Allan Dale

JavaAHP: a web-based decision analysis tool for natural resource and environmental management

Natural resource and environmental management invariably involves multiple issues, multiple criteria and multiple stakeholders. A large amount of social, economic and environmental information needs to be linked to government policies, stakeholder values, public opinions and management goals. A systematic approach to decision analysis involved in natural resource and environmental management is required to improve the quality of the decision and justify the actions to be taken. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) provides a methodology for multi-criteria analysis and decision making. It allows critical examination of the underlying assumptions, consistency of the judgements, and facilitates the incorporation of qualitative and subjective considerations into quantitative factors for decision making. JavaAHP is a software tool, which implements the AHP. It uses the AHP methodology to model an environmental problem, evaluate relative desirability of alternatives, and organise the information and judgements used in decision making. JavaAHP is deployed on the World Wide Web (WWW) and can be accessed globally. It takes advantages of the WWW with wide availability, Web resource integration and cross-platform capabilities. This paper introduces the major features of JavaAHP and its potential applications in natural resource and environmental management.

Strategic perspectives analysis: A procedure for participatory and political social impact assessment

Recent developments in planning and social impact assessment (SIA) theory have traveled parallel paths. Both fields have moved away from centralized, purportedly apolitical modes of decision making and are moving toward enhanced participation of parties affected by resource development. Some writers now view SIA and planning as essentially sociopolitical processes that should facilitate bargaining and negotiation among interest groups within the constraints of the law and government administration. Strategic perspectives analysis has been designed as a flexible procedure that can be used to conduct both participatory and political applications of SIA. In a progression from position analysis techniques, the method uses strategic planning principles to elicit the vision, objectives, and strategies of each party. It then facilitates the articulation of their interests with the planning process through more effective bargaining and negotiation.

When trends intersect: The challenge of protecting freshwater ecosystems under multiple land use and hydrological intensification scenarios

Intensification of the use of natural resources is a world-wide trend driven by the increasing demand for water, food, fibre, minerals and energy. These demands are the result of a rising world population, increasing wealth and greater global focus on economic growth. Land use intensification, together with climate change, is also driving intensification of the global hydrological cycle. Both processes will have major socio-economic and ecological implications for global water availability. In this paper we focus on the implications of land use intensification for the conservation and management of freshwater ecosystems using Australia as an example. We consider this in the light of intensification of the hydrologic cycle due to climate change, and associated hydrological scenarios that include the occurrence of more intense hydrological events (extreme storms, larger floods and longer droughts). We highlight the importance of managing water quality, the value of providing environmental flows within a watershed framework and the critical role that innovative science and adaptive management must play in developing proactive and robust responses to intensification. We also suggest research priorities to support improved systemic governance, including adaptation planning and management to maximise freshwater biodiversity outcomes while supporting the socio-economic objectives driving land use intensification. Further research priorities include: i) determining the relative contributions of surface water and groundwater in supporting freshwater ecosystems; ii) identifying and protecting freshwater biodiversity hotspots and refugia; iii) improving our capacity to model hydro-ecological relationships and predict ecological outcomes from land use intensification and climate change; iv) developing an understanding of long term ecosystem behaviour; and v) exploring systemic approaches to enhancing governance systems, including planning and management systems affecting freshwater outcomes. A major policy challenge will be the integration of land and water management, which increasingly are being considered within different policy frameworks.

Integrating knowledge to inform water quality planning in the Tully–Murray basin, Australia

Decentralised approaches to water governance have emerged as a common approach to tackle complex environmental management issues in Australia and elsewhere. While decentralisation offers hope for a more holistic, integrated and effective approach to environmental planning decisions and solutions, challenges remain to put these ideals into practice. The present paper focuses on a key component of this approach to environmental planning and decision-making – the integration of different types of knowledge used to inform planning goals and the design of water quality management programs. The analysis draws on knowledge integration issues surrounding the water quality improvement plan in the Tully–Murray basin in north-eastern Australia. Here, government and non-government stakeholders are coordinating efforts to assess water quality condition and set management priorities for improving the quality of water entering the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage coastal lagoon. Our analysis of the kinds of knowledge and mechanisms of translation involved highlights three main points. First, the tensions between the uncertainty and bias in different types of knowledge brought to the planning table. Second, the timing of knowledge contributions that affects if and how knowledge contributions can be debated and integrated. Finally, the challenges faced by local collaborative groups to broker the translation and integration of knowledge needed to inform strategic environmental decisions and programs.

Adaptive community-based biodiversity conservation in Australia's tropical rainforests

In the globally significant Australian tropical rainforests, poor performance of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) approaches mandated by national policy highlights the importance of the global search for better models. This paper reports on co-research to develop, apply and test the transferability and effectiveness of a new model and tools for CBNRM in biodiversity conservation. Adaptive co-management, designed with specific communities and natural resources, recognized as linked multi-scalar phenomena, is the new face of CBNRM. New tools used to achieve adaptive co-management include a collaborative focal species approach focused on the iconic southern cassowary, scenario analysis, science brokering partnerships, a collaborative habitat investment atlas and institutional brokering. An intermediate-complexity analytical framework was used to test the robustness of these tools and therefore likely transferability. The tools meet multiple relevant standards across three dimensions, namely empowering institutions and individuals, ongoing systematic scientific assessment and securing effective on-ground action. Evaluation of effectiveness using a performance criteria framework identified achievement of many social and environmental outcomes. Effective CBNRM requires multi-scale multi-actor collaborative design, not simply devolution to local-scale governance. Bridging/boundary organizations are important to facilitate the process. Further research into collaborative design of CBNRM structures, functions, tools and processes for biodiversity conservation is recommended.

Landscape approaches; what are the pre-conditions for success?

Landscape approaches are widely applied in attempts to reconcile tradeoffs amongst different actors with conflicting demands on land and water resources. Key principles for landscape approaches have been endorsed by inter-governmental processes dealing with climate change mitigation and adaptation and biodiversity conservation.We review experiences from seven landscapes located in the Congo Basin, Eastern Indonesia and Northern Australia. Landscape initiatives were applied in situations where large-scale extractive industries, local peoples’ livelihoods and global biodiversity objectives were in conflict. We found that common published principles for landscape approaches are not applied systematically in the areas studied. Practitioners draw upon landscape approach principles selectively and adapt them to deal with local conditions. We consider that landscape approaches do not provide silver bullet solutions to these situations nor do they provide an operational framework for large-scale land management. Landscape approaches do, however, provide an organising framework for disentangling the complexity of the landscape and facilitating the investigation of impacts of different courses of action. They enable alternative scenarios for what future landscapes might look like to be investigated and they create the space for multi-stakeholder negotiations. Outcomes from landscape scale approaches are determined by the power differentials amongst stakeholders and the existence, or otherwise, of functional institutions to take decisions and enforce agreements. Landscape approaches cannot overcome disparities in power or entrenched interests nor can they substitute for institutions with authority to establish and legitimise property and resource rights. They can, however, provide a mechanism around which civil society can be mobilised to achieve better land use outcomes. Landscape approaches are successful when they have strong leadership, sustained long-term and facilitated processes, good governance, adequate budgets and adequate metrics for assessing progress. Private sector engagement is necessary and all parties must have sufficient shared interest in outcomes to motivate their participation.

A method for risk analysis across governance systems: a Great Barrier Reef case study

Healthy governance systems are key to delivering sound environmental management outcomes from global to local scales. There are, however, surprisingly few risk assessment methods that can pinpoint those domains and sub-domains within governance systems that are most likely to influence good environmental outcomes at any particular scale, or those if absent or dysfunctional, most likely to prevent effective environmental management. This paper proposes a new risk assessment method for analysing governance systems. This method is then tested through its preliminary application to a significant real-world context: governance as it relates to the health of Australias Great Barrier Reef (GBR). The GBR exists at a supra-regional scale along most of the north eastern coast of Australia. Brodie et al (2012 Mar. Pollut. Bull. 65 81-100) have recently reviewed the state and trend of the health of the GBR, finding that overall trends remain of significant concern. At the same time, official international concern over the governance of the reef has recently been signalled globally by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). These environmental and political contexts make the GBR an ideal candidate for use in testing and reviewing the application of improved tools for governance risk assessment.

Web-based decision support for regional vegetation management

Native vegetation cover plays a crucial role in conserving biodiversity, sustaining ecosystem functions and processes, and maintaining the productive capacity of land. Sustainable native vegetation management requires awareness among land managers and the wider community of the value and role of remnants of native vegetation, the major issues in their management and best-practice management arrangements. The emergence and widespread use of the World Wide Web presents an opportunity to raise awareness, improve information access, enhance detailed knowledge and build the commitment of land managers and the wider community for sustainable native vegetation management. This paper presents a prototype Web-based information system, VegMan, for regional vegetation management in the Central Highlands region of Queensland, Australia. The system provides access to facts, policies, strategies and decision support tools relevant to vegetation management in the region. The resources and services provided by VegMan and the techniques used for its implementation are described. The potential of a Web-based information system for regional vegetation management and challenges for its development are discussed.

Sacred land, mineral wealth, and biodiversity at Coronation Hill, Northern Australia: indigenous knowledge and SIA

This paper is concerned with the role of social impact assessment (SIA) in the resolution of an environmental conflict involving demands for the conservation of an ecologically significant area, a proposal to exploit mineral wealth, and the concerns of indigenous custodians who feared damage to sacred lands. This is a case in which the knowledge claims of key protagonists were deeply politicized and contested, and in which the process of decision-making was itself the subject of controversy and debate. The paper reviews the case, emphasizing the roles of western and indigenous epistemologies in decision- making. It presents an approach to SIA that addresses these epistemological issues and ensures the articulation of indigenous knowledge to governmental decision-makers.

SOCIAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT IN QUEENSLAND: WHY PRACTICE LAGS BEHIND LEGISLATIVE OPPORTUNITY

Queensland (a mainland Australian state) has over 3.2 million people, predominantly urban dwellers in fast growing coastal towns and cities. It is an expansive state; ependent on large-scale resource and tourism development. Many of its rural and remote communities are in decline (Synapse 1994). Indigenous minorities have traditional and historical interests in land and resource use issues across the state. Queenslands impact assessment (IA) system is well advanced by world standards (see Sadler 1996). The system operates under various pieces of legislation that provide reasonable opportunities to ensure that the social impacts of development are considered in state and local government decisions.