases, Victorian regions received a disproportionately larger allocation. Overall, Victoria, representing 3.1% of land area, captured 36.3% of the total NHT2/NAP budget (to June 2005). The work suggests that resource allocation is significantly influenced by state and regional interests within and outside NRM. It highlights the emergence of ‘have’ and ‘have not’ regions, and the need for better understanding of these influences and for purposeful intervention to reduce the growing gap between them. Resource allocation for capacity building was also found to vary between zero and 96% of the total budget of individual regions, which points to the need for further examination of allocations. Some organisations in Canada raise substantial funds, including through levies. Levies, however, favour organisations with larger populations. In Ontario, Conservation Authorities collectively administer CA$250 million in programs and services. Total revenues, based on 2005 audited financial statements, comprised self-generated fees (45%), municipal fees (30%), special projects (9%), and provincial (14%) and federal (2%) grants or contracts (Conservation Ontario 2007). Current levels of financial support from the provincial government (approximately 14% in 2005) are significantly lower than in previous decades, reflecting budget cuts in the 1990s (de Loë and Kreutzwiser 2005). The extent to which Conservation Authorities were able to recover from these budget cuts was strongly a function of their ability to raise funds from other sources. Most authorities (29 out of 36) have formed foundations, which are registered charities and legally independent from their own board structures. These foundations raise funds and community awareness, organise volunteers and administer specific projects, including land acquisitions. Donations or bequests of money, real or personal property may be made to the Conservation Authority through the foundation. The donor is eligible for tax credits. For example, in 2007, these foundations were collectively awarded CA$1.8 million from the lottery-based Ontario Trillium Foundation. In Australia, revenue from non-government sources generally represents a small proportion of the overall budgets of regional NRM organisations. A national survey by Fenton and Rickert (2008 p. vii) reports,

189

Barriers to efficient and effective engagement, dialogue and administration. Difficulties attracting and retaining competent board members and staff. Poor integration of and access to science and knowledge (both modern and traditional). Inadequate consideration of and access to structured approaches to building human capacities.

Economic capital Staffing inequities within and between jurisdictions limit scope to achieve NRM goals. Inequities in board member remunerations. Influence of external factors on resource allocation. Raising revenues independently of governments, such as levies, charitable foundations and endowment funds. Tension between reliance on government resources and maintaining independence. Overcoming operational constraints within the context of government reluctance to invest in overheads and ongoing costs and to commit to long-term, non-project based resourcing.

Institutional capital Barriers to integrated governance for NRM nationally (esp. Canada). Absence (Canada) or poor strategic plans and investment strategies to guide implementation. Underdeveloped governance systems to underpin strategic plans. Unreasonable and futile administrative and reporting requirements. Efficacy of board composition and appointment processes and terms. Scope for improving enabling instruments. Differing mandates, and their mismatch with supporting powers. Tension in integrating municipalities too closely or peripherally within NRM governance arrangements. Efficacy of establishing and supporting independent overarching coordination and advocacy organisations.

Structural (networks) Inadequate crossorganisational sharing and learning. Limited scope of networks and collaborations throughout the NRM system.

Social capital

Dependency on good working relationships with governments and other stakeholders to realise management goals. Limited recognition by governments of the scope for and benefits of developing active networks of decentralised entities.

Cognitive (social norms)

Synopsis of capacity challenges

Human capital

Table 12.3:

190 Contested Country

Decentralised governance for natural resource management: capacity challenges in Australia and Canada

‘Forty-one per cent of regional NRM bodies obtained more than 15% of their NRM program funds from outside of NAP/NHT funding sources’. Table 12.2 outlines a five-year financial summary for one of the most advanced regions, the Wimmera Catchment Management Authority in Victoria. This example demonstrates that older and more experienced organisations can leverage higher levels of support from non-government and non-traditional funding sources. Decentralised organisations in both Australia and Canada experience a tension between maintaining autonomy and meeting the demands of governments to receive resources. Statutory bodies in Australia tend to be subject to greater management control by (state) governments, but they are also generally better supported. Western Australia’s non-statutory-based organisations, for example, receive base funds of A$250 000 per year, only one quarter of that provided to Victoria’s Catchment Management Authorities (WalterTurnbull 2005). Québec’s Watershed Organizations, in contrast, receive nominal base funding of about CA$65 000 per year each (equivalent to around A$70 000 per year). Governments in both settings are reluctant to invest in overheads and ongoing costs. Long-term, non-project based resourcing is difficult to acquire (e.g. Rixon et al. 2007). While government rhetoric in Australia purports to invest in accredited regional plans, in reality specific projects are cherry-picked for funding (Lockwood et al. 2007).

Conclusion This chapter explores the diversity of decentralised NRM governance arrangements in Australia and Canada. In both countries, these organisations have important responsibilities, often assigned to them by federal or state/provincial/territorial governments. The organisations examined in this chapter are a highly diverse group. In Australia, decentralised NRM organisations exist within a national framework, whereas in Canada, no such national consistency exists. Instead, different decentralised governance bodies have developed in response to provincial/territorial needs and concerns. Capacity development challenges, characterised in human, social, institutional and economic dimensions and summarised in Table 12.3, are pervasive in both countries. To varying extents, the NRM organisations examined in this chapter all are struggling to establish a sound financial footing; to cultivate and retain appropriate leaders and staff; to build vertical and horizontal relationships within their communities and with external organisations; and to function effectively within external institutional constraints. These challenges are especially significant because in many cases the organisations considered in this chapter were created to address issues that are regionally or nationally significant. Thus, their individual success or failure has wide-ranging implications. Several important insights emerge from consideration of capacity challenges faced by the decentralised organisations examined in this chapter. ●

●

●

Capacity challenges of the type explored here are ubiquitous and persistent. In other words, while they can be addressed, they cannot be solved in the same way that certain technical problems can be solved. At the same time, organisational capacity is a complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon. Therefore, efforts to strengthen an organisation’s capacity must be based on simultaneous and ongoing attention to basic considerations such as the ones discussed in this chapter. This highlights the need to avoid sole dependence on simplistic, one-time ‘fixes’. In both Australia and Canada, there is much scope for individual and collective capacity building. Examples exist of organisations building their own capacity successfully, and thus standing out from their peers in terms of their ability to achieve their objectives more comprehensively. However, these organisations are the exceptions rather than the

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●

●

rule. Lessons from their experiences can only extend to the development of capacity within an organisation’s sphere of influence and/or control. This emphasises the fact that efforts to build the collective capacity of decentralised NRM organisations are required. This is particularly the case where they have been assigned a mandate by governments senior to them. In these circumstances, there is a particular responsibility for federal or provincial/state/territorial governments (e.g., through resourcing, reporting requirements, standards setting, auditing, research, knowledge transfer, etc) to ensure that local/ regional NRM organisations are able to succeed. It is important to emphasise that opportunities for learning lessons exist and these can provide a focus for capacity building. The ubiquitous nature of the capacity challenges faced by the organisations considered in this chapter suggests that common solutions to these challenges may exist. In many cases, this is already evident to people involved in these organisations. For example, instances were discussed in this chapter of networks designed to facilitate sharing of expertise and resources. These can be important vehicles for capacity building. Finally, further systematic research is needed on the factors that facilitate and constrain capacity for environmental governance at local/regional scales. Translation of findings from such research into knowledge that can be effectively applied to build the capacity of decentralised NRM organisation is a priority.

We conclude with some key questions for consideration by governments and others in Australia and Canada with responsibilities for and/or an interest in capacity development: ● ●

● ●

●

What capacity challenges stand out as the most important from those identified here? Are perspectives about those capacity challenges (and potential solutions) likely to differ between major stakeholder interests? At what level should the challenges be addressed, and who should drive change? How are these challenges connected and what steps are needed to drive a more strategic and holistic approach to capacity development? How can efforts and investment to develop capacities accommodate significant contextual and capacity differences?

Acknowledgements The participation in interviews of the following informants is acknowledged and appreciated: Academics: Associate Professor Kevin Hanna and Professor Scott Slocombe (Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario); Professor Bruce Mitchell (Professor of Geography and Associate Provost, Academic and Student Affairs, University of Waterloo, Ontario). Conservation Ontario: Bonnie Fox (Policy and Planning Specialist), Don Pearson (General Manager) and Charley Worte (Manager Source Water Protection Planning). Fraser Basin Council, British Columbia: Amy Leighton (Program Coordinator), Steve Litke (Program Manager), Terry Robert (Program Manager), Marion Robinson (Manager, Fraser Valley Region) and Gail Wallin (Manager, Cariboo-Chilcotin Region). Grand River Conservation Authority, Ontario: Barbara Veale (Coordinator, Policy Planning and Partnerships). Advice was also provided by Professor Tony Dorcey (Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability and School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia) and Steve Turgeon (Conseiller en gestion intégrée de l’eau par bassin versant, Ministère du développement durable de l’environnement et des parcs).

Decentralised governance for natural resource management: capacity challenges in Australia and Canada

Endnotes 1 ‘Natural resource management’ has broader meaning in the Canadian setting than in the context of Australia’s regional model. While ‘watershed management’ is the preferred terminology in the case of Canada, this chapter uses ‘NRM’ in both contexts. 2 Government of Canada, Statistics Canada. Online at: http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/ phys01.htm; and http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo.

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Mitchell B and Shrubsole D (2007). An overview of integration in resource and environmental management. In Integrated Resource and Environmental Management: Concepts and Practice. (Eds KS Hanna and DS Slocombe) pp. 21–35. Oxford University Press, Toronto. Moore R (2005). ‘Regional NRM body contribution: South West NRM. Paper read at Building capacity for sustainable resource management … moving a wheelbarrow full of frogs!’ Natural Resource Management Extension Symposium, 28–29 September 2005, at Toowoomba, Queensland. Moore SA, Severn RC and Millar R (2006). A conceptual model of community capacity for biodiversity conservation outcomes. Geographical Research 44, 361–371. Moore SA and Rockloff SF (2006). Organizing regionally for natural resource management in Australia: Reflections on agency and government. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 8, 259–277. Morley M and Thompson A (2006). Knowledge for regional NRM – connecting researchers and regions. RipRap: River and Riparian Lands Management Newsletter 30, 11–13. Morris TJ, Boyd DR, Brandes OM, Bruce JP, Hudon M, Lucas B, Maas T, Nowlan L, Pentland R and Phare M (2007). ‘Changing the flow: a blueprint for federal action on freshwater’. Gordon Water Group of Concerned Scientists and Citizens, Canada. Morrison T and Lane M (2006). The convergence of regional governance discourses in rural Australia: Enduring challenges and constructive suggestions. Rural Society 16, 341–357. Muldoon P and McClenaghan T (2007). Tangled web: reworking Canada’s water laws. In Eau Canada: The Future of Canada’s Water. (Ed K Bakker) pp. 245–261. UBC Press, Vancouver. Natural Resources Commission (2006). ‘Progress of catchment action plans: their place in current and future natural resource management in NSW’. Natural Resources Commission, Sydney. Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council (2002). ‘Framework for the extension of the Natural Heritage Trust’. Environment Australia, and Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Australia, Canberra. Ostrom V, Tiebout CM and Warren R (1999). The organization of government in metropolitan areas: A theoretical inquiry. In Polycentricity and Local Public Economies: Readings from the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. (Ed MD McGinnis) pp. 31–51. The University of Michigan Press, Michigan. Pannell DL and Ridley AM (2008). Lessons from dryland salinity policy experience in Australia. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Salinity Forum. 31 March–3 April, Adelaide, South Australia. http://cyllene.uwa.edu.au/~dpannell/isf08_pannell.pdf. Paton S, Curtis A, McDonald GT and Woods M (2004). Regional natural resource management: is it sustainable? Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 9, 205–217. Peters M (2006). Towards a wider debate on federal & regional governance. In Federalism and regionalism in Australia: New approaches, new institutions? A national symposium. NSW Farmers Association and Griffith University, New Parliament House, Sydney. http://www. griffith.edu.au/centre/slrc/federalism/pdf/symp06/1-3malpeters.pdf. Pollution Probe (2008). ‘A new approach to water management in Canada – vision and strategy. Pollution Probe’. Ottawa/Toronto, Ontario. Reeve I and Brunckhorst D (2007). Spatially bounded regions for resource governance. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 14, 142–154. Reeve I, Marshall G and Musgrave W (2002). ‘Resource governance and integrated catchment management: Issues paper No. 2’. Institute of Rural Futures, University of New England, Armidale, NSW.

Decentralised governance for natural resource management: capacity challenges in Australia and Canada

Ribot JC (2002). Democratic decentralization of natural resources: institutionalizing popular participation. World Resources Institute, Washington DC. Rixon A, Smith T, Burn S, McKenzie B, Sample R and Scott P (2007). Perspectives on the art of facilitation: a Delphi study of natural resource management facilitators. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 14, 179–191. Robins L (2008a). Making capacity building meaningful: a framework for strategic action. Environmental Management. DOI: 10.1007/s00267-008-9158-7. Robins L (2008b). Nation-wide decentralized governance arrangements and capacities for integrated watershed management: issues and insights from Canada. Environments 35, 1–47. Robins L (2007). Major paradigm shifts in NRM in Australia. International Journal of Global Environmental Issues 7, 300–311. Robins L and Dovers S (2007a). Community NRM boards of management: Are they up to the task? Australasian Journal of Environmental Management, 14, 111–122. Robins L and Dovers S (2007b). NRM regions in Australia: the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. Geographical Research 45, 273–290. Shrubsole D and Draper D (2007). On guard for thee? Water (ab)uses and management in Canada. In Eau Canada: The Future of Canada’s Water. (Ed K Bakker) pp. 37–54. UBC Press, Vancouver. Sinclair Knight Merz (2006). ‘Evaluation of salinity outcomes of regional investment: final report’. SKM, Bendigo, Victoria. Syme GJ and Johnston C (2006). ‘Volunteerism, democracy, administration and the evolution of future landscapes’. Land & Water Australia, Canberra. The Red Deer River Watershed Alliance (2006). The Red Deer River Watershed Alliance. In WPAC Summit, 5 October 2006. http://www.brbc.ab.ca/pdfs/061004-Red%20Deer%20 WPAC%20Summit.pdf. Wallace K (2003). Confusing means with ends: a manager’s reflections on experience in agricultural landscapes of Western Australia. Ecological Management & Restoration 4, 23–28. Wallington TJ and Lawrence G (2008). Making democracy matter: Responsibility and effective environmental governance in regional Australia. Journal of Rural Studies 24, 277–290. Wallington TJ, Lawrence G and Loechel B (2008). Reflections on the legitimacy of regional environmental governance: Lessons from Australia’s experiment in natural resource management. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 10, 1–30. WalterTurnbull (2005). ‘Evaluation of current governance arrangements to support regional investment under the NHT and NAP’. Departments of Environment and Heritage and Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Canberra. Whelan J and Oliver P (2005). Regional community-based planning: the challenge of participatory environmental governance. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 12, 126–135. Wild River S (2005). Enhancing the sustainability efforts of local governments. International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development 1, 46–64. Wildlife Habitat Canada (2008). Stewardship Canada. http://www.stewardshipcanada.ca Wimmera Catchment Management Authority (2007). ‘Annual report 2006–2007’. Wimmera Catchment Management Authority, Horsham, Victoria.

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PART 3 LEARNING AND ADAPTING FROM REGIONAL AND NATIONAL EXPERIENCES

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On a learning journey to nowhere? The practice and politics of evaluating outcomes of natural resource management in northern Queensland regions Cathy Robinson, Bruce Taylor and Richard Margerum

Introduction Since the mid-1990s, significant funding under Federal and State Government programs has been directed to regional natural resource management (NRM) organisations to prepare and implement management plans. Similar to international planning trends, this Australian regional planning initiative aims to involve a multitude of local communities, informal institutions and government agencies in a holistic yet goal-focused approach to environmental decision-making and management program delivery (Farrelly 2005; Lane et al. 2004). Regional NRM organisations have now been established across Australia in an effort to integrate the profusion of formal and informal institutional arrangements established to manage natural resources. As regional integrated approaches to natural resource planning and management mature, there is increasing attention on how to evaluate their efforts (e.g. Conley and Moote 2003). A growing body of literature has emerged to address how evaluation can incorporate political, social and cultural dimensions of outcomes delivered and capture procedural as well as substantive measures of success (e.g. Innes and Booher 1999; Margerum and Born 2000). Criteria have been identified to assess how institutions for NRM should be designed, and to guide desirable processes and outcomes of institutional integration and behaviour (e.g. Margerum and Born 2000; Sanderson 2000; Connick and Innes 2003). Methodologies have also been devised to enable non-state actors to integrate their local knowledge and participate in monitoring and evaluation processes (e.g. Ferreyra and Beard 2007). This chapter adds to this work by critically analysing the practice of evaluating NRM programs implemented in northern Queensland regions. This analysis does not seek to provide an independent ‘audit’ of regional NRM plan delivery or test regional NRM efficacy against normative principles or criteria of integrated planning. Rather, we wish to draw on experiences of actors engaged in the practice of evaluation to reflect on the challenges involved in determining what outcomes have been delivered through regional NRM. Our analysis shows that regional NRM bodies are torn in their evaluation efforts to translate ambiguous, ambitious and sometimes competing National, State and regional goals. On 201

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the one hand, broad biophysical outcomes defined by the national Natural Heritage Trust program have been difficult to translate to the regional scale or link to outcomes delivered through regional and sub-regional management programs. On the other hand, the analysis of performance reports delivered to the Trust highlights the role regional NRM bodies play in the evaluative processes and shows how they focus attention on those problems they perceive to be of highest priority, including evidence of regional organisational success. This northern Queensland regional NRM evaluation experience highlights that orthodox evaluation criteria and processes are mal-adapted to inform the allocation, use and management of natural resource at the regional scale. We conclude by arguing that if citizens are to be central to the development and implementation of regional NRM strategies, new mechanisms of responsibility and learning need to be negotiated and devised. We suggest that a multi-scale approach to evaluation is needed which draws on a practical mode of reasoning to inform how different forms of causal knowledge can inform what management activities are needed to achieve equitable and sustainable goals. Our analysis and argument unfolds as follows. We begin with a brief overview of the literature concerned with the rationalisation of planning arrangements and approaches as a means to integrate non-state actors and broader agendas into NRM decisions and processes. We then describe the regional context of the northern Queensland case analyses and identify the methods used to undertake this research. We examine the practice of evaluation in regional NRM programs to highlight the ambiguous and competing rationalities adopted to assess the outcomes delivered by regional NRM programs.

Integrated regional planning: some challenges for evaluation Regional planning organisations and arrangements have emerged as part of a broader strategy to provide a more democratic and decentralised approach to delivery of environmental policy (Lane et al. 2004; Wheeler 2002). These arrangements emphasise a shift away from traditional ‘top-down’ state-controlled approaches that have been criticised as overly prescriptive, inefficient, and rarely effective for complex environmental management issues (Wondolleck and Yaffee 2000; Kapoor 2001). Instead, the state now seeks to play an enabling role in environmental planning and management by devolving resources and responsibilities for environmental governance to non-state actors and organisations. In this section we review some of the critical literature on issues surrounding evaluation including the challenge of integration, the trend towards communicative rationality and evaluation in collaborative contexts. Regional NRM is being pursued differently in different parts of the world but all attempt to integrate the management of natural resources at a geographic scale that can strategically respond to local contexts and ecosystem management needs (Lane et al. 2004). In Australia, the regional NRM initiative has been paralleled by attempts to adopt a more integrated, holistic planning approach that recognises what Weber (2000) describes as the ‘symbiotic sustainability’ achieved through the interrelationships between healthy environments and healthy communities. Integration in this planning context also recognises the connectivity of regional NRM issues and responses between and within decision-making levels and scales. Scholars have defined several specific ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ dimensions of integration required to connect the often fragmented decisions influencing the use and management of natural resources (i.e. Margerum and Born 2000). Throughout Australia, regional NRM bodies were charged with co-ordinating the necessary policy and management activities among public, private and voluntary organisations. For the purposes of this chapter we are focused on how integrated outcomes can be evaluated, while recognising the need to design effective deliberative structures and processes as critical ingredients to provide the means to achieve these ends.

On a learning journey to nowhere?

The growing interest in regional, collaborative and other forms of integrated planning also reflects a critical response to traditional approaches to planning that confine and empower ‘rational’ modes of information such as scientific information and data. An enduring concern is that an institutional hegemony that favours scientific and instrumental rationality ignores moral and spiritual reasoning, and downplays the ‘metis’ attributes (i.e. practical knowledge and contextual intelligence) of customary, local and non-scientific knowledge (i.e. Flyvbjerg 2002). Others point to the disempowering consequences that scientific or technical planning rationales have for some marginalised citizens, such as Indigenous people, whose contributions are considered ‘irrational’ (e.g. Scott 1998). This thinking is, in part, responsible for bequeathing the ‘communicative turn’ in planning theory (Healey 1997). Communicative rationality does not reject rational and technical reasoning, but suggests that it must be incorporated into a process of deliberation about the relevance, meaning and interpretations of information (Innes 1998). Integrative and collaborative modes planning are not without critics, particularly when these modes involve devolution of power to regional level actors. In the United States, researchers have raised a range of concerns about the movement towards regional-based consensual decision-making (Kenney 2000; McClosky 1996). They argue that many top-down regulatory approaches have been highly effective in the past, and decentralised and democratic processes are not a replacement for all management activities. They also suggest that decentralisation places more influence in the hands of people who are dependent upon the resources for social and economic well-being, while reducing the influence of state or national concerns about topics like biodiversity (i.e. Hibbard and Marsden 2003). Finally, a range of authors have argued that regional management efforts often mirror the existing power structures of local communities, offering no additional opportunities for participation than traditional approaches (e.g. Lane and McDonald 2005). The challenges of negotiating and integrating competing and diverse planning rationalities to evaluate integrated outcomes is particularly challenging at the regional scale. The ‘region’ creates a somewhat contradictory environment where local communities are encouraged to participate and deliberate on local issues of importance which are then abstracted to ‘regional level’ objectives that are disconnected from the local context. Authors such as Broderick (2005) and Farrelly (2005) have shown that the regionalisation of natural resource planning has disenfranchised local actors, and has assimilated diverse and competing perspectives and contributions. As discussed further below, these unreconciled differences between planning rationalities can often re-emerge during later phases of the planning process, such as when implementing actions, evaluating or reporting on progress occurs. Of particular concern to this chapter is the tension a communicative approach to planning and decision-making poses for the evaluation of regional NRM. While there is tacit recognition and support for evaluation as part of regional integrated planning initiatives there is an enduring challenge to assess environmental management solutions that are complex and multi-dimensional (e.g. Robinson and Whitehead 2003; Weber 2000). Conley and Moote’s discussion of the challenges involved in the evaluation of collaborative environmental management approaches also resonate for Australia’s regional NRM experience: Participants … want evaluations that can help improve their efforts and meet their personal goals. Facilitators and resource managers are looking for guidelines that help identify which approaches are appropriate in different circumstances. Policymakers want informed evaluations that help them formulate appropriate rules and regulations. Funders and interest groups need to determine which … efforts to support and what stance to take on general policies promoting or inhibiting collaborative processes. (Conley and Moote 2003 p. 373)

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There has recently been some effort to recast evaluation frameworks and methodologies as part of an adaptive learning process that is value-laden, participatory and dynamic (e.g. Connick and Innes 2003; Munro 2008). Mechanisms to enable non-state actors to participate in environmental program evaluation have been designed to build what Connick and Innes (2003) describe as an ‘intelligence’ in the ways in which formal and informal institutions can integrate and respond to complex and multi-dimensional environmental issues. At the same time, there remains a prevailing and pragmatic imperative among government and non-government investors to assess what outcomes have been delivered by NRM collaborations and efforts (Koontz and Thomas 2006). Genskow and Born (2006) note that efforts to audit the cost-effectiveness of selected environmental program can be contentious in settings where there are multiple actors, actions and outcomes being delivered. Others point to the need to add process, socio-economic and environmental evaluation criteria that can inform the design and process of integrating the system of information, activities, outputs and outcomes inherent in many NRM problems and solutions (Sanderson 2000; Conley and Moote 2003). As experiments with regional, collaborative and other forms of integrated NRM approaches mature there is growing need to examine if and how a ‘communicative’ approach to evaluation can compliment evaluations informed by rational-technical reasoning. The following sections draw on northern Queensland regional NRM efforts where these challenges for evaluation are particularly present.

Evaluation of integrated NRM programs delivered in north Queensland regions Northern Queensland comprises landscapes and species that have important environmental values of international, national and regional importance (e.g. the Great Barrier Reef and Wet Tropics World Heritage Area). As part of national Natural Heritage Trust (hereafter ‘the Trust’) initiative, significant public resources were devolved to non-statutory regional NRM bodies to tackle a range of environmental problems. The Trust built on the earlier ‘Landcare’ initiative designed to remediate and ameliorate the affects of land degradation mainly through voluntary farmer or community-based groups operating at the local level. Despite its strength as a social movement in rural Australia, criticism of the lack of strategic or landscape scale outcomes from Landcare saw it largely superseded by more catchment-based or regional focussed efforts under the Trust, a five-year $1.25 billion nationwide program commenced in 1997. In 2001 a further five-year ‘extension’ of the Trust was funded through bilateral cooperation between Federal and State governments with even greater responsibility on regional level organisations to plan for and deliver against resource condition targets. This study draws on experiences and observations from six of these regions in northern Queensland: the Southern Gulf; Northern Gulf; Torres Strait; Burdekin Dry Tropics; Cape York and Wet Tropics. Under the Trust, voluntary NRM organisations established in those regions were charged with coordinating the preparation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of NRM plans and investment strategies (Australian Government 2003a; 2003b). Each of the six regions is diverse in terms of their management area, financial resources, maturity and remoteness (see Table 13.1). Collectively, all six regional NRM bodies coordinate with state agencies in a multi-regional forum called the Northern Regional Coordination Group (NRCG), an extra-regional collaborative through which government and community planners could cooperate on regional planning and investment. The analysis draws on a longitudinal investigation of regional natural resource arrangements across northern Australia, including northern Queensland.1 This research was conducted over a three-year time frame using a range of qualitative and quantitative methods. A

On a learning journey to nowhere?

Table 13.1:

Some key characteristics of northern Queensland regions

NRM region

Geographical Size (km2)

2005–06 NHT2 / NAP budget ($Aus)

Regional NRM plan accreditation date

Accessibility / Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA+)

Southern Gulf

230 000

1 975 590

Jan 05

6.00

Northern Gulf

194 000

1 949 678

Jan 06

13.18

Torres Strait

48 000

not yet established

not yet established

15.00

Burdekin

133 432

3 855 086

May 05

3.00

Cape York

137 000

1 280 403

May 06

3.00

Wet Tropics

22 000

3 180 915

Feb 05

3.90

Notes: This table synthesises data presented by Robins and Dovers 2007 and Australian Government 2005. ARIA+ refers to the Accessibility / Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA+) is the standard Australian Bureau of Statistics endorsed measure of geographical remoteness. As this table indicates, northern Queensland regions classes range from very remote (>10.53) to remote (>5.92–10.53) to being categorised as ‘outer regions’ in Australia (>2.40–5.92).

key part of the methodological approach was to elicit the perspectives of personnel in regional NRM bodies and government agencies in order to understand progress towards improved NRM outcomes. The first phase of the research was conducted when northern Queensland regional NRM bodies were first established and included interviews of regional body personnel in 2004 (n= 20), as well as web-based survey in 2005 (n=45). In addition, documentary analysis of regional plans, investment strategies, performance reports and government program guidelines was also undertaken for the period between 2004–07. Perspectives were also captured from workshops with regional body and government members of the NRCG in May 2007 and March 2008. The following section describes the research findings.

Evaluating the outcomes delivered by regional NRM in northern Queensland The Trust program ‘rules’ largely framed the architecture and criteria used to guide regional NRM evaluation. A review of these guidelines shows the Trust devolved significant resources to NRM bodies and provided them with a considerable degree of flexibility as to the means by which NRM project activities and partnerships were to be negotiated and prioritised at the regional scale (Australian Government 2002). Yet the national goals (or ends) of regional NRM were informed by nationally defined biophysical targets that had not been negotiated with local or regional actors or institutions (Australian Government 2003a). A technical rationality underpinned the Trust’s program logic of cause and effect relationships between programme activities, outputs, intermediate outcomes, and ultimate resource condition outcomes. This logic formed the basis of how State/Territory and Federal Government institutions evaluated the performance of regional NRM program activities (Australian Government 2003b). Reporting on ambiguous and ambitious outcomes at the regional scale Based on the Trust’s program logic, outputs were delineated into resource assessment, planning, capacity building, and on-ground work categories that were supported to lead to changes in biophysical resource condition. This logic is apparent in the interim assessment of Trust undertaken by Australian National Audit Office (ANAO 2005). The review recognised the ‘substantial time lags between an action (such as revegetation in a catchment) and the

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Table 13.2: Ability of regions to report on progress in achieving national matters for targets in Northern Queensland regions, 2004–05. Nationally defined resource condition targets Turb & nutrients – aquatic environs

Native veg

Sig native sp.

Sig invasive sp.

Coast / marine

No

No 1

No 1

No 1

No 1

No

No

No 1

No 1

No 1

No 1

No 1

No 2

No

No 1

No 2

No 1

No 1

No 4**

No 1

No 3

No 2

No 2

No 1

No

No 1

CY

No

No 1

No

No

No 2

No 1

No 3

No 4

WT

No

No

No 1

No

No 2

No 1

No

No 1

NRM region

Soil condition

Rivers w-lands

Salinity

SG

No*

No 1

No 1

NG

No

No 1

TS

No

Bur

* No = not yet reporting to the NHT2 / NAP program on this resource condition target class. * * Denotes NHT2 / Nap investment range - blank = no investment yet, 1 = <$500 000, 2 = $500 001–$1 000 000, 3 = $1 000 001–$1 500 000, 4 = $1 500 001–3 000 000, 5 = >$3 000 000 Source: Australian Government 2005.

result expected (for example, increased biodiversity and / or reductions in the level of the water table to control salinity’). In response ‘intermediate performance measures’ were developed and became an ‘integral part of accountability arrangements for the Trust and future natural resource management and environmental programs’ (ANAO 2005). Scores of short-term tangible outputs (such as number of workshops, kilometres of fencing, etc.) reported from regional activities were devised and regional NRM bodies were required to link these to report on progress towards regional targets. As Table 13.2 highlights, no northern Queensland region was able to report on why and how regional NRM activities achieved any progress towards these nationally defined biophysical outcomes. Our review of regional body performance reports delivered to the Trust highlighted why this reporting failure occurred. First, regional NRM bodies found that the relationship between management actions and the improvement of resource condition is not well understood in northern Australia and difficult to demonstrate in the short term. As Holmes (2006) has argued, rural landscapes and land use in Northern Australia are multifunctional, requiring NRM programs to be devised in a context of complex, dynamic and often contested landscapes values, uses and goals. These uncertainties made it difficult for regional institutions and actors to negotiate predict and control the effectiveness of management practices, particularly in the short term. Second, our review of performance reports highlighted a lack of program clarity and institutional capacity about how to translate broad national goals at the regional scale. Targets set to direct management change were based on interpretation of a plethora of government guidelines, incomplete science, lack of data or immature data-sharing protocols with government agencies, and ambiguous contributions from ‘local’ knowledge. In some northern Queensland regions, the only realistic response was to develop targets to set future targets when more information became available. As one NRCG workshop state agency attendee wryly noted, ‘it’s hard to measure and assess progress when the goals for each region are not clear or agreed’ (NRCG workshop 2007).

On a learning journey to nowhere?

Faced with a reporting on goals that were not clearly defined and a program expectation that neither the Commonwealth nor state governments have been able to meet previously, regional body staff described the reporting process as ‘exhausting’, ‘time consuming’, requiring an ‘endless effort’ and an ‘overwhelming waste of time.’ As a Northern Gulf regional body representative put it, efforts to negotiate national goals at the regional scale required ‘engaging with everyone about everything’ to set and evaluate progress towards targets that were hard to define let alone achieve (NRCG Workshop 2007). Our analysis of NRM performance reports generated from northern Queensland regions also showed that there had been little monitoring or evaluation effort to report on social, economic or cultural outcomes generated from regional NRM activities. Regional body representatives interviewed noted that this failed to capture a reality of what outcomes are sought from NRM project in the regions. It was reported that those projects that aligned with livelihood aspirations of regional and local participants attracted considerably more support from voluntary effort and engagement. In comparison, those projects that required too much effort to negotiate trade-offs between competing interests, and projects that preserved or repaired the general condition of a specific asset (e.g. in-stream water quality) had not generated the same enthusiasm among local landholders and communities. For example, performance reports reviewed from the Cape York region emphasise that outcomes sought by stakeholders involved in joint pig control operations included a range of values that needed to be protected in key pig ‘hot spots’ in the region (CY Performance Report 2006). These performance reports also emphasised that outcomes achieved from the delivery of activities pig control actions and partnerships themselves were also valued by those contributing voluntary effort. Regional bodies reported that these activities and relationships had gained support from local Aboriginal communities because it helped fulfill ‘Caring for our Country’ objectives, such as visiting sites of importance and engaging in decisions affecting their lands (e.g. Cape York Performance Reports 2005; 2006). Participants involved in the NRCG workshop noted that the integration of such multiple agendas required them to incorporate non-scientific modes of reasoning into NRM project priorities and activities and this was critical in enabling actors to put away their own agendas and commit to a higher sustainable goal (NRCG Workshop 2007). Workshop participants also noted that these joint efforts delivered multiple and compatible outcomes, including the development of ‘true partnerships’ that had been formed from realistic timeframes and a process of shared decision-making throughout the goal identification and project delivery phases (NRCG Workshop, 2007). According to these regional body perspectives, many judgements of regional planning efficacy are driven by the intersection of values provided by regional ecosystems and the range of outcomes provided by the maintenance of these values. This ranges from the cultural and economic outcomes delivered through Indigenous Country-based planning and management activities to the need for NRM programs to align with the production and livelihood outcomes pastoralists seek from such joint activities. As a Southern Gulf regional body interviewee explained: Sustainable NRM won’t happen if sustainable economics don’t happen … How to match these two agendas is what’s driving most people out here [in the region] to come … [to the regional NRM] planning table. (SG interviewee #3) Regional body staff involved in the reporting process reported on how difficult it was to reconcile national resource condition targets with outcomes non-state actors and institutions wished to achieve. Interviewees described the effort as ‘incompatible’, ‘extremely difficult’ and resulted in evaluations reports sent to the Trust program that did not reflect the full suite of outcomes that were being delivered from regional NRM project activities and collaborations

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(e.g. Wet Tropics interviewee #2; Northern Gulf interviewee #1). Yet regional body personnel also admitted that these locally driven regional NRM outcomes are also hard to define and measure, and many reported on the difficulties of how to include these aspirations into management priorities and delivery mechanisms (e.g. Southern Gulf interviewee# 3; Wet Tropics interviewee #1). This suggests that in the Trust program and regional arenas, progress towards desired long-term regional resource and regional community condition has been hard to define, and the relationships between activities and progress towards these goals have been difficult to demonstrate in the short term. National assessments of regional NRM performance have also expressed a considerable degree of concern about the lack of clarity between program objectives, expenditure and demonstrable regional outcomes, and limitations to the degree to regional activities can aggregate to state and national levels (ANAO 2005; Keogh et al. 2006). Reporting on outcomes of regional integration success Our review of performance reports suggests that, in the absence of clear and negotiated substantive integrated outcomes, the regional NRM monitoring and evaluation effort became fixed on reporting two types of outcomes, namely success of the regional body as a legitimate regional organisation, and, the regional body success in addressing the ‘problem’ of integration. When regional body interviewees were asked to respond to questions about key outcomes regional NRM had achieved to date, most reported on individual and regional organisational capability that had been built (e.g. Southern Gulf interviewee #2; Burdekin interviewee #1). The capability of regional NRM bodies to relate local agendas to Trust program objectives was reported as a critical outcome and had enabled the organisation to engage with local landholders, build relationships with disengaged stakeholders (such as Aboriginal communities) and establish partnerships that supported complementary voluntary and statutory resource management roles. As part of this capacity building effort, regional NRM performance reports revealed a sense of urgency associated with delivering and reporting on tangible benefits to all voluntary parties involved. For example, performance reports from Northern Gulf regions assessed NRM projects undertaken with local councils in terms of short-term integration and capacity building achievements (e.g. staff training and relationship building). This was reported as a critical step needed to achieve the longer-term landscape benefits that underpinned these local-regional partnerships. As a Northern Gulf regional body interviewee (#1) emphasised, it was critically important to ensure projects were delivered quickly to, ‘keep partners at the table’, and, ‘ensure regional NRM bodies maintain credibility and respect in their communities’. The focus here reflects a perceived need to maintain momentum and to ensure NRM could deliver what regional body personnel described as outcomes that were ‘tangible’ and would sustain ‘ongoing community support’, not just for broad regional NRM business but to ensure the outcome of regional body legitimacy was maintained (e.g. Cape York interviewee #1; Burdekin interviewee #2; NRCG Workshop 2007). Another reporting trend among regional bodies was to focus on outcomes in terms of the achievement of successful integration. This tended to mask the messiness and challenges that occurred when the regional NRM planning ideal was tested in practice. Contributions from a member of the Southern Gulf and a Torres Strait regional NRM body both highlighted that the politics of planning processes and project delivery is very real in regions, but this tends to get subverted in project ‘performance’ domains: It’s hard enough to define let alone integrate outcomes desired by government or communities … In fact in many cases [referring to outcomes sought from dugong management strategies]

On a learning journey to nowhere?

there is utter conflict in outcomes sought … [Conflict] is hidden in evaluation and performance reports. (NRCG Workshop 2007) As evaluation brokers, regional organisations were placed in a difficult political position to balance what Wallington and Lawrence (2008) describe as a shared sense of NRM responsibility among regional actors. The ‘top-down’ accountability imposed by the Trust undermined regional body efforts to be responsive to community debate and concerns. As result, there was a reluctance to test the local, scientific and other forms of evidence used to judge program performance or to inform particular delivery modes of management programs. Regional personnel interviewed also emphasised the imperative to first focus on easily achievable and palatable outcomes in the first instance before more contentious and challenging outcomes could be added to the regional NRM agenda (e.g. Southern Gulf interviewee #3; Burdekin interviewee #3). When reflecting on a reporting ethic that hid NRM project failure or stakeholder discontent, regional actors also noted that this reporting gloss impeded efforts to judge how the geographical context of NRM should inform efforts to develop appropriate styles of integrated natural resource governance for each region. For example, Table 13.1 highlights the barriers of size and remoteness confronted by many regional bodies and the different levels of funding offered to tackle the range of NRM issues in each region. Rather than adjusting the style and focus of evaluation knowledge used to help assess what and why a particular action ‘worked’ in a given region, performance reporting assimilated all regional bodies and efforts to the same accountability platform. As one regional body workshop working in the Gulf region observed: If evaluation [of regional NRM] is just about reporting on success … how can we learn … [including] about what to do with failure? … [Under the Trust program] reporting has become competitive – which means we all assess projects in a similar way … to ensure we are deemed successful [by the Trust program]. Under such an evaluation culture it was perhaps not surprising that it is difficult to find reporting feedbacks that informed and influenced the policies and institutional interactions and processes that shape the management of natural resources in regions.

Transformative learning needs for regional NRM When Wallace (2003) analysed the practice of NRM during the decade of local ‘Landcare’ community-based planning, he noted that the planning focus and practice tended to focus on the means of devolved decision-making rather than how to achieve the ends of sustainable natural resource use and environments. In this chapter, we have sought to examine how regional NRM was evaluated under the Trust program and, like Wallace (2003), our results suggest confusion between means and ends of regional NRM prevails. In part, this confusion is related to the imposition of ambiguous and ambitious goals for regions that are characterised by multiple and conflicting land uses and users as well as climatic and ecological variability. To compound matters, the chosen mode of operation for NRM in northern Australia relied, to a significant extent, on the coordination of voluntary, local stakeholders scattered across remote rural regions. In northern Queensland, these communities bring other forms of knowledge and modes of reasoning to the regional NRM planning table. As a result regional NRM goals did not reflect a single outcome but a combination of negotiated environmental, social and economic agendas that non-state actors and institutions wished to achieve from voluntary involvement and activities. Such deliberative modes of reason were

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difficult to reconcile with a national evaluation framework seeking to be informed by precise detailed causal knowledge of how and why interventions worked, and to generalise these findings to inform national assessments of progress towards environmental benefits. In seeking to accommodate this diversity, governments willingly delegated regional objective-setting functions to the regional level actors, who in turn involved local level participants. Our research suggests that regional NRM bodies made a concerted effort to ensure program objectives were consistent with regional social and economic concerns. They were less successful at addressing national targets that did not have local ‘buy-in’. Thus, regional NRM bodies reported more success with initiatives like pig control where local and national outcomes were aligned, compared with limited success to protect water quality or biodiversity in areas where national and local citizen goals were more difficult to integrate (i.e. Kenney 2000). As a result of a lack of clarity and negotiation about what integrated outcomes could be delivered at the regional scale and what evidence would be used to judge progress towards these goals, the Trust program and regional actors found themselves on an unclear reporting and learning journey to no-where. It was difficult to find any evidence that could be used to satisfy program accountability requirements or provide direction to inform better decisions for Australia’s bio-regions (e.g. Table 13.2). It was also hard to detect if and how regional NRM evaluations responded to local knowledge and contributions to provide the necessary feedbacks needed to if and why regional management responses were strategic or equitable. These reporting failures suggest that the type of outcomes expected to be delivered by regional NRM programs and the causal knowledge sought by evaluation needs critical review. What works, for whom, in what regional context is a multi-faceted question that cannot be answered by any single (local or technical) knowledge base. Instead evaluations that fit the purpose of responsibility and improvement need to be designed that provide regional and extra-regional actors with the appropriate causal knowledge needed for the transformative learning that is required. As Muro and Jeffrey (2008) outline, transformative learning extends beyond the reach of simply adjusting routine behaviour and instead leads to actors and institutions undergoing critical reflection and perspective transformation. This may require re-consideration of the expectations placed on scope of evaluation that can and should be deployed through regional NRM bodies at the regional scale. Recent calls for a ‘practical rationality’ to inform the appropriate blend of scientific, local and other modes of reasoning needed to respond to the diverse and multifunctional conditions of each region might offer useful insights to guide this NRM evaluation reform (i.e. Flyvbjerg 2001).

Conclusion The remoteness and the diversity of economic, social and cultural values that permeate land use decisions in northern Queensland regions means that a instrumental rational approach to guide the evaluation of natural resource management programs fails to inform the diversity of agendas and benefits different actors seek from regional NRM achievements and activities. These problems are further complicated by questions of what criteria to apply, the process used to undertake this assessment, how to determine what can be learnt from past experiences, and how NRM participants should respond to these lessons. We suggest an evaluation approach that draws on and critically assesses different knowledge contributions is required to inform the actions that ought to be delivered through regional NRM. This evaluation reform should reflect a reality that regional NRM programs are not operating in a single scale, single outcome arena. Rather, a multi-scalar and multi purpose approach to evaluation is needed. This suggests that the reporting onus to generate and negotiate the causal knowledge needed to understand progress towards sustainability should not be

On a learning journey to nowhere?

for regional NRM bodies to broker. As our analysis showed, the politics inherent in regional NRM reporting suggests creates a bias in regional bodies’ feedback effort to show how projects have tangibly delivered ‘win-win’ benefits to local actors and institutions and present evidence of regional organisational success and progress. This presents a genuine dilemma for regional bodies whereby the need for planning decisions to be based on inclusiveness and consensus may be quite inconsistent with effectiveness considerations of selective (or exclusionary) courses of action. It is now time for state-derived evaluation rationalities and responsibilities to be reconsidered so as to properly guide desirable processes and outcomes that can achieve appropriate and sustainable goals. In practice this may require a cross regional approach in which objectives that meet both national goals and regional priorities can be more effectively negotiated and provide a more transformative learning experience for regional NRM participants.

Acknowledgements This research was supported by the Cooperative Research Centre for Tropical Savannas Management and the Sustainable Regional Development Theme, CSIRO. We acknowledge the leadership of the late Geoff McDonald and the input from Marcus Lane and Tabatha Wallington. We also appreciate the assistance provided by practitioners who are working with the realities of regional NRM across northern Australia.

Endnote 1 For details see http://savanna.cdu.edu.au/publications/nrm_planning.html.

References Australian Government (2003a). National Framework for Natural Resource Management Standards and Targets. Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council, Canberra. Australian Government (2003b). National Natural Resource Management Monitoring and Evaluation Framework. Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council, Canberra. Australian Government (2005). ‘Regional programs summary report, 2004–2005’. Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council, Canberra. Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) (2005). ‘The administration of the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’. Department of Environment and Heritage. Audit Report No. 17, 2004–2005, Canberra. Broderick K (2005). Communities in the catchments: implications for natural resource management. Geographical Research 43(3), 286–96. Chess C (2000). Evaluating environmental public participation: methodological questions. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 43(6), 769–784. Conley A and Moote MA (2003). Evaluating collaborative natural resource management. Society and Natural Resources 16, 371–386. Connick S and Innes JE (2003). Outcomes of collaborative water policy making: applying complexity thinking to evaluation. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 46, 177–197. Farrelly M (2005). Regionalisation of environmental management: a case-study of the natural heritage trust, South Australia. Geographical Research 43(4), 393–405. Fischer F (1995). Evaluating Public Policy. Thomson Learning, New York. Fischer F (2000). Citizens, Experts and the Environment. The Politics of Local Knowledge. Duke University Press, Durham.

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Flyvbjerg B (2002). Bringing power to planning research. On researcher’s praxis story. Journal of Planning Education and Research 21, 353–366. Genskow KD and Born SM (2006). Organisational dynamics of watershed partnerships: A key to integrated water resources management. Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education 135, 56–64. Healey P (1997). Collaborative Planning. Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies. Macmillan, London. Hibbard M and Madsen J (2003). Environmental resistance to place-based collaboration in the US. West. Society and Natural Resources 16, 703–718. Holmes J (2006). Impulses towards a multifunctional transition in rural Australia: gaps in the research agenda. Journal of Rural Studies 22, 142–160. Innes JE (1998). Information in communicative planning. Journal of the American Planning Association 64(1), 52–63. Innes JE and Booher DE (1999). Consensus building and complex adaptive systems: a framework for evaluating collaborative planning. Journal of the American Planning Association 65(4), 412–423. Kapoor I (2001). Towards participatory environmental management? Journal of Environmental Management 63, 269–279. Kenney DS (2000). Arguing About Consensus: Examining the Case against Western Watershed Initiatives and Other Collaborative Groups Active in Natural Resources Management. Natural Resources Law Centre, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO. Keogh K, Chant D and Frazer B (2006). ‘Review of the arrangements for regional delivery of natural resource management programs. Final report’. Ministerial Reference Group for Future NRM Programme Delivery, Departments of Agriculture, Fisheries and Environment and Heritage, Canberra. Koontz TM and Thomas CW (2006). What do we know and need to know about the environmental outcomes of collaborative management? Public Administration Review 66, 111–121. Lane MB, McDonald GT and Morrison TH (2004). Decentralisation and environmental management in Australia: a comment on the prescriptions of the Wentworth Group. Australian Geographical Studies 42(1), 102–114. Margerum RD and Born SM (2000). A co-ordination diagnostic for improving integrated environmental management. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 43(1), 5–21. Muro M and Jeffrey P (2008). A critical review of the theory and application of social learning in participatory natural resource management processes. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 51(3), 325–344. McCloskey M (2001). Is this the course you want to be on? Society and Natural Resources 14(4), 627–634. Nickelsburg SM (1998). Mere volunteers? The promise and limits of community-based environmental protection. Virginia Law Review 84, 1371–1409. Robins L and Dovers S (2007). NRM regions in Australia: the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. Geographical Research 45(3), 273–290. Robinson CJ and Whitehead PJ (2003). Cross-cultural management of pest animal damage: a case study of feral buffalo control in Australia’s Kakadu National Park. Environmental Management 32, 445–458. Sanderson I (2000). Evaluation in complex policy systems. Evaluation 6(4), 433–454.

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Scott C (1996). Science for the west, myth for the rest? The case of James Bay Cree knowledge construction. In: Naked Science. Anthropological Inquiry into Boundaries, Power and Knowledge. (Ed. L Nader) pp. 69–86. Routledge, New York. Wallace KJ (2003). Confusing means with ends: a manager’s reflections on experience in agricultural landscapes of Western Australia. Ecological Management and Restoration 4(1), 23–28. Wallington T and Lawrence G (2008). Making democracy matter: responsibility and effective environmental governance in regional Australia. Journal of Rural Studies 24, 277–290. Weber E (2000). A new vanguard for the environment: grass-roots ecosystem management as a new environmental movement. Society and Natural Resources 13, 237–259. Wheeler SM (2002). The new regionalism: key characteristics of an emerging movement. Journal of American Planning Association 68(3), 267–278. Wondolleck JM and Yaffee SL (2000). Making Collaboration Work: Lessons from Innovation in Natural Resource Management. Island Press, Washington DC.

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Reviewing adaptive management through a wicked lens Catherine Allan

Introduction Regional scale adaptive management has become part of the rhetorical landscape of natural resource/environmental management. It is now unremarkable, even expected, that strategies programs and plans contain a section detailing how implementation will fit within an adaptive management framework (for a recent example, see State Water Corporation 2007). Adaptive management has become attractive because acknowledgement and acceptance of complexity and uncertainty in environmental management has prompted questioning of conventional natural resource planning (Lachappelle et al. 2003). This questioning of conventional planning and management has taken on an urgent air as many environmental/ natural resource management problems, including water management (Freeman 2000) and ecological sustainability (Durant and Legge 2006), are apparently becoming so complex and unknowable they are called ‘wicked’. In this chapter I discuss ‘wicked’ problems, and suggest that understanding managers’ responses to them can illuminate aspects of adaptive management as it is practiced. To illustrate my nascent proposal I revisit my empirical study of the CSIRO/Murray–Darling Basin Commission Heartlands initiative which operated in NSW and Victoria between 2000 and 2003.

‘Wicked’ problems Some social and biophysical scientists now speak of ‘wicked’ problems when describing issues which are so complex they are difficult even to define. In their seminal (1973) paper Ritter and Webber used ‘wicked’ to distinguish problems which are not only complex, but which are tricky to define and manage because efforts to solve them create new, unexpected and possibly worse, situations. Wicked problems also present evidence that can be judged in contradictory ways by different stakeholders (Horiuchi 2007). Involvement of multiple players from many disciplines, and possessing many forms of knowledge, is required to cope with this combination of complexity and uncertainty (Ludwig 2001). The current focus on wicked problems may be because our problems have actually become more uncertain and complex as the human population increases and diverse needs and desires are acknowledged, or it may be that we are simply recognising and acknowledging the ‘wickedness’ that has always been there. Whatever

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the cause (which I suspect is all of the above and more), wicked problems are a current topic of discussion and debate (see for example Australian Public Service Commission 2007). Responses to wicked problems One common response to complexity, uncertainty or wickedness is to reset the discussion by choosing to view issues through a narrow lens that forces an appearance of simplicity; in other words, to seek what Gunderson (1999) called ‘spurious certitude’. Examples of denying wickedness through careful framing of issues are present at many scales, and simplification is so habitual that it is considered normal behaviour. If this sounds a little far fetched, consider our current social construction of science and scientists. While Enlightenment thinkers could apparently venture into any areas that interested them, scientists today work within separate, narrow boundaries protected by specialist knowledge and language; for example (Light 2002) notes that natural resource management issues are kept narrow by defining them in primarily natural science terms. Within these boundaries further narrowing occurs, as regardless of their discipline, scientists – ecologists, hydrologists, political scientists, sociologists and more – continually strain against complexity by seeking to carefully control their real-world experiments with narrowly defined goals and learning opportunities. Sometimes this involves simplification of the issue to be studied, such as the focus on a few ‘icon’ sites in the Living Murray Project (Murray– Darling Basin 2005) or the decision to learn about the impacts on wetlands from single environmental watering events in the Murray Valley (Nias 2005). At other times the process of enquiry itself is simplified. For instance, Richter and Thomas (2007) suggest that institutionally complex management process prevent river restoration projects from being managed adaptively, and their solution is to simplify the process into a series of generalisable steps. Examination of the last three examples suggests that ‘projects’ provide a mechanism for denying inherent wickedness. Projects delineate biophysical or social boundaries, and they also bound the duration of potential work. Projects of one or two years must be sharply focused if they are to achieve their goals. Longer-term projects are constrained in their scope by requirements to meet pre-determined milestones, which often make the longer project into a series of short projects. It is perhaps not coincidental that, despite the context of a worldwide move to pluralism and post-modern thinking, projects have become increasingly important in management. Since the 1980s Australia’s Governments have sought to achieve natural resource/environmental management outcomes via projects, with an increasing reliance on Commonwealth funding (see for example Head 2005). Projectification of natural resource management is not a uniquely Australian phenomenon. Kovách and Kučerová (2006) report on the creation of a ‘project class’ in central Europe, whose ‘general function is one of mediation in the redistribution of public … funds and the transfer of materials, ideas, knowledge and power’. The transfer of funds, material, power and knowledge is facilitated partly through the evaluation and reporting mechanisms embedded in the project management process. Evaluation is a broad term for a number of activities including forms of summative assessment which are focused on determining if project goals and milestones have been achieved, and if expenditure was correct and timely. Summative evaluation asks, ‘did we do what we said we would do, and in the way we said we would?’. Evaluation can also be formative, focused on understanding such things as client needs, the implications and side effects of implementation, and the program logic (or theory) of the project (Cook and Shadish 1986). Formative evaluation is always a variation on the question ‘what have we learned?’ The short term, bounded nature of most projects promotes a reliance on, and preference for, summative evaluations. All of the above responses to wicked problems could be described, following Churchman (1967), as hiding the teeth of the wicked problem so that you won’t see how severely it can bite. An alternative response is to acknowledge and accept the inherent wickedness of

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Table 14.1 Comparison between management arrangements which work with inherent wickedness, and management arrangements which attempt to deny wickedness Attempt to tame or deny wickedness

Accept inherent wickedness

Focus

Project focused

System focused

What time boundaries are determined

Bounded by short time frames

Medium to long time frames are allowed

How complexity is managed

Management treats the problem as solvable

Management accepts that secondary problems are inevitable

Stakeholder involvement

Narrow range of players involved

Participatory/inclusive management

Form of evaluation

Summative evaluations are required

Management team develops complex evaluations with both formative and summative aspects

socio-environmental systems, and to develop ways work with, rather than deny, complexity and uncertainty. Numerous approaches for working with complexity and uncertainty are being developed and tried in different disciplines, and different geographical regions. Some of these approaches use simplification and controlled experiments to tackle system components in a logical sequence in the full expectation that further work will be needed to address unanticipated secondary problems and opportunities (see, for example, Chapin et al. 2008). Other approaches focus on understanding socio-environmental resilience as a key to working with wickedness. Folke et al. (2002) stress the importance of combining local resource based knowledge with ecological scientific enquiry to provide sufficient information for managers to maintain social-ecological resilience. Indeed, participatory or social learning has been a key focus of much of the research that embraces, rather than denies, complexity. Although Dewulf et al. (2007) note that trans-, multi- and cross-disciplinary research alliances are often difficult to achieve in practice, there are effective examples such as the use of the Social Learning for the Integrated Management approach for water management planning in Scotland (Ison and Watson 2007) and social learning in the European project HarmoniCOP (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2007). These and similar programs stress the need for building and maintaining stakeholding in the governance processes. The discussion of the different responses to wicked problems could and should continue, but for this chapter it is most useful to summarise the emergent themes, and I have done so in Table 14.1. The practices summarised in the first column of Table 14.1 should be familiar to most readers, as they are part of the conventional approach to natural resource management problems. As noted earlier however, there have been increasing calls for a different, more reflective and responsive type of management in recent times: adaptive management. Adaptive management By seeking to use adaptive management, we acknowledge that our understanding of ecosystems is incomplete; that what we knew in order to exploit ecosystems systems is not enough to enable us to manage long term use and protection, and that we need to learn (Lee 1999). Adaptive management promotes learning from the implementation of policies and strategies (Gunderson et al. 1995) and as such it complements other forms of knowledge creation. Bormann, Haynes and their co-authors (2007) note that adaptive management is more than simply changing management in the face of failed policies, and is actually a planned approach

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to improving policies and practices over time (Bormann et al. 2007). Adaptive management was initially articulated in the context of ecological resilience (Holling 1978; Walters and Holling 1990) but has since developed to encompass the related concept of social resilience (Gunderson and Light 2006). While there are many different ways of describing adaptive management it generally involves some mix of: ● ● ● ●

management activities designed to enable learning; reflection on the outcomes of those management activities; provision of mechanisms for multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder involvement, and provision of mechanisms for incorporating learning into planning and management.

Encouraging the use of adaptive management became common Australian government rhetoric in the 1990s, and adaptive management formed a central tenet of the Natural Heritage Trust (see for example PPK Environment and Infrastructure Pty Ltd 1999) and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (NAP) (Australian Government NRM Team 2003). The promise of adaptive management is that it allows management of socio-ecological systems, despite their complexity, despite gaps in understanding, and despite multiple and changing social goals. However, evidence of the adoption of adaptive management as a standard operating practice is elusive (Lee et al. 2001). High profile examples from the US Everglades (Gunderson and Light 2006) and Glen Canyon (Jacobs and Wescoat 2002) and a handful of others notwithstanding, there are comparatively few examples of managers and their bosses fully embracing an adaptive regime for the management of socio-ecosystems. One of the many problems facing adaptive and would be adaptive managers is that of evaluating the process of adaptive management. As adaptive management is evoked as a response to wickedness, it seems logical to use a ‘wicked’ problem response framework to learn lessons about the practice of adaptive management. In the following section I explore this idea further with reference to the Billabong Heartlands project.

Heartlands and the Billabong Catchment ‘Heartlands’ was a joint initiative of the CSIRO and the Murray–Darling Basin Commission. Operating between 2000 and 2003, the Heartlands project aimed to design and implement landscape-scale land-use change, both as an end in itself and as a means to learn. As such the project team defined Heartlands as an adaptive management project (CSIRO Heartlands Core Group 2000). Heartlands combined implementation of on-farm land management works with scientific enquiry into farm forestry, catchment hydrology and biodiversity. A Steering Committee (which included senior representatives from CSIRO, MDBC and State and Federal natural resource/environment agencies) guided the overall project, which was based in four physical areas; the Honeysuckle Creek and Ovens Basin Catchments in Victoria, and the Kyeamba Creek and Billabong Creek catchments in NSW. The Billabong catchment is located in the NSW south-western slopes, a foothills environment which currently supports forestry and grazing enterprises in the east which grade into predominantly cropping enterprises in the west of the catchment. A number of landcare groups existed in the catchment when Heartlands commenced, including the Holbrook, Culcairn and Alma Park Groups. The Holbrook Landcare group had been particularly active since its formation as the Holbrook Trees on Farms Group in 1988, and had maintained a strong focus on community participation (Earl 2003). The other groups in the Billabong Catchment, though newer, were also active, so numerous landcare associated activities had occurred across the Billabong Catchment before Heartlands commenced there. These Landcare activities had focussed mainly on biodiversity management and farm productivity,

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which aligned with the Murray Catchment Blueprint. The Blueprint, a target driven Integrated Catchment Management Plan developed by the Murray Catchment Management Board under the authority of the NSW Catchment Management Act 1989, was endorsed by the NSW government in late 2002 (Department of Land and Water Conservation 2003). The Billabong Heartlands project aimed to build on, and enhance, the landcare/ Blueprint related land management activities in the area, with a particular focus on better understanding and managing dryland salinity. The on-ground works component was funded by the Commonwealth Natural Heritage Trust (NHT), augmented by contributions from the NSW Salinity Program, Integrated Tree Cropping Pty Ltd, and the participating landholders, for two years. Funding for research component came from the MDBC (Heartlands Core Group 2001). A group was created to manage the Billabong Heartlands project. The Billabong Operations Group (BOG) comprised landcare staff and members from the existing groups in the area, CSIRO scientists, landholders, and representatives of the State Department of Land and Water Management (DLWC) and Riverina Farm Forestry (RFF). Charles Sturt University was also involved, and the BOG gave me permission to be a participant observer at their meetings and events in order to see and understand the process of adaptive management in action. Participant observation involves a researcher making systematic examinations of social situations in which they are involved (Spradley 1980). The following discussion draws on field notes taken during more than two year’s observation of BOG operations, further details of which are provided in Allan (2004). There is also additional material from semi-structured interviews with four former BOG participants in 2006, following the methods of Patton (1990). Thematic content analysis was used to identify categories of information and ideas within the notes and interview transcripts, as per Silverman (2001). Operations and outcomes The Billabong Heartlands project involved three key activities; administration of on-ground works incentive money, scientific research associated with the catchment and specific management activities, and information sharing. The BOG co-ordinated these activities, and moderated the involvement of other researchers who sought to be associated with Heartlands as news of its successes in each of its three key activity areas spread. Outputs of the project included the Billabong Land Information System (BLIS), an easily accessible computer storehouse of scientific information (McKenzie et al. 2002), the establishment of a number of farm forestry trials, and numerous on-farm plantings of pasture and native trees and shrubs. Of particular note was increased information sharing among and between landholders, agency staff and scientists. As one former landcare staff member of the BOG noted in an interview in 2006: ‘I felt so proud to be working in it as well, and that we formed that sort of relationship. We brought farmers together that might not necessarily have had anything to do with one another … Those people would come together and talk to each other, and I think that was the real benefit too’, 2006 Post Heartlands Interview 2. There are many ways of understanding an ambitious project such as Heartlands in the Billabong, but of interest here is assessing the practice of adaptive management. I suggest one way to do this is to examine the project management team’s response to the wicked nature of the problems it addressed, using the headings from Table 14.1 as a guide. Focus Although developed as part of ongoing enquiry into the sustainability of agricultural landscapes Heartlands was in name and activity a ‘project’. The project enabled the funding bodies to provide their money and guidance to particular physical areas. Mapping the physical

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boundaries of the Billabong area was of great importance to the BOG, especially in the first year of its operation. Each meeting included discussion of boundaries, and effective mapping of them, as well as conversations about who was ‘in’ and ‘out’ in relation to receiving money for on-ground works. Initially the design of the Billabong Heartlands embraced biophysical and social complexity by attempting to working across the whole catchment with a mix of biodiversity, hydrology and farm forestry activities. However, while implementation activities continued to be available across the entire catchment, scientific enquiry was soon limited to studying hydrological changes within the two small subcatchments of the Simmons and 10 Mile Creeks, and some specific farm forestry trial sites in other parts of the Billabong. Billabong Heartlands project operations were constrained by directions from the Heartlands Steering Committee, by the rules and requirements of the various funding programs, and by the targets in the Murray Blueprint. Time boundaries The Heartlands project, including that in the Billabong, was a grand vision that was to have involved medium to long-term evaluation of implemented activities. However, initial funding for the project was only for three years, guaranteed one year at a time. In 2003 shifts in priorities for environmental management led to the end of funding, and the project. This came as a disappointment to many people in the Billabong catchment: … what a great project it was, and I think the promise that it would be ongoing for so many years, and the disappointment in the end … You know, I’ve heard some farmers … say ‘I can’t believe that this has happened. We were promised this. We were promised this back up support.’ Just that ongoing collaboration relationship, and it’s all gone now, and it has all gone you know … I think that the scientists built up a tremendous relationship with the farmers, even on the ground, … those scientists tried very hard to speak at a level that I could understand or anyone could understand, and the actions that were the on ground works. You know things were actually happening, and they could see visibly. (2006 Post Heartlands Interview 2) Regional natural resource management processes in NSW were undergoing great change at this time. The transformation of the Catchment Management Boards to Catchment Management Authorities, and rearrangement of agency structures and support for landcare precipitated a wholesale loss of intellectual capital and goodwill in the former Heartlands project area. … basically of the New South Wales coordinators we’ve five, essentially we had five plus we had another two people who were providing farmer forestry support and all those people have lost their jobs, they all lost their jobs within about 12 months or so I guess of the Heartlands money finishing, it was 100% turnover. (2006 Post Heartland Interview 1) The intent of the Heartlands project was to provide long term stability and focus on the catchment ecosystems, but because of external factors it became just another in a series of short term projects.

How complexity is managed The complexity of the issues they were trying to address was acknowledged by BOG members and other Heartlands participants, but this was countered by a strong desire for clarity and certainty, for example:

Reviewing adaptive management through a wicked lens

‘there hasn’t been, to my way of thinking, any earth shattering results come out of it to say go in this direction, that’s the way to go … but you always hope it’s going to happen don’t you really? It would be nice if it did, if something just clicked inside and said right, we’re going this way’ (2006 Post Heartlands Interview 3). BOG members used much of their operational planning time to determine ways to reduce complexity and uncertainty, speaking particularly of the value of predictive tools and good communication. BOG members interpreted farmers’ aversion to change as a concern with unproven options, and they felt that many farmers had, based on previous experience, little confidence in technical options. Uncertainty and risk aversion were addressed partly through selecting works with multiple potential benefits for the landholder and the district. For example, native tree planting was often promoted as a recharge management measure, but it was noted that even if the trees had no impact on water tables they would attract native birds for insect management, and would provide weather protection for stock. The other strategy was to develop trust in a variety of communication networks that allowed information to be shared, and incremental learning to be undertaken: ‘it sort of reinforces a lot of ideas and yeah, just gives you a bit more background and knowledge I guess too which is good to know. It’s good to know that, I don’t know if it changes things overnight, but it’s like a lot of things, it all builds up over time’. (2006 Post Heartlands Interview 3) Stakeholder involvement Including a diverse range of players was part of the project brief for Heartlands, and from early on the BOG sought to include a variety of people and views. Initially the formation of BOG was a kind of polygamous marriage of convenience, with each of the members representing their own constituency. The BOG initiated a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) of the Billabong Catchment early in the project life. PRA is a suite of approaches, methods and behaviours that help people share and reflect upon their social and physical environment (Chambers 1994; Chambers 1999). By undertaking the PRA the BOG developed a shared understanding of the Catchment and some of its residents, but equally importantly, the BOG developed cohesion as a group in its own right. Readers interested in a detailed discussion of the PRA process and findings should refer to Allan and Curtis (2002). The Heartlands project also built on the good will, trust and record of landcare in the district. I think because initially it was Landcare groups – a few years ago when it started were held in fairly high esteem, and the local Landcare groups were working very, very well in their areas, and the Landcare group and the landholders – I think because the landholders felt they had real ownership with those groups, and once CSIRO came on board, it was primarily through those Landcare groups, and I think that that was what really helped that confidence happen … It really took off in the area and people embraced it really I think. (2006 Post Heartlands Interview 2) Once the BOG was acting like a single entity a structure for wider engagement was developed through the idea of ‘core’ and ‘fringe’ membership. Some of the BOG discourse revolved around who should be allowed near to the core group, and how close they should be allowed to get, but the foundation of the project management remained inclusive and participatory over its life.

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Table 14.2 Summary of the Billabong Heartlands response to wicked problems Attempt to tame or deny wickedness (conventional management) Focus

Project focused, AM reduced to small physical areas within larger area. Project funding constrained scope and duration of activities

What time boundaries are determined

Bounded by short time frames- two years

How complexity is managed

Some aspects of management focused on treating a solvable problem

Accept inherent wickedness (adaptive management)

Some aspects of management accepted uncertainty of future impacts

Stakeholder involvement

Participatory/inclusive management, including PRA and other participatory approaches.

Form of evaluation

Management team developed complex evaluations with both formative and summative aspects

Form of evaluation Evaluation was initially only cursorily addressed in the Heartlands project. The BOG members, who were very busy and focussed on implementation, appeared to view project evaluation as a way to maintain a future for the project through summative assessment to meet the needs of funding bodies, and though providing evidence of excellent practice. Some summative assessment was undertaken by the Murray–Darling Basin Commission, involving a questionnaire and a subsequent visit to the Billabong Catchment by the reviewer. The questionnaire focused on progress toward ‘project objectives’, ‘verifiable indicators’, ‘project milestones’, ‘project budget’ and ‘project outcomes’ in relation to approved catchment plans, with a clear emphasis on process (Lyle 2002). Regular reports of progress against milestones were also required from the various funding bodies. Towards the end of the project, and at the special insistence of some of the CSIRO members, the idea of identifying and passing on the lessons learned was embraced more thoroughly by the BOG. Although no specific funds had been set aside, a Heartlands position vacancy provided an opportunity to commission a formative assessment of the entire Heartlands project. The result was a publication which provides key lessons from the Heartlands experience (Earl and Cresswell 2005). Focusing on the management response to wickedness in the Heartlands project provides some indication of how adaptive the project could be. From Table 14.2, which summarises the discussion above, it is apparent that adaptive management in the Billabong Heartlands was only partially functional. It is also apparent that those aspects of the project that were more adaptive than conventional were those over which the local management group had the most influence or control, namely who they involved and how they evaluated themselves. The project clearly had the capacity to begin to address complexity and uncertainty through its commitment to participation and evaluation, but this was undermined by wider institutional and structural issues which reduced time frames and sought summative rather than

Reviewing adaptive management through a wicked lens

formative assessments. Institutional (in its broadest sense) constraints in the Billabong and a Victorian project have been discussed in greater detail in Allan and Curtis (2005), and institutional constraints are also apparent in other assessments of adaptive management (for example Stankey et al. 2003). However, the analysis in this chapter emphasises the particular constraints imposed by delivering policy by projects. It is unlikely that Australian governments will abandon projects as mechanisms for directing and supporting natural resource/ environmental management. However, it is well that the trappings of projects – short time frames, sharp focus, targets, intellectual leakage and limited opportunities for broad participation – are considered if adaptive management is the intent. The Billabong Heartlands project shows that some of the constraints imposed by projects can be managed, and clear articulation of these constraints could make this management more efficient or effective. However, some of the constraints on adaptive management are beyond the reach of people working within the project structure, and it may be that fully adaptive management and projects as we currently know them are simply incompatible.

Conclusion If adaptive management is to become a viable alternative to conventional practice in Australia and elsewhere, managers and policy makers need ways to understand and assess it. In this chapter I have proposed one way of doing this, by focusing on the nature of the problems that adaptive management is called on to address. Using a wicked response framework enabled us to see which aspects of the Billabong Heartland project most facilitated adaptive, rather than conventional management. It also focused attention on the tension at the core of the notion of achieving adaptive management through projects.

References Allan C (2004). Improving the outcomes of adaptive management at the regional scale. PhD thesis, Charles Sturt University. Allan C and Curtis A (2002). Participatory rural appraisal: using it to understand rural communities. Natural Resource Management 5, 28–34. Allan C and Curtis A (2005). Nipped in the bud: why regional scale adaptive management is not blooming. Environmental Management 36, 414–425. Australian Government NRM Team (2003). Agreement between the Commonwealth of Australia and New South Wales. Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra. Australian Public Service Commission (2007). ‘Tackling wicked problems: a public policy perspective.’ Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra. Bormann BT, Haynes RW and Martin JR (2007). Adaptive management of forest ecosystems: did some rubber hit the road? BioScience 57, 186–185. Chapin SF, Trainor SF, Huntington O, Lovecraft AL, Zavaleta E and Natcher DC (2008). Increasing wildfire in Alaska’s boreal forest: pathways to potential solutions of a wicked problem. Bioscience 58, 531–540. Churchman CW (1967). Wicked problems. Management Science 14, B-141-142. Cook TD and Shadish WR (1986). Program evaluation: the wordly science. Annual Review of Psychology 37, 193–232. CSIRO Heartlands Core Group (2000). ‘Draft Heartlands five year plan for 2001–2005.’ CSIRO/MDBC, Canberra. Department of Land and Water Conservation (2003). ‘Integrated catchment management plan (Murray Catchment Blueprint).’ Department of Land and Water Conservation.

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Dewulf A, François G, Pahl-Wostl C and Taillieu T (2007). A framing approach to cross-disciplinary research collaboration: experiences from a large-scale research project on adaptive water management. Ecology and Society 12, 1–24. Durant RF and Legge JS (2006). ‘Wicked problems,’ public policy, and administrative theory – lessons from the GM Food Regulatory Arena. Administration & Society 38, 309–334. Earl G (2003). ‘Landcare achievements: a review of natural resource management in the NSW Murray Catchment, 1989–2001.’ Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources, Albury. Folke C, Carpenter S and Elmqvist T (2002). Resilience and sustainable development: building adaptive capacity in a world of transformations. Ambio 31, 437. Freeman DM (2000). Wicked water problems: sociology and local water organizations in addressing water resources policy. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 36, 483–491. Gunderson L (1999). Resilience, flexibility and adaptive management – antidotes for spurious certitude? Conservation Ecology 3. Gunderson L and Light SS (2006). Adaptive management and adaptive governance in the everglades ecosystem. Policy Sciences 39, 323–334. Gunderson LH, Holling CS and Light SS (1995). Barriers & Bridges to the Renewal of Ecosystems and Institutions. Columbia University Press, New York. Head B (2005). Participation or co-governance? Challenges for regional natural resource management. In Participation and Governance in Regional Development: Global Trends in an Australian Context. (Eds R Eversole and J Martin). pp. 137–152. Ashgate, Aldershot, England. Heartlands Core Group (2001). Heartlands Newsletter, Summer. Holling CS (1978). Adaptive Environmental Management and Assessment. Wiley, Chichester. Horiuchi C (2007). One policy makes no difference? Administrative Theory & Praxis 29, 432–449. Ison R and Watson D (2007). Illuminating the possibilities for social learning in the management of Scotland’s water. Ecology & Society 12, 1–21. Jacobs JW and Wescoat JL (2002). Managing river resources. Environment 44, 8. Kovách I and Kučerová E (2006). The project class in Central Europe: the Czech and Hungarian cases. Sociologia Ruralis 46, 3–21. Lachappelle PR, McCool SF and Patterson ME (2003). Barriers to effective natural resource planning in a ‘messy’ world. Society & Natural Resources 16, 473. Lee KN (1999). Appraising adaptive management. Conservation Ecology 3. Lee KN, Geisler CC, Schelhas J and Wollenberg E (2001). Appraising adaptive management. In Biological Diversity: Balancing Interests through Adaptive Collaborative Management. (Ed. LE Buck) pp. 3–26. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida. Light S (2002). Adaptive management: a valuable but neglected strategy. Environment 44, 42. Ludwig D (2001). The era of management is over. Ecosystems 4, 758–764. Lyle C (2002). ‘MD2001 targeted component: performance review of salinity, algal management and strategic land use use projects. Key findings and recommendations.’ Clive Lyle and Associates, Balwyn North, Victoria. McKenzie N, Gregory L, Jacquier D and Cresswell H (2002). ‘Generation and delivery of salt and water to streams, Project CLW28. Final report to Land and Water Australia Appendix D: Billabong Land Information System.’ CSIRO Land and Water, Canberra. Murray-Darling Basin Commission (2005). Living Murray Business Plan. Nias D (2005). ‘Adaptive environmental water in the Murray Valley, NSW, 2000–2003.’ NSW Murray Wetlands Working Group Inc., Albury, NSW.

Reviewing adaptive management through a wicked lens

Pahl-Wostl C, Craps M, Dewulf A, Mostert E, Tàbara D and Taillieu T (2007). Social learning and water resources management. Ecology and Society 12. Patton MQ (1990). Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods. Sage Publications: Newbury Park. PPK Environment & Infrastructure Pty Ltd (1999). ‘Mid term review of the Natural Heritage Trust: Murray-Darling 2001 Program.’ Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry Australia. Richter BD and Thomas GA (2007). Restoring environmental flows by modifying dam operations. Ecology & Society 12, 1–26. Rittel HWJ and Webber MM (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences 4, 155–169. Silverman D (2001). Interpreting Qualitative Data: Methods for Analysing Talk, Text and Interaction. Sage Publications, London. Spradley JP (1980). Participant Observation. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York. Stankey GH, Bormann B, Ryan C, Shindler B, Sturtevant V, Clark R and Philpot C (2003). Adaptive management and the Northwest Forest Plan: rhetoric and reality. Journal of Forestry 101, 40–46. State Water Corporation (2007). ‘Environment Management Plan 2006–2011.’ Walters CJ and Holling CS (1990). Large-scale management experiments and learning by doing. Ecology 71(6), 2060–2068.

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Lessons from the Australian experiment 2002–08: the road ahead for regional governance Tiffany H Morrison

Re-scaling the governance of environment and natural resources to the regional level is a major public policy development in Australia and many countries around the world. In western Europe and North America, the case for a ‘new regionalism’ affecting the governance of other sectors is also popularly advanced and, in less developed countries, regionalisation often precedes (or is substituted for) decentralisation (for example, see Lane and Morrison forthcoming; Kubler and Schwab, 2007). Likewise, many countries around the world are also experiencing the replacement of ‘pure’ (e.g. top-down, regulatory) modes of government with ‘hybrid’ modes of ‘governance’ (e.g. market-based instruments and co-management and partnership arrangements) (Lemos and Agrawal 2006; Rhodes 1997; Papadakis and Grant 2003). A significant international debate is building around these new modes of governance, which are occurring not just in the environmental management field but across a range of policy sectors (Fung and Olin Wright 2002). This chapter analyses natural resources management (NRM) governance in Australia, particularly as it has occurred under the second phase of the Australian Government’s Natural Heritage Trust (NHT2) and National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (NAP) programs (2002–08). This chapter draws together the repercussions of this experiment, in order to identify opportunities to improve regional NRM in Australia and to draw out the broader implications for other policy sectors and other countries embracing ‘regional governance’. First, I present a brief overview of the main dimensions of the Australian experiment. I show how these programs together represent a significant experiment in public administration, involving major new policy innovation and organisational formation, in particular, a re-scaling of governance to the regional level, and utilisation of new environmental policy instruments. The Australian experiment is then drawn upon to identify lessons about the development of a legitimate and integrated regional architecture, the use of indirect policy instruments and comanagement arrangements, and overall NRM policy choices, capacity for revision and robustness. I then summarise the repercussions for regional NRM in Australia and outline the broader public policy implications.

A brief overview of the Australian experiment in regional governance: 2002–08 Between 2002 and 2008, Australian Government Natural Resource Management (NRM) policy was realised through two major programs: the second phase of the Natural Heritage 227

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Trust (NHT2) and the new National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (NAPSWQ). Both these programs involved the re-sizing of natural resource governance to the regional level and the use of new policy instruments (such as market-based instruments) and hybridised modes of governance (such as co-management arrangements). While the emphasis on the region was new, local informal partnerships in natural resource management in Australia had dated back decades. The move to formalise and extend these voluntary partnerships had first emerged on a wide scale in Australia with the initiation of the ‘Decade of Landcare’ by the Federal Government in the early 1990s. Then, in 1996, the Natural Heritage Trust (NHT1) was established to direct project-based funds to these local groups. 1 After significant review of and input from these previous NRM policies and programs (see Australian Government 1999), the Federal Government released its National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality in 2000 and restructured the NHT program (NHT 2000). These programmes called for the development of one body in each region to develop a single overarching strategic direction for natural resource management. The Commonwealth Government agencies administering the programmes required that the regional body be ‘community-based’ and that they develop a regional plan which identified a regional investment strategy according to priority actions. This plan required joint approval by Federal Government departments and their provincial counterparts in order to get funding. This chapter is concerned with this second phase. At the time of writing, the second phase of the NHT has ended. The new regional architecture, in development since 2002, is almost established and regional investment strategies are now complete for most of the 56 regional NRM bodies. In many regions, it has been reported that there are highly capable boards and staff, increased legitimacy in the eyes of regional stakeholders, increased accountability of NRM bodies as purchasers/providers of services, and on-ground outcomes (Davidson et al. 2008). Furthermore, the availability of social and economic data on NRM has improved (e.g. due to the agreements among the State and Commonwealth to a national set of social and economic indicators and protocols). However, there have also been some well-documented failures and critiques, including high community costs, due to a heavy reliance on voluntary effort and stakeholder input at the regional level (Johnston et al. 2006, Paton et al. 2004; Lockie 2001); high/complex administration (Australian Government 2008c); lack of attention to democratic implications (Wallington and Lawrence 2008; Moore and Rockloff 2006); disparities across regions (Robins and Dovers 2007); low Indigenous participation (Lane and Corbett 2005); limited outcomes (McDonald et al. 2005; Pannell 2008), and an over-emphasis on scale (Morrison 2007; Jennings and Moore 2000). Despite these failures and critiques, in 2007 the Coalition Government announced a $2 billion reinvestment in what was then termed NHT3 (2008–2013).2 Indeed, as the NHT moved towards the end of its second phase, it seemed that the regional governance model had been largely accepted in most quarters. This suggested that NRM policy in Australia had reached a condition of robustness; that is, it was ‘resistant to sheer buffeting by changes in social circumstances that have no bearing upon the assumptions upon which those institutions were predicated’ (Goodin 1996 p. 40). In late 2007 however a new Labor Government was elected and in early 2008 announced a new ‘Caring for our Country’ program to replace the existing NHT and other related programs. While it is still too soon to do more than speculate upon the new program, there are a number of lessons which can be drawn from the 2002–08 experiment in regional governance, both for the benefit of the new Caring for our Country program in Australia, and for other sectors and countries interested in the transition to regional governance. These will now be discussed, focusing first on hybridised governance, then on new environmental policy instruments (NEPIs), and finally on ‘revisability’ – as the capacity for institutional revision and change – and robustness.

Lessons from the Australian experiment 2002–2008: the road ahead for regional governance

Hybridised regional governance: scaling out, legitimacy and integration As discussed toward the beginning of this chapter, the re-scaling of governance to the regional level is now the preferred modus operandi for many governments and policy sectors across the world (Lane and Morrison, forthcoming; Kubler and Schwab, 2007; Frisken and Norris 2001; MacLeod 2001). Australia’s federalist approach to government involves three tiers: Commonwealth, State and local. NRM regions can be regarded as ‘extra-local’, or ‘sub-state’, and are definitely not governmental.3 As discussed earlier, the new regional NRM architecture envisaged in 2000 has been a work in progress since 2002 and is nearly finalised. After a period of mergers of local groups and other restructuring (see Morrison 2004) regional investment strategies, for example, are now complete for most of the 56 regional NRM bodies.4 The regionalisation of NRM involves ideas of ‘scaling down’ (from government to community control and responsibility) and ‘scaling up’ (whereby regions have more comprehensive coverage and better ability to respond to environmental problems and government initiatives than the previous locally-based models). My submission here is that these ideas have dominated the design and implementation of the new regional NRM architecture, to the detriment of other considerations, such as ‘scaling out’. This term will now be defined. There are two dimensions to ‘scaling out’: (1) legitimacy and (2) integration. First, while different partnership models exist across the regions, and there is increased legitimacy in the eyes of regional stakeholders in many regions, there is still a problem with the legitimacy of some regional bodies. Common criticisms include: ● ● ● ●

● ●

stakeholders are appointed rather than elected; division of expert and non-expert positions on bodies; relative powers of volunteers versus paid professionals; whether particular individuals are truly representative of their constituency and the capacity of those individuals to then communicate back to their people (particularly a problem for disempowered groups e.g. Indigenous groups); lack of transparency of decision-making, and confusion as to the difference between a ‘NRM volunteer’ and a ‘NRM stakeholder’.

Many stakeholders are still frustrated and confused about these aspects (Dolnicar et al. 2008; Wallington and Lawrence 2008; Lockwood et al. 2008; Farrelly 2005). Second, the new regional architecture is still not adequately integrated with other relevant institutional arrangements and groups. In particular, there is a lack of engagement with local government. While local governments are not provided for in the Constitution and are established under State Acts, they are still democratically elected, and do not view themselves as just another NRM stakeholder group. They also have primary responsibility for land use and development planning. Furthermore, they possess considerable local knowledge and tools, and integrate and coordinate policy on the ground every day. However, despite the fact that local governments have considerable responsibility for many aspects of the regional plans, there were problems with local government engagement with the NHT across Australia. Indeed NHT2 and NAP were widely regarded to have effectively introduced a fourth tier of government in Australian NRM (Wild River 2003). The NHT model was also not adequately integrated with other institutional arrangements, such as water planning and management under the National Water Initiative (NWI). Furthermore, there were certain groups which had not been adequately targeted by the NHT. NRM policy in Australia has had a long-term focus on the engagement and capacity-building of

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traditional rural stakeholders (e.g. mainstream farmers) in NRM. As a result, there is now a mature level of understanding about the importance (and challenges) of collaborative planning and evaluation involving these stakeholders. Other target groups (e.g. Indigenous groups, hobby farmers, agribusiness in peri-urban regions, etc.) have been somewhat neglected. It is not clear how regional decision-making will be improved under the new ‘Caring for our Country’ program. Some regional bodies clearly need to be encouraged to re-consider their decision-making structures according to principles of representativeness, inclusiveness, equally opportunity, fairness and ethics. They also need to make transparent all decisions about resource allocation. Stakeholders need to be educated on their responsibilities, rights, and relationships with other parties under the program. It is clear however that under the new ‘Caring for our Country’ program regional bodies will now be competing with local governments and other organisations for funding. While this could be viewed as a mechanism to phase out the less competitive regional bodies, approximately 40% of funding has still been quarantined for regions: ‘The Government will provide regional bodies with a combination of secure base-level funding, specific assistance to help regions adjust to the new program priorities and the opportunity to bid for additional money from within the overall Caring for our Country fund.’ (Australian Government 2008d). This policy shift from guaranteed funding for regional bodies to base level and competitive tendering for a range of organisations will certainly open up the playing field (e.g. to local government and other organisations) and perhaps encourage these groups to integrate more effectively in order to have a better chance at securing funding. In order for this to occur, the relationship (and indeed legitimacy contest) between local government and regional NRM bodies needs to be resolved, or at least to be clarified. The organisational structures and funding mechanisms of the regional bodies will need to adequately recognise the democratically elected nature of local governments, and the cost of the work that they do.5 Likewise, local government plans (corporate plans and other local plans) will need to commit to NRM (e.g. cascading of the regional targets into the local town plans). Time frames across local government and NRM plans will also need to be aligned. Other groups are perhaps more appropriately targeted by other initiatives (e.g. drought programs, employment programs, water planning, etc). This would involve the utilisation of other policy instruments beyond incentives for volunteerism (Morrison et al. 2008). 6 This shift from a focus on education, extension and regional communities to an increasing and more sophisticated use of these ‘NEPIs’ will now be discussed.

Regional governance and ‘new’ environmental policy instruments As outlined earlier, NHT2 required that community-based regional NRM bodies be established to develop regional NRM plans, which identified a regional investment strategy according to priority actions. These plans required joint approval by the national and provincial governments in order to gain small temporary incentive grants which provided partial funding for projects. The use of such indirect policy instruments and co-management arrangements meant that there was a heavy reliance on voluntary effort and stakeholder input at the regional level. The cost-effectiveness of indirect policy instruments such as this (as compared to more traditional command and control regulation) is one reason for their attractiveness (Gunningham and Sinclair 1999). Another is that government investment (and corporate and industrial investment, not necessarily solely financial) in volunteerism is now regarded by governments as essential to the social fabric in that it helps build a cooperative society (Putnam 2000). Yet, despite low project costs, reliance on such instruments incurs high administrative and community costs for all concerned which were not necessarily factored in to the original

Lessons from the Australian experiment 2002–2008: the road ahead for regional governance

design. The lesson to be drawn from the NHT2 experience is that this model is not as costefficient and administratively simple as it seems. First, the stop-start nature of the funding arrangements7 created uncertainty and threatened commitment, with implications for policy effectiveness.8 The complex system of delivery was characterised by high transaction costs at regional, provincial, and national scales (Morrison 2007). Financial reporting/auditing processes were perceived as burdensome; heavy, costly and complex, with multiple risk assessment and quality assurance processes (Griffith et al. 2007). Second, NRM policy in Australia has had a high reliance on a volunteer base which has been shown to be unsustainable and unrepresentative (Lockie 2001). Young people, women, and people from non-Anglo-Saxon backgrounds (particularly Indigenous) have been underrepresented, and commentators are warning that the current supply of volunteers is not guaranteed (Johnston et al. 2006). Burnout among volunteers is common, and many parts of Australia are experiencing significant demographic transition (e.g. retirement of baby boomers, ‘tree/sea changers’ and younger people moving in to volunteering). The motivations of volunteers (beyond a stewardship ethic or in response to project-based funding) are not well understood, so it is unclear how their participation can be sustained (Byron and Curtis 2002).9 Third, while many volunteers want to be more involved (e.g. in the planning, decisionmaking, and evaluation aspects of NRM), this is costly and time consuming for agencies, which have their own capacity constraints.10 Robins and Dovers (2007) also report that the administrative and community burden is falling unevenly across regions, and that there are growing disparities in budgets between and across regions.11 This lack of administrative and community capacity in some regions means that not all regions are equally or fully equipped to take on the increasingly onerous roles, responsibilities and accountabilities required to drive changes in NRM practice in their communities (Fenton and Rickert 2006). There are significant differences in maturity and skills across regions, and many are still confused about their roles and reporting requirements. At the end of NHT2, and in the lead up to ‘Caring for our Country’, commentators were arguing that overall NRM policy needed to be prioritised (i.e. the level of funding) and guaranteed (i.e. the continuity of funding), for example, through a mix of incentives and block funding/recurrent core funding over longer time frames (e.g. five years rather than two years), and furthermore, the method of financial disbursement to the regions needed to be improved. The argument was that more certainty of funding would enable a better consideration of how to ensure a sustainable and representative volunteer base long-term (e.g. beyond the next policy deadline and funding cycle, ideally 20 years). Once funding was more certain, the cost of capacity building at the regional level could be factored in, and the setting of targets (e.g. improving the capacity of disempowered groups) and evaluation of volunteer engagement by the regional bodies encouraged (Johnston et al. 2006).12 It was also proposed that a shared protocol and training scheme on stakeholder engagement and capacity building within and across agencies be costed and developed, and that purposeful intervention was needed to reduce the gaps between and across regions (Robins and Dovers 2007).13 Pannell (2008) also argued that the use of incentives under NHT2 (and other associated programs including NHT1, Landcare, and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality) was not well thought through and therefore blunted in effect. He argued that the financial incentives were not great enough to overcome the private benefits from continuing as usual, and was more about developing a cost-efficient program, than an effective program. Pannell and others argued that any new program would need to consider a broader range of policy tools, with less reliance on extension and small grants, and more emphasis on intervention around key assets and investment in technology development (Roberts and Pannell 2009). The new ‘Caring for our Country’ program certainly has an increased budget of $2.25 billion. According to the media release, ‘Caring for our Country will take a business

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approach to investment. It will have clear outcomes and priorities, reduced bureaucratic complexity and improved accountability’ (Australian Government 2008 p. 2). However beyond this promise there is little detail on how the other problems outlined above will be addressed at the regional level. The ‘Caring for our Country’ program does, however, include an Environmental Stewardship Services package, which ‘creates a new policy instrument involving direct payments to farmers and land managers for the provision of services’. This signals a shift from the early days of awareness raising and institution building to an increasing and more sophisticated use of these ‘NEPIs’ which may have the ultimate effect of bypassing the region (Hajkowicz 2009 p. 475). The increased emphasis on nationally high priority bio-regions may also disadvantage those regional bodies that don’t manage any of the key national assets, as will now be discussed.

Institutional success as the implementability of policy choices: capacity for change and robustness In essence, NRM policy (1996–2008) in Australia was designed to achieve sustainable management of Australia’s land, water, marine and biological systems through local community engagement, education and incentives (NHT1) and the development of regional communitybased bodies to manage engagement, education and incentives (NHT2). Hajkowicz (2009), Robins (2009), Farrelly and Conacher (2007) and Crowley (2001) all provide good histories of the development of these programs, and their predecessors. The political and policy priorities of the governments and agencies involved in setting and administering NRM policy partly explains the choice of policy settings, as does the transition of the NRM problem from a new problem to an ongoing policy and administrative problem. These factors will now be explained. NRM policy in Australia is jointly administered at the national level by the National agriculture14 and environment15 departments. Bilateral agreements were developed with each of the provincial governments, identifying the regional (i.e. sub-provincial) bodies and outlining administrative and accountability arrangements with the provincial environment and agriculture departments. Morrison and Lane (2006) outline how the national agriculture and environment departments, with very differing mandates (competitive, profitable and sustainable rural industries vs. protection and conservation of the Australian environment) have agreed on regional governance. Three key ideas have been invoked: bio-regionalism, localism and administrative efficiency. In summary, the emerging bio-regionalist paradigm was based on the premise that the region is a naturally occurring unit (Harvey 1996). Regions thus reflected ecological differences in landscapes. Those subscribing to a regionalist approach thus sought to sub-divide, classify and manage territorial space according to these differences. Bio-regionalists also argued that regions have more comprehensive coverage of ecosystems and therefore enable more than one level of change (rather than localised change possible through smaller local and catchment based groups) (Dore et al. 2003; Berkes 2002; Dale and Bellamy 1998; Haeuber 1996; Slocombe 1993). The more longstanding localism paradigm saw localities and regions as key sites of civic interaction. Local communities were thought to be small enough in size and complexity to allow citizens informally and endogenously to make decisions about their own problems (Wallington and Lawrence 2008; Ostrom 1990; Healey 1997).16 The Landcare movement was emblematic of this paradigm, emerging out of informal partnership traditions in the farming industry dating back to the 1930s. The principle of subsidiarity, according to which government functions should be carried out at the lowest feasible level, was also often invoked here, with its inherent emphasis on the local management of particular policy issues (Weale et al. 2000). The move from a local to a regional model extended this line of thought but was based

Lessons from the Australian experiment 2002–2008: the road ahead for regional governance

on the premise that, given the magnitude of Australian environmental problems, regional bodies could coordinate and respond much faster than local groups in that they were more able to mobilise the significant voluntary capacity required to manage these problems. However, while both the localist and then regionalist paradigms were embraced by agriculturalists and environmentalists alike, it was the need for administrative efficiency which really paved the way for regional governance. By the end of the first phase of the NHT, NRM had become an old policy problem but a new administrative problem. 17 The first phase of the NHT had stimulated a major increase in the number of local NRM groups, with a parallel increase in the transaction costs to governments. Politicians and administrators were not looking for a new solution, but wanted to continue on the same path but in a more efficient manner. I have written elsewhere that ongoing and more widely accepted environmental problems can afford a more procedural and decentralised (deconcentrated) approach (which is, in turn, monitored, reviewed and supported by a capable central bureaucracy and ministerial office (Morrison and Lane 2005; Kavanagh and Richards 2001; Tendler 1997). In addition to expected efficiency gains, reducing the number of NRM groups was also an attempt to neutralise intergovernmental policy differences. The region was promoted as a politically neutral scale (remote from the politics of both national and provincial governments) (Crowley 2001; Dore and Woodhill 1999) that could remain a site of decentralised control through cost-effective economic incentives promoting regional organisation and civic action (Morrison 2007; Gunningham and Sinclair 1999). Decentralisation was also in line with Coalition Government’s neoliberal policy which at the time allowed the state, according to some critics, ‘to wash its hands of responsibility for less favoured regions, arguing that salvation now lies in their own hands’ (Rainnie 2005 p. 137). These factors explain both the choice of policy settings and some of the problems with implementation. For while the focus on education, extension and regional communities has been quite successful at achieving engagement over the last decade or so - via Landcare, NHT and ‘One Billion Trees’ programs - the administration through two agencies with quite different missions within a federal system of government has resulted in a program which is often unclear in intent, and administratively onerous in structure, thereby delaying its on-ground effectiveness. Hajkowicz (2009) makes the point that this is particularly problematic given that the Australian National Audit Office also highlighted these problems in their review of NHT1. It can be attributed to two main factors: 1) lack of clarity about what was to be achieved and how (deliberate or unintentional), and 2) lack of evaluation of regional outcomes, as will now be discussed. On the first point, there is still considerable confusion about the overall intention and logic of NHT2. This lack of clarity was present at every level, from the national level down to regional bodies and landholders and resulted in a policy setting which seemed to have moved away from the achievement of sustainable NRM towards community well-being and engagement.18 Second, evaluation was always a ‘work in progress’ and seen as too focused on assurance and financial auditing, and not focused enough on natural resource outcomes (Hajkowicz 2009; Australian Government 2008c; Paton et al. 2003). Goodin’s work on institutions is instructive here in that he emphasises the importance of both ‘revisability’ and ‘robustness’ in institutional design. ‘Robustness’ can be defined as resistance to change which is inappropriate, that is, change which is not relevant to that specific context. ‘Revisability’, in contrast to ‘robustness’, is concerned more with flexibility and defined as being ‘capable of changing in response to relevant changes in the factual or evaluative universe’ (Goodin 1996 p. 40). A robust institution without this capacity for revision therefore is one that is prone to brittleness and exposure. While NRM policy in Australia is most definitely robust, as ‘Caring for our Country’ can really be seen as a more sophisticated version of NHT2 rather than a complete

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turnaround in NRM policy, its limited and confusing monitoring and evaluation regime leaves it open to criticism regarding its potential for revision and adaptability. To further illustrate, at the end of NHT2 while there was universal agreement about the importance of auditing for financial accountability and of monitoring and evaluation and adaptation for on-ground outcomes, there was a high level of confusion about the differences and relationships between financial and environmental reporting structures. There was also limited feedback to the regions rendering an incomplete loop in an adaptive management sense (Allan and Curtis 2005).One of the messages of this experience is that Australian national NRM policy needs to more clearly articulate the desired intermediate (e.g. funds acquitted and trees planted) and long-term environmental outcomes (e.g. overall resource condition). It also needs to more clearly articulate the program logic behind these desired outcomes, and the associated evaluation regime. There was also confusion about roles and responsibilities for data collection, custodianship, reporting and dissemination. The bilateral agreements in NHT2 contained vague provisions on who should collect information, how information was to be collected and managed, and who was to fund it. Science and information is therefore still fragmented across the country. Australian National Audit Office auditors of NHT 1 and 2, for example, continually reported being unable to measure the impact of programs on the condition of natural resources or trends of land degradation at the landscape scale (Australian Government 2008c; Australian Government 1997). Griffith et al. (2007) contend that the financial and environmental reporting system needs to be clarified and simplified. Roles and responsibilities for collection, custodianship and reporting also need to be clearly identified and agreed in ‘Caring for our Country’. This is not just an issue for the regions and the provincial governments, but also for national agencies such as the National Land and Water Resources Audit and the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It is important to emphasise here, however, that at least robustness sets the preconditions for revisability (Goodin 1996). That there is now more certainty due to the 2008 announcement of the ‘Caring for our Country’ program augurs well for these problems to be addressed. ‘Caring for our Country’ promises a re-prioritisation of environmental outcomes, and new attention to economic efficiency, transparency and accountability. According to the media release, ‘Caring for our Country will take a business approach to investment. It will have clear outcomes and priorities, reduced bureaucratic complexity and improved accountability’ (Australian Government 2008 p. 2). Furthermore, successful public policy implementation can take in excess of 10 years (Sabatier 1986), meaning that there is still time to develop a successful evaluation regime. Finally, many of the problems experienced in the second phase are endemic to policymaking and are common issues observed across most postindustrial societies.

Conclusions The Australian NHT (phase 2) was a significant experiment in public administration, involving major new institutional innovation and formation, including a re-scaling of governance to the regional level, and utilisation of new environmental policy instruments. Regional governance promised more democratic and efficient decision-making. In environmental and agricultural circles, managing at a landscape level was also attractive. Yet the story told here demonstrates that effective regional governance cannot be achieved quickly and simply. My final conclusion is that regional NRM in Australia can be seen as a partial success and a partial failure. This chapter has highlighted three challenges and opportunities to improve regional NRM governance in Australia:

Lessons from the Australian experiment 2002–2008: the road ahead for regional governance

1. Clarification of policy intent, data collection and reporting system; 2. More sophisticated use of policy instruments, and 3. Enhanced legitimacy of regional bodies as decision-makers and part of overall regional institutional architecture. In many respects, the new ‘Caring for our Country’ program provides an opportunity to further enhance and strengthen regional governance. However, attention to the failures and critiques outlined above (some of which have survived multiple reinventions of NRM policy) is needed in order to ensure long-term policy success, that is, effective NRM. These lessons are not only relevant to the new ‘Caring for our Country’ program but also have broader instruction for other countries and policy sectors also interested in regional governance (e.g. duty of care in the USA and Europe, regional NRM in Canada, water management, local government amalgamation, health and youth policy, and risk and emergency management in Australia). In particular, they highlight that while regional governance is increasingly popular, it is important to remember to prioritise the desired outcomes above all else. If regional governance is the necessary route to these outcomes, then this chapter has identified some key considerations, including: building a simple but comprehensive evaluation regime early; recognizing the high social and administrative costs of unsophisticated use of indirect policy instruments; ensuring the legitimacy of regional bodies; and scaling out to non-traditional stakeholder groups and institutional arrangements. It is this final factor (scaling out to ensure a successful policy mix) which will ensure a true regionalism, and which is an important and unexplored direction for future research. It also remains to be seen as to whether the new ‘Caring for our Country’ program will achieve this.

Acknowledgements This chapter was initially stimulated by a special briefing held with the key provincial and Federal agencies and Land and Water Australia researchers on May 15, 2007 in Canberra, but has since evolved in response to emerging evaluations of and changes in policy. With sincere thanks to two anonymous reviewers for assisting with this evolution.

Endnotes 1 From the partial sale of the national telecommunications utility by the Coalition Government. 2 Some critics have claimed that the allocation of NHT funds provided the perfect mechanism for federal ‘porkbarrelling’ in regional electorates (see Hamilton 2002; also Curtis and Nouhuys 1999 for reference to this debate). 3 See Crowley (2001) for a discussion of the relationship between NHT1 and commonwealthstate-local government partnerships. 4 It is important to note here that the 56 NRM regions in Australia vary significantly, both in origin and in current structure. In particular, different partnership models exist in different States. Queensland regions exist under incorporation law, rather than enabling statute, whereas regions in other States may be statutory authorities in their own right. Decisionmaking structures and processes also vary. 5 For example by working with the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) NRM coordinators. 6 This would involve agencies outside of DEH and DAFFA (e.g. DoTARS, provincial Departments of Development, etc.). (Morrison et al. 2008). This also requires reform on the part of other institutional arrangements.

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7 As opposed to other policy areas such as health and education, which are less concerned with project-based funding. 8 See Agnolucci (2007) for a discussion of the importance of financial support and policy certainty to the effectiveness of wind electricity in Denmark. 9 For example, many volunteers want to be more involved in the planning, decision-making, and evaluation aspects of NRM. 10 Resulting in variability in levels of community engagement and types of approaches, and interruption of engagement. This is often illustrated by the lack of understanding of the complex nature of Indigenous decision-making structures (Land and Water Australia 2007). 11 In particular, there is currently a significant variation in regional budgets for capacity building activities (Robins and Dovers 2007). 12 These targets and evaluations should also be communicated to the volunteers themselves. Johnston et al. (2006), for example, have created a simple evaluation checklist for regional groups to use. 13 Some argue that for ‘Caring for our Country’ to be successful, the new program will need to undertake a confidential capacity audit (e.g. skills, education, facilitation, technical) in each region, so that the regional goals developed recognise the existing capacity and activities of a particular region (e.g. the ReCAP project, see Fenton 2006). 14 Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. 15 Department of the Environment, Water, and Heritage and the Arts (formerly the Department of the Environment and Water Resources). The National Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 is administered by this agency. A key objective of this Act is to promote a cooperative regional approach to the protection and management of the environment involving governments, NGOs and individual landholders. 16 The key value of organising locally (as opposed to organising centrally) is that information brokerage and networking are more likely to occur at a level with less participants and higher opportunities for close and regular contact (Jennings and Moore 2000; Clarke and McCool 1996). 17 Ongoing and widely recognised and understood problems, such as salinity and water pollution in rural areas had become eclipsed by new and controversial environmental policy problems such as climate change (Morrison and Lane 2005; Howard 2004). 18 This was not due to any change of objectives and funding criteria, but rather a de facto shift reported anecdotally. Lipsky (1980) analyses in detail this phenomenon of policy re-interpretation by ‘street-level bureaucrats’. See also Roberts and Pannell (2009).

References Agnolucci P (2007). Wind electricity in Denmark: a survey of policies, their effectiveness and factors motivating their introduction. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 11, 951–963. Allan C and Curtis A (2005). Nipped in the bud: why regional scale adaptive management is not blooming. Environmental Management 36(3), 414–425. Australian Government (2008a). Caring for our Country. http://www.nrm.gov.au/publications/factsheets/pubs/cfoc-general.pdf. Australian Government (2008b). Caring for our Country Business Plan 2009-2010. Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts and Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry, Canberra.

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Australian Government (2008c). Regional Delivery Model for the Natural Heritage Trust and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality: Audit Report. Australian National Audit Office, Canberra. Australian Government (2008d). Caring for our Country: questions and answers. http://www. nrm.gov.au/funding/cfoc-faq.html. Australian Government (1999). ‘Managing natural resources in rural Australia for a sustainable future: a discussion paper for developing a national policy’. Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Australia, Canberra. Australian Government (1997). ‘Preliminary inquiries into the Natural Heritage Trust: audit report’. Australian National Audit Office, Canberra. Berkes F (2002). Cross-scale institutional linkages: perspectives from the bottom up. In: The Drama of the Commons. (Eds E Ostrom, T Dietz, N Dolsak et al.) pp. 293–322. National Academy Press, Washington, DC. Byron I and Curtis A (2002). Maintaining volunteer commitment to local watershed initiatives. Environmental Management 30(1), 59–67. Clarke JN and McCool D (1985). Staking out the Terrain: Power Differentials Among Natural Resource Management Agencies. SUNY Press, Albany. Crowley K (2001). Effective environmental federalism? Australia’s Natural Heritage Trust. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 3, 255–272. Curtis A and Van Nouhuys M (1999). Landcare participation in Australia: the volunteer perspective. Sustainable Development 7(2), 98–111. Dale A and Bellamy J (Eds) (1998). Regional resource use planning in rangelands: an Australian review. Land and Water Resources Research and Development Corporation, Canberra. Davidson J, Lockwood M, Griffith R, Curtis A and Stratford E (2008). ‘Status and good practice in Australian NRM governance’. Report No. 5. University of Tasmania, Hobart. Dolnicar S, Irvine H and Lazarevski K (2008). Mission or money? Competitive challenges facing public sector nonprofit organisations in an institutionalised environment. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing 13(2), 107–117. Dore J, Woodhill J, Andrews K and Keating C (2003). Sustainable regional development: lessons from Australian efforts. In: Managing Australia’s Environment. (Eds S Dovers and S Wild River) pp. 154–180. Federation Press, Sydney. Dore J and Woodhill J (1999). Sustainable Regional Development. Greening Australia, Canberra. Farrelly M and Conacher A (2007). Integrated, regional, natural resource and environmental planning and the Natural Heritage Trust Phase 2: a case study of the Northern Agricultural Catchments Council, Western Australia. Australian Geographer 38(3), 309–333. Farrelly M (2005). Regionalisation of environmental management: a case study of the Natural Heritage Trust, South Australia. Geographical Research 43(4), 393–405. Fenton DM (2006). Socio-economic indicators and protocols for the National NRM Monitoring & Evaluation Framework: the social and institutional foundations of NRM. National Land and Water Resources Audit, Canberra. Fenton M and Richert A (2006). ‘Monitoring and evaluating the performance of NAPSWQ regional bodies in Queensland’. Regional Report No. 5. EBC, Townsville. Frisken F and Norris DF (2001). Regionalism reconsidered. Journal of Urban Affairs 23(5), 467–478. Fung A and Olin Wright E (Eds) (2002). Deepening Democracy: Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance. Verso Press, London. Goodin R (Ed) (1996). The Theory of Institutional Design. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

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Griffith R, Dean J, Curtis A, Hanlon G, Parton K and Green A (2007). Exploring Key Attributes and Standards of a Model for Quality Assured Regional NRM. Charles Sturt University, Bathurst. Gunningham N and Sinclair D (1999). Regulatory pluralism: designing policy mixes for environmental protection. Law and Policy 21, 49–76. Hajkowicz S (2009). The evolution of Australia’s natural resource management programs: towards improved targeting and evaluation of investments. Land Use Policy 26, 471–478. Hamilton C (2002). Population growth and environmental quality: are they compatible? People and Place 10(2), 1–5. Harvey D (1996). Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. Blackwell, Oxford. Haeuber R (1996). Setting the environmental policy agenda: the case of ecosystem management. Natural Resources Journal 36(1), 1–28. Healey P (1997). Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies. Macmillan, Houndmills. Howard J (2004). Biodiversity Hotspots (Announcement of the Prime Minister with Senator Meg Lees). ‘Banksia Ridge’, Mount Barker, Friday 20th August. Jennings SF and Moore SA (2000). The rhetoric behind regionalization in Australian natural resource management: myth, reality and moving forward. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 2, 177–191. Johnston CS, Green M, Stephens M, Syme GJ and Nancarrow BE (2006). ‘Summary report: volunteerism, democracy, administration and the evolution of future landscapes: looking ahead’. CSIRO Land and Water Australia, Canberra. Kavanagh D and Richards D (2001) Departmentalism and joined-up government. Parliamentary Affairs 54, 1–18. Kubler D and Schwab B (2007). New regionalism in five Swiss metropolitan areas: an assessment of inclusiveness, deliberation and democratic accountability. European Journal of Political Research 46, 473–502. Land and Water Australia (2007). Project Factsheet: Engagement of Indigenous Australians in Natural Resource Management. Australian Government, Canberra. Lane MB and Corbett T (2005). The tyranny of localism: Indigenous participation in community-based environmental management. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 7(2), 141–159. Lane MB and Morrison TH (forthcoming). Regional Environmental Governance in Post-industrial Societies. Springer, New York. Lane MB, Cheers B and Morrison TH (2005). Regionalised natural resource management: the new South Australian regime. South Australian Geographical Journal 104, 11–24. Lane MB, McDonald GT and Morrison TH (2004a). An agnostic view on regionalism, decentralisation and other silver bullets: a response to Thom. Australian Geographical Studies 42(3), 398–403. Lane MB, McDonald GT and Morrison TH (2004b). Decentralisation and environmental management in Australia: a comment on the prescriptions of the Wentworth Group. Australian Geographical Studies 42(1), 103–115. Lemos MC and Agrawal A (2006). Environmental governance. Annual Review of Environmental Resources 31, 297–325. Lipsky M (1980). Street Level Bureaucrats. Russell Sage, New York. Lockie S (2001). Community environmental management? Landcare in Australia. In: Rurality Bites: The Social and Environmental Transformation of Rural Australia. (Eds S Lockie and L Bourke). Pluto Press, Sydney.

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Lockwood M, Davidson J, Curtis A, Stratford E and Griffith R (2008). Governance principles for natural resource management. Society and Natural Resources (in press). McDonald G, Taylor B, Bellamy J, Robinson C, Walker M, Smith T, Hoverman, S, McAlpine C, Peterson A and Dawson S (2005). ‘Benchmarking regional planning arrangements for natural resource management 2004/5. Progress, constraints and future directions for regions’. Milestone Report 3. Healthy Savanna Planning Systems Project. Tropical Savannas Management CRC, Brisbane. MacLeod G (2001). New regionalism reconsidered: globalization and the remaking of political economic space. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 25(4), 804–829. Moore SA and Rockloff SF (2006). Organizing regionally for natural resource management in Australia: Reflections on agency and government. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 8 (3), 259–277. Morrison M, Durante J, Greig J and Ward J (2008). Encouraging Participation in Market Based Instruments and Incentive Programs. Land and Water Australia, Canberra. Morrison TH (2007) Multiscalar governance and regional environmental management in Australia. Space and Polity 11, 227–242. Morrison TH (2006). Pursuing rural sustainability at the regional level: key lessons from the literature on institutions, integration and the environment. Journal of Planning Literature 21(2), 143–152. Morrison TH and Lane MB (2006). The convergence of regional governance discourses in rural Australia: enduring contradictions and constructive suggestions. Rural Society: Special Edition on Governance 16 (3), 341–57. Morrison TH and Lane MB (2005). What ‘whole-of-government’ means for environmental policy and management: an analysis of the connecting government initiative, Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 12(1), 47–54. Morrison TH (2004). Institutional integration in complex environments: pursuing rural sustainability at the regional level in Australia and the USA. Unpublished PhD Thesis. School of Geography, Planning and Architecture, University of Queensland, Brisbane. Natural Heritage Trust (NHT) (2000). Mid-Term Review of the Natural Heritage Trust. The Response. Environment Australia and Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Australia, Canberra. Ostrom E (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Papadakis E and Grant R (2003). The politics of ‘light-handed regulation’: ‘new’ environmental policy instruments in Australia. Environmental Politics 12, 27–50. Pannell DJ (2008). Public benefits, private benefits, and policy intervention for land-use change for environmental benefits. Land Economics 84(2), 225–240. Paton S, Curtis A, McDonald G and Woods M (2004). Regional natural resource management: is it sustainable. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management December, 259–267. Putnam RD (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon and Schuster, New York. Rainnie A (2005). Regional development policy and social inclusion. In: Community and Local Governance in Australia. (Eds P Smyth, T Reddel and A Jones) pp. 131–148. University of NSW Press, Sydney. Rhodes RAW (1997). Understanding Governance: Policy Networks, Governance, Reflexivity and Accountability. Open University Press, Buckingham. Roberts AM and Pannell DJ (2009). Piloting a systematic framework for public investment in regional natural resource management: dryland salinity in Australia. Land Use Policy 26, 1001–1010.

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Robins L (2009). Insiders versus outsiders: perspectives on capacity issues to inform policy and programmes. Local Environment 14(1), 45–59. Robins L and Dovers S (2007). NRM regions in Australia: the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. Geographical Research 45(3), 273–290. Sabatier PA (1986). Top-down and bottom-up approaches to implementation research: a critical analysis and suggested synthesis. Journal of Public Policy 6(1), 21–48. Slocombe DS (1993). Environmental planning, ecosystem science, and ecosystem approaches for integrating environment and development. Environmental Management 17(3), 289–303. Tendler J (1997). Good Government in the Tropics. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD. Wallington TJ and Lawrence G (2008). Making democracy matter: responsibility and effective environmental governance in regional Australia. Journal of Rural Studies 24, 277–290. Weale A, Pridham G, Cini M, Konstadakopulus D, Porter M and Flynn B (2000). Environmental Governance in Europe. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Wild River S (2003). Local government. In: Managing Australia’s Environment. (Eds S Dovers and S Wild River) pp. 338–362. Federation Press, Annandale, New South Wales.

PART 4 CONCLUSION

16

The changing and contested governance of Australia’s environmental heritage Cathy Robinson, Marcus Lane and Bruce Taylor

This book has been written on the eve of a national policy reform that has required Australian governments and Australians to reconsider how regional approaches to natural resource governance can best ‘Care for Our Country’.1 The need to improve the ways in which environments are used and managed is urgent. Decades of use and abuse of Australia’s natural resources has produced serious problems for the availability and health of the natural environment. In response, this book has charted the changing, contested and complex issues involved in the re-scaling of governance to achieve such elusive public policy goals. These efforts have involved the decentralisation of financial resources and decision-making responsibilities to natural resource planning groups. This reflects an ambitious attempt to include conservation, Indigenous, and rural issues in successive policy efforts to shape and re-shape Australia’s sustainable development agenda. Public, private and voluntary sectors can now build on decades of experience amongst stakeholders who have interacted and influenced a network of natural resource management (NRM) decisions and activities. Under this contemporary regional NRM planning paradigm, ‘country’ is understood to be a highly complex social and ecological system, and its ‘care’ recognises that institutional performance is a critical ingredient towards the achievement of ecological sustainability. This book draws on rapidly growing fields in the social sciences to identify the strategic issues affecting the performance of Australia’s formal and informal institutions to re-scale the governance of Australia’s natural resources and heritage. Intellectual frameworks from planning, geography, sociology, public policy and economics have been used to critically examine if and how attempts to re-fashion governance at regional scales provides the means of reinvigorating democracy, improving the fidelity and efficacy of government, and achieving diverse and complex environmental policy goals. This scholarship reflects a growing international trend towards the decentralisation of significant resources and decision-making responsibilities to local groups (Durrant et al. 2004; Lane et al. 2004). In Australia this has largely involved the re-scaling of governance to a local, and more recently sub-national ‘regional’ scale. Regional natural resource planning has emerged amidst a growing support for the evidence and responsibility for NRM governance to be strengthened and broadened. While local ‘hot spots’ of strong NRM activity had been built around strong rural landholder networks through the ‘decade of Landcare’, regional natural resource planning responded to a growing national concern that local approaches to NRM governance only achieves local and patchy results while the widespread and alarming degradation of Australian landscapes and ecosystems continues. Environmental feedbacks in huge bioregions 243

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such as the Murray–Darling Basin and Great Barrier Reef that show serious signs of long-term and serious decline have added to the urgency for governance approaches to be both strategic and adaptive. New NRM regions, mapped across the continent reflect an uneven pattern and politics of decentralisation (Chapter 3, this volume). This has created regional geographies that ‘have’ or ‘have not’ the necessary institutional capacity and networks needed to support and deliver sustainable NRM programs (Chapters 5, 8, 12, this volume). As the research presented in this book shows, the rescaling of governance offers no panacea to the ‘wicked problem’ of a complex environmental system and policy environment. Critical assessments of the institutional capacity of regional groups to govern suggest that in many regions this capacity is variable and in some cases limited. This points to the need for central governments to play an ongoing and important enabling role (Chapters 4 and 5, this volume). On the other hand, there is also a reality that NRM policy development and implementation remain persistently uni-directional – that is ‘top-down’ – and controlled by centralised government. This presents real challenges to turn principles of cooperative NRM governance into reality in regions (Chapter 6, this volume). To tackle these issues, some authors in this book have drawn on Ostrom’s (2005) concept of ‘nested hierarchies’ to understand regional arrangements that are nested within larger management arrangements. Concepts surrounding subsidiarity and institutional capacity have been applied to explore this nesting principle to consider how to assign governance responsibilities to the design of community-based NRM (Chapters 4 and 12, this volume). Others have drawn on geographical concepts of ‘scale’ to show how regional NRM is often the complex sets of relationships, resources and opportunities that occur from opportunities, activities and interactions at other scales (e.g. Neuman 2007; Chapters 5 and 13, this volume). A fundamental tenet in all the scholarship presented in this book is the questioning of the ability of this dynamic national NRM policy to satisfy the legitimate needs of Australia’s environments and the democratic needs of Australia’s people. Australia’s evolving experiment with the rescaling of NRM governance continues to be contentious. Under Landcare, local, rural community-based networks were nurtured, based on the belief that participation at the local level brings local knowledge into the process and builds social capital needed to deliver context relevant management decisions (Chapter 10, this volume). Perspectives drawn from local residents involved in Landcare groups emphasise the loss of local trust and social capital that has resulted since the creation of regional NRM arrangements (Chapter 9, this volume). The experiences of Indigenous participation in NRM programs highlights an enduring history of systematic marginalisation to NRM funding that has not yet been resolved in the current NRM model (Chapter 11, this volume). While regionalisation has been reported to have improved some engagement practices, some stakeholders that have key NRM roles remain unengaged or disengaged (Chapter 8, this volume). The move to regionalised natural resource planning has also been encumbered with a number of difficulties facing regional bodies. This includes the tensions for these groups to remain accountable and legitimate to both government and non-government communities (Chapters 4 and 7, this volume); broker the outcomes sought be multiple agencies and interest groups (Chapter 13, this volume.); enable the effective participation of Indigenous communities in NRM programs and decision-making (Chapter 11, this volume), and respond to the variable capacity challenges facing each organisation (Chapter 12, this volume). State, regional and non-government institutions have faced heavy bureaucratic burdens to respond to program requirements. This has had a stifling influence on adaptive governance and institutional learning (Chapters 2 and 14, this volume). The new ‘Caring for our Country’ program marks the beginning of competitive regionalism whereby regional bodies and other natural resource managers will compete for available

Conclusion: the changing and contested governance of Australia’s environmental heritage

resources and the public mandate to manage. It remains to be seen whether this will enhance regionalised natural resource planing or simply create a landscape that is crowded with multiple actors whose contributions and connections are confused and conflicting. Given the state of the environment and state of environmental governance in many parts of Australia, there is dwindling social and environmental resilience for hollow or failed governance regimes to endure. Positive progress to date at local and regional NRM settings provide vital clues for future improvements that can still be made. These include: ●

●

●

●

●

●

drawing on positive aspects of regionalism (built through processes of informal networks and community identity) and regionalisation (involving the deliberate and formal process of re-scaling governance by central governments) to guide improvements in how regions are defined and governed (e.g. Chapters 3 and 6, this volume); critically assessing what institutional, organisational and governing capabilities are required to translate diverse knowledge and aspirations about natural resources and environments into conservation, sustainable resource use or rehabilitation programs that improve both local and strategic outcomes (e.g. Chapters 5 and 12, this volume); building on successful strategies of community and Indigenous engagement to ensure regional NRM decisions and policies are legitimate and appropriate (Chapters 9, 10 and 11, this volume); testing successful strategies in order to promote integrated and appropriately nested NRM policy development and implementation arrangements (Chapters 4, 5 and 15, this volume); developing frameworks of accountability that enable regional and central actors to negotiate what outcomes can (and cannot) realistically be delivered and reported against through collaborative means (Chapters 2 and 7, this volume), and creating reporting and social learning systems that can enable NRM efforts to be properly monitored and build the adaptive capacity of government and non-government institutions (Chapters 13 and 14, this volume).

Uncertainty about the evidence upon which to base NRM goals and the efficacy of actions to tackle daunting environmental problems suggests that flexible forms of governance might be needed to guide this era of regional planning adaptation and maturity. It is clear that environmental responsibility surrounding ‘care’ is no longer contained to the domain of government agencies and regulation. Government-formed groups and non-government organisations are now jostling to obtain resources and authority to represent the diversity of ‘collective’ voices heard in the way natural resources are used and managed. In each region there is now a multitude of governance technologies available to develop and implement NRM policy. Reforms to natural resource governance will need to be based on a solid understanding of how to appropriately integrate different decision-making levels and scales affecting regional NRM activities to deliver coordinated and negotiated outcomes for Australia’s unique landscapes.

Endnote 1 ‘Caring for our Country’ program reflects the recent iteration of regional NRM, see http:// www.nrm.gov.au/publications/factsheets/pubs/cfoc-general.pdf.

References Durant RF, Fiorino DJ and O’Leary R (Eds) (2004). Environmental Governance Reconsidered: Challenges, Choices and Opportunities. MIT Press, Cambridge MA.

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Lane MB, McDonald GT and Morrison T (2004). Decentralisation and environmental management in Australia: a comment on the prescriptions of the Wentworth Group. Australian Geographical Studies 42(1), 102–114. Ostrom E (2005). Governing the Commons: the Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. Neuman M (2007). Multi-scalar large institutional networks in regional planning. Planning Theory & Practice 8(2), 319–344.

Index

accountability 2, 91–104, 119 burden of 23, 78 and decentralisation 180 demands 150 and democracy 93 and dialogue 102, 209, 245 financial dependence 32 horizontal 97–100 and Indigenous stakeholders 171–2 inter-governmental 232 and local responsiveness 85 and neoliberalism 76, 79–81 nesting 44 and performance 94, 102–4, 206, 209–10, 232–4 public 76, 141 re-design of 85 vertical 32, 37, 43, 49, 76, 95–7 adaptive management 8, 20–3, 166, 215–23 and autonomy 53 Indigenous systems of 173 regional scale 62 agreements 6, 15–9, 34–6, 64, 137, 179, 181, 228, 232, 234 agriculture 5, 20, 65, 111, 130–1, 152, 232 agriculturalists 233–4 agricultural policy 2, 113, 119, 122, 164 conflicting land uses 131 degradation on agricultural lands 1, 114 Departments of 130 engagement of agricultural interests (see also landholders) 68, 111–3 regions 60, 116, 219 Australian Capital Territory 164–5, 181 Australian Government (see also agreements) 5, 34, 47–8, 78, 99, 129, 136, 152, 162, 173, 180–1, 205, 227–8 accreditation by 186–7 antagonism towards 137

bureaucrats 162 changing requirements of 133 and control 138 cooperation with states 5 and devolution 140 interests 37, 80 ministers 19 partners 19, 40 program framing 168 relations with 78 reviews 49 role in environmental policy 15, 17–8, 23, 115, 192, 232–3 support for volunteerism 129 boards (regional) 30, 60, 181 accountability of partnership boards 96, 100 autonomy 78 in Canada 179 decision-making 69 government participation on 37 and human capital 185, 228 legitimacy of 138 membership and composition 77, 81 transformation of 220 watershed boards 188 Canada 172, 179–92, 235 capacity 81–5, 140–1, 179–92 absence or loss of 38, 47, 117 adaptive capacity 45, 81, 227 capacity building 6, 70, 83, 163, 184 collective 192 community capacity 84, 119 and cooperation 82 and decentralisation 92 different aspects of 46 and funding 21, 77, 150

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(in)capacity of the public sector 20, 93 Indigenous 164, 169, 171–3 land manager and farmer capacity 120 limitations 84 of local actors 40 National Landcare Program 122 organisational 99 and participation 33, 67, 85 and performance reporting 205, 208 of regional bodies 23, 83, 130, 191 regional capacity 2 of rural industries 82 and scale 4, 46, 69, 206, 229 strategic capacity 96, 115 and subsidiarity 52–3 to undertake planning 133, 138 Caring for our Country 6, 8, 18, 43, 82, 99, 158, 162, 172, 228, 230–5, 244 catchment 5, 204, 218–23 boundaries 131, 183, 232 catchment management 18, 60 Catchment Management Authorities 5, 149, 150, 153, 180–1 coordinators 117 Integrated catchment Management 47, 48, 132 Sub-catchment groups and planning 112, 117–21 civil society 1, 3, 38, 61, 97, 129, 169–73 collaboration 17–9, 21, 38, 49, 63, 97, 99, 162–4, 167–72, 186, 204, 245 collaborative management and planning 1, 139–40, 161–3, 167–72, 202–4 and evaluation 202 Commonwealth Government (see Australian Government) conflict 16, 18, 36, 45, 62, 163, 171, 209 role conflict 68, 79 conservation (environmental) 6, 232, 236, 243 authorities and districts (Canada) 180–1, 183 biodiversity, areas and reserves 79, 162, 166–7, 170 goals 6 government agencies 64, 219 groups 23, 81, 84, 97, 169 practices, adaption of 43, 50

soil 131–2 values 34 corporate 20, 117, 170–1, 230 decentralisation 1, 4–5, 29–32, 39–40, 48–9, 60, 69, 76–7, 79, 137–8, 179–80, 191–2, 203, 233 deliberation 19, 29, 52, 54, 70, 82, 91, 94, 101–2, 112, 114, 118, 121–2, 162–3, 168, 203, 209 democracy 3, 93, 95, 97–104, 114, 162–3, 180, 203, 229–30, 243 devolution 4, 30, 75–6, 85, 93, 99, 140, 180, 202, 209 engagement 3, 36, 49, 62, 67–70, 83–5, 111–22, 129–41, 151 Indigenous engagement 163–4, 168–9, 221, 231 evaluation 21, 32, 94, 96, 102, 201–11, 216–7, 222, 233–4 Federal Government (see Australian Government) federalism 17–8, 48, 229, 233 funding 5–6, 17, 21, 36, 47, 79–80, 99, 113, 121, 132, 151–2, 155–6, 164–5, 169–73, 189, 191, 216, 230–1 governmentality 76, 79, 84–5 hybrid(ity)

95, 97–8, 103, 229

implementation 47, 84 and accountability 102 and adaptive management 215–7 farming practices 113 lack of 134 local and sub-regional groups 130, 139 partners 98 of plans 77, 98, 133, 137, 188 policy implementation 2–4, 16, 40, 59, 91, 137, 232–4 of projects 77, 154–5 and rationality 203 and science 220 Indigenous 38, 161–73, 186, 207, 245 liaison officers 117 participation of 3, 6, 62, 81, 135, 231

Index

values 34, 70 institutions 232–5 capacity or capital 139, 185, 190, 206 definitions of 63 diagnostics and criteria 51, 64, 201 fragmentation and complexity 59, 70, 112, 216 innovation 43 institutional communication 139 integration 59–60, 63, 229 learning 94 principles 20 reform 91, 186, 228 Integrated Catchment Management 5, 47, 132, 219 integration 59–65, 67–70, 229 evaluation and reporting 202, 208 institutional (see institutions) of knowledge 120, 207 Landcare 5, 69, 118, 111–22, 137, 140, 147–58, 163, 204, 218–21, 232 Landcare Council, Northern Territory 35 National Landcare Program 18, 47, 111 landholders 35, 111–22, 147, 153, 219, 221 compliance 99 engagement of 111–22 motivation of 43–4, 207–8 peri-urban conflicts 118 and reflexivity 115 legitimacy 81, 102, 122, 133, 208, 228, 229–30 democratic 16 local 45 problems of 69, 78 state 84–5 local government 19, 22, 38, 64–5, 68–9, 118, 131, 137, 183, 229–30 localism 232 markets 15, 20, 99, 116 market-based instruments and trading 4, 20, 84, 172, 227 market-based regulation 4, 48, 75, 79 metropolitan 65, 67 monitoring 21, 96–7, 102, 153, 166, 201, 207–8, 234

National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality 5, 34, 36, 40, 181, 229, 231 funding sources 191, 205–6 origins and goals 6, 48, 61, 129 neo-colonialism 169–70 neo-liberalism 4, 32, 61, 75–86, 233 nesting 43–7, 51–3 networks 15, 36, 67, 69–70, 86, 97, 120, 139–40, 155, 163, 173, 185, 190, 221, 244 New South Wales 6, 60, 76, 181, 188, 220 Northern Territory 6, 29, 35–6, 38–9, 173, 181–2 participation (see also engagement) 3, 81, 153 and accountability 104 benefits of 121, 244 centrally-sponsored 19 citizen 31, 95 civic 16 commitment to 222 and deliberation 70 genuine 83–5 indigenous 172 and legitimacy 69 motives for 47, 158 and power 203 time demands and burnout 101, 135 plans (regional) 6, 50, 77–9, 98, 121, 139, 151, 164, 186–7, 191, 205, 215, 230 power 2, 18–9, 59, 64, 69, 75–6, 80, 103, 114, 216 asymmetries 161, 168, 186 decision-making 39, 130, 151 and devolution (see devolution) Empowerment Theory 156 political 40, 49 sharing 4, 39 transformative 168 of veto 100 Queensland 6, 34–5, 37–9, 60, 81, 111–21, 166, 181, 201–10 reflexive learning 114, 118, 120–1 reflexivity 62, 112, 115–6 regionalisation 4, 5, 29–32, 34–40, 59–61, 67, 69–70, 77, 79, 203, 227, 229 and engagement 121–2

249

250

Contested Country

regionalism 2, 4, 31–2, 59–60, 227, 235, 244–5 regulation 19, 203 re-regulation 116 retreat from 4, 75–6 shift in 94, 99, 129, 230 by stealth 51 representation 36, 52–3, 82, 117, 131–2, 138, 168 responsibility (see also devolution) 32, 46, 52–3, 62, 78–9, 81–2, 93, 130, 163, 172, 229 robustness 20, 44–5, 227–8, 232–4 scale 1–2, 4–6, 69 multi-scalar 59, 202 subsidiary scales 138 (see also nesting; decentralisation) social capital 82, 119, 147, 154–8, 185–8, 244 South Australia 6, 59, 64–70, 130, 149, 181, 186, 188 state-craft 61 State Government (see also agreements; federalism) 5–6 coordination with regional bodies 204 debates within 18 divestment by 83 downsizing 83 facilitation by 37 in-kind support 36, 129, 133, 191 intent of 77 interests 189

intergovernmental cooperation with 6 interpretations of federal policy 39 involvement of agency representatives 137–40, 164 legislation 6, 19, 21, 64–5, 163, 229 NRM Council 68 as partners 48 policy advice 130 reporting arrangements 181, 207 responsibility, statutory 130, 181 shift in policy 77 side stepping of 19 State Assessment Panels 47, 135, 163 views of 38, 133, 206 strategic 2, 5–6, 16, 29, 37–8, 64, 70, 81–2, 96, 115, 133, 140, 154, 173, 192 (see also plans) sub-region 36, 39, 48, 50–3, 68–9, 132, 138–9 subsidiarity 43, 46–7, 52–3, 77, 85, 137–8, 180, 232, 244 targets 6, 23, 79, 80, 96–7, 99, 100–3, 135–7, 151, 168, 204–7, 210, 220, 230–1 Tasmania 6, 76, 78, 83–4, 148–55, 181, 188 Victoria 6, 50, 60, 76, 78–83, 94, 130, 148–50, 153, 155, 181, 188–9, 215 volunteerism 111, 119–20, 135, 138–9, 148, 150, 152, 155, 171, 181, 186, 189, 229–31 Western Australia 6, 29, 36–7, 50, 81, 130–41, 149, 181, 185, 191