Catherine J. Robinson

A typology of Indigenous engagement in Australian environmental management: implications for knowledge integration and social-ecological system sustainability

Indigenous peoples now engage with many decentralized approaches to environmental management that offer opportunities for integration of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge (IEK) and western science to promote cultural diversity in the management of social-ecological system sustainability. Nevertheless, processes of combining IEK with western science are diverse and affected by numerous factors, including the adaptive co-management context, the intrinsic characteristics of the natural resources, and the governance systems. We present a typology of Indigenous engagement in environmental management, derived through comparative analysis of 21 Australian case studies, and consider its implications for the integration of IEK with western science. Sociological and rational choice institutionalism underpin our analytical framework, which differentiates on three axes: (1) power sharing, incorporating decision making, rules definition, resource values and property rights; (2) participation, incorporating participatory processes, organizations engaged, and coordination approaches; (3) intercultural purpose, incorporating purposes of environmental management, Indigenous engagement, Indigenous development and capacity building. Our typology groups engagement into four types: Indigenous governed collaborations; Indigenous-driven co-governance; agency-driven co-governance; and agency governance. From our analysis of manifestations of knowledge integration across the types, we argue that Indigenous governance and Indigenous-driven co-governance provides better prospects for integration of IEK and western science for sustainability of social-ecological systems. Supporting Indigenous governance without, or with only a limited requirement for power sharing with other agencies sustains the distinct Indigenous cultural purposes underpinning IEK, and benefits knowledge integration. We conclude by advocating that the typology be applied to test its general effectiveness in guiding practitioners and researchers to develop robust governance for Indigenous knowledge integration in environmental management.

Boundary work: engaging knowledge systems in co-management of feral animals on Indigenous lands

The integration and use of Indigenous knowledge to inform contemporary environmental policy decisions and management solutions is a growing global phenomenon. However, there is little critical inquiry about how the interactions between scientific and Indigenous knowledge (IK) systems can be effectively negotiated for the joint management of social- ecological systems. Such issues are urgent on Indigenous lands where co-management efforts respond to pressing conservation agendas and where the contribution of scientific knowledge and IK is required to better understand and manage complex social- ecological systems. We draw on the notion of boundary work to examine how interaction at the boundaries of scientific and IK systems can be managed effectively as a contribution to co-management. The case study of feral animal co-management in Australias Kakadu National Park illuminates the work required for local co-managers to bridge the divide between scientific and IK systems and to ensure the translation of knowledge for management decisions. Attributes of effective boundary work demonstrated in this case include: meaningful participation in agenda setting and joint knowledge production to enable co- managers to translate available knowledge into joint feral animal programs, Indigenous and non-Indigenous ranger efforts to broker interactions between knowledge systems that are supported by co-governance arrangements to ensure that boundary work remains accountable, and the production of collaboratively built boundary objects (e.g., feral animal impact assessment data) that helps to coordinate local action between co-managers. This case study illustrates the contribution of boundary work to local co-manager efforts to translate across knowledge systems and across the knowledge-action divide, even when consensus is difficult to achieve.

Institutional Complexity and Environmental Management: The Challenge of Integration and the Promise of Large-scale Collaboration

Integration has become something of a byword for those concerned with environmental planning and management in Australia in recent years. Yet efforts to collaborate with non-state actors in policy development and implementation, and to co-ordinate local, state and federal government policies and activities suggest that integration can become an amorphous and often ambiguous goal. This article draws on recent collaborative and co-ordination efforts to address water quality issues in Queenslands Great Barrier Reef region to highlight some of these challenges. A preliminary assessment shows how a Reef-wide collaborative water quality partnership has risen to the challenge of integration. To date, this large-scale collaboration has focussed on co-ordinating a defensible knowledge-base to guide water quality management responses and developing an adaptive management strategy to test this knowledge through management experience and monitoring feedbacks. An initial evaluation of these efforts suggests the value of ‘scaling-up’ collaboration to facilitate integrated environmental management. There is no ‘hard-wired’ or structural solution to the problem on integration; instead, this experience shows that the development of collaborative partnerships also holds great promise. Such partnerships need to be carefully fitted to the particular management contexts in which integration is being pursued.

Adaptive management for water quality planning - from theory to practice

Adaptive management has been promoted as a structured approach to learning in response to the uncertainty associated with managing complex systems. We developed and tested a protocol to guide an adaptive approach to water quality management in north-eastern Australia. The protocol articulates a framework for documenting uncertainties and performance expectations, negotiating feedback and anticipating iterative and transformative responses to future scenarios. A Water Quality Improvement Plan developed for the Tully-Murray catchment in the Great Barrier Reef region was used to test the protocol and three benefits of its use were identified. First, developing rigorous and timely monitoring and evaluation ensures that opportunities for iterative planning are realised. Second, anticipating future endogenous or exogenous changes to the plan enables the early initiation of actions to inform transformative planning responses. Finally, the protocol exposed the need to coordinate multi-scalar responses to tackle environmental knowledge and management uncertainties and assumptions. The protocol seeks to provide a practical translation of adaptive planning theory that will enable the benefits of adaptive management to be realised on the ground.

Policy-Level Collaboratives for Environmental Management at the Regional Scale: Lessons and Challenges From Australia and the United States

Collaborative approaches to natural resource management are playing a key role in addressing complex environmental problems. Much of what is known about collaborative groups is drawn from those working on local, action-level activities. Yet there have also been collaborative groups established to address large regions and policy-level conflicts. Little is known about how policy-level collaboratives differ from the action-level efforts that dominate the literature. Based on three independent case studies and an international forum involving 17 researchers and practitioners, this article compares the findings from policy-level collaboratives established in Australia and the United States. The authors identify four distinct aspects of policy-level collaboratives, which relate to convening, organizational arrangements, science investment, and implementation strategies. We conclude by suggesting key research questions that need to be pursued to better understand how these groups can more effectively address large bioregions and significant policy problems.

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.

Social networks in arid Australia: a review of concepts and evidence

Arid systems are markedly different from non-arid systems. This distinctiveness extends to arid-social networks, by which we mean social networks which are influenced by the suite of factors driving arid and semi-arid regions. Neither the process of how aridity interacts with social structure, nor what happens as a result of this interaction, is adequately understood. This paper postulates three relative characteristics which make arid-social networks distinct: that they are tightly bound, are hierarchical in structure and, hence, prone to power abuses, and contain a relatively higher proportion of weak links, making them reactive to crisis. These ideas were modified from workshop discussions during 2006. Although they are neither tested nor presented as strong beliefs, they are based on the anecdotal observations of arid-system scientists with many years of experience. This paper does not test the ideas, but rather examines them in the context of five arid-social network case studies with the aim of hypotheses building. Our cases are networks related to pastoralism, Aboriginal outstations, the ‘Far West Coast Aboriginal Enterprise Network’ and natural resources in both the Lake-Eyre basin and the Murray–Darling catchment. Our cases highlight that (1) social networks do not have clear boundaries, and that how participants perceive their network boundaries may differ from what network data imply, (2) although network structures are important determinants of system behaviour, the role of participants as individuals is still pivotal, (3) and while in certain arid cases weak links are engaged in crisis, the exact structure of all weak links in terms of how they place participants in relation to other communities is what matters.

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.

Consensus Building or Constructive Conflict? Aboriginal Discursive Strategies to Enhance Participation in Natural Resource Management in Australia and Canada

This article analyzes the strategies used by the Girringun Aboriginal Corporation from the Wet Tropics, Australia, and the Innu Nation of Labrador, Canada, in their efforts to participate in natural resource management within their traditional lands. Comparative research highlights that both Aboriginal groups engage in strategies of consensus building and constructive conflict, matching their choice to the dynamic institutional settings that govern natural resource management in their respective territories. Both groups build consensus for more equitable participation in natural resource management institutions while engaging, when necessary, in forms of constructive conflict that will bring about more expedient institutional change needed to fully reflect the full suite of Aboriginal interests and values. The result is a mix of Aboriginal strategies that are used to instigate planning reforms on their traditional estates.

Biodiverse Planting for Carbon and Biodiversity on Indigenous Land

Carbon offset mechanisms have been established to mitigate climate change through changes in land management. Regulatory frameworks enable landowners and managers to generate saleable carbon credits on domestic and international markets. Identifying and managing the associated co-benefits and dis-benefits involved in the adoption of carbon offset projects is important for the projects to contribute to the broader goal of sustainable development and the provision of benefits to the local communities. So far it has been unclear how Indigenous communities can benefit from such initiatives. We provide a spatial analysis of the carbon and biodiversity potential of one offset method, planting biodiverse native vegetation, on Indigenous land across Australia. We discover significant potential for opportunities for Indigenous communities to achieve carbon sequestration and biodiversity goals through biodiverse plantings, largely in southern and eastern Australia, but the economic feasibility of these projects depend on carbon market assumptions. Our national scale cost-effectiveness analysis is critical to enable Indigenous communities to maximise the benefits available to them through participation in carbon offset schemes.