Jacqueline Schirmer

Community engagement and social licence to operate

Achieving ‘a social licence to operate’ is important for organisations with long time horizons, high exposure to global markets and with a wide range of interested stakeholders. Community engagement is critical to achieve a social licence to operate, but its capacity to influence social licence is not well understood. Using case studies from forestry in New Brunswick, Canada and Tasmania, Australia, this article considers what social licence is, how community engagement plays a role in achieving social licence and how an alternative conceptualisation of social licence may improve the influence of community engagement in achieving a social licence to operate. Social licence is often conceived of as a single licence granted by a ‘community’. We argue that social licence is better conceptualised as a continuum of multiple licences achieved across various levels of society. Viewed in this way, we can consider what is needed to achieve social licences at given points along that continuum, and identify the strengths and weaknesses of specific engagement techniques in achieving particular social licences.

Plantations and social conflict: exploring the differences between small-scale and large-scale plantation forestry

Commercial afforestation of agricultural land is often associated with social conflict over the perceived environmental, economic and social impacts of the plantations being established. One of the most common solutions suggested to this conflict is a shift from large-scale afforestation by companies and government agencies to small-scale afforestation by individual landholders. Small-scale afforestation by farmers is argued by many to have more positive and fewer negative impacts than large-scale afforestation by non-farmers. However, few studies have examined whether small-scale afforestation is associated with less social conflict than large-scale afforestation. This paper reports results of a recent study that compared afforestation conflicts in two regions: County Leitrim in the Republic of Ireland and the Great Southern region of Western Australia. Considerable afforestation has occurred in both regions in recent decades, and both have also experienced major shifts in the scale and ownership of the plantations being established over time. For both regions, establishment of small-scale farm forest plantations was found to be associated with considerably less social conflict than establishment of large-scale plantations by non-farmers. Some tentative explanations may be given for this pattern, based on comparisons between the two case study regions.

Exploring CCS community acceptance and public participation from a human and social capital perspective

The delay or cancellation of energy infrastructure projects, such as wind farms and nuclear power plants and more recently carbon capture and storage (CCS) because of community resistance and poor public participation processes are well known. Yet, some communities accept these projects with relative ease. The term acceptance implies passivity and as such does not necessarily reflect community approval or support. If acceptance is passive, what are the characteristics of a community in which the acceptance of CCS is achieved with relative ease; and what best-practice public participation processes are most appropriate for it? This paper attempts to answer these questions through a case study of Australias Otway Project. Qualitative research methods were used to conduct a human and social capital analysis of the Otway community. An assessment of the projects public participation process was made in light of that analysis. The study found that the community needed capacity-building to enable it to become well-informed about CCS; and to help it develop the negotiation skills necessary to have the proponent address its concerns about the project in a timely manner. An assessment of the Otway public participation process found that while it implemented the majority of best practice principles in public participation, it lacked an adherence to three: transparency, fairness and capacity. A mindfulness of all principles of best practice in public participation would have ensured a fairer and more transparent process.

Plantations and sustainable rural communities

Summary Tree plantations are often hailed as providing a wide range of economic, social and environmental benefits to rural regions. Yet in many of the regions where plantations have been established, members of rural communities and environmental groups have expressed various concerns about the effects of large-scale tree plantings. If plantations are bringing so many benefits to these regions, why is there social concern and sometimes active dispute over their establishment? This paper examines the nature of these concerns and disputes by reviewing some of the literature on social implications of plantations, and by drawing on four case studies from the south-west of Western Australia. During the past decade this region has experienced a rapid increase in plantation forestry. While some see the industry as a positive development, there are also widespread concerns about the negative effects of this change in land use. The paper also investigates recent measures adopted by plantation companies, local governments and State and federal government agencies to address and resolve concerns. It reveals that a number of these strategies provide opportunities to channel social concerns over plantations into productive processes that allow differing views to be expressed and acted upon.

Divergent stakeholder views of corporate social responsibility in the Australian forest plantation sector.

Although the Australian forest plantation industry acknowledges that there is a role for corporate social responsibility (CSR) in forest management, there is confusion as to what this constitutes in practice. This paper describes the conflicts between internal and external stakeholder views on CSR in plantation forestry. We conducted in-depth interviews with key informants across three plantation management regions in Australia: Tasmania, the Green Triangle and south-west Western Australia. We interviewed a range of stakeholders including forest company employees, local councils, Indigenous representatives, and environmental non-government organisations. CSR-related initiatives that stakeholders believed were important for plantation management included the need for community engagement, accountability towards stakeholders, and contribution to community development and well-being. Although there was wide support for these initiatives, some stakeholders were not satisfied that forest companies were actively implementing them. Due to the perception that forest companies are not committed to CSR initiatives such as community engagement, some stakeholder expectations are not being satisfied.

Integration by case, place and process: transdisciplinary research for sustainable grazing in the Lachlan River catchment, Australia

In a context of global agricultural intensification, integrating conservation and agricultural production is a major challenge. We have tackled the problem using a transdisciplinary research framework. Our work focuses on part of the upper Lachlan River catchment in southeastern Australia. The region is dominated by livestock grazing, and is part of an internationally recognised threatened ecoregion because most native woodland vegetation has been cleared. In productive areas, most remnant vegetation occurs as scattered and isolated paddock trees, which are dying from old age and not regenerating due to agricultural practices. The policy context and industry trends present additional risks for sparse trees. These declining trees provide many ecosystem services, including enhanced water infiltration, shade for livestock, aesthetic and cultural values, and habitat for native species. Our research aims to identify management options and policy settings that enable landscape-scale tree regeneration while maintaining grazing production. Our findings highlight tensions between the trajectory of tree cover in the region and stakeholder values. Under status quo management, many scattered and isolated paddock trees will be lost from farms, although most farmers would like to see them persist. Case studies on selected farms reveal management strategies that may be more sustainable in terms of tree regeneration and agricultural productivity, such as rotational grazing. In addition to these applied insights, our work provides a case study illustrating how a transdisciplinary study can be conducted efficiently by a small team. Our pragmatic approach has successfully combined targeted disciplinary activities with strategic collaborations and stakeholder engagement, all united by shared landscape, case graziers, and outreach activities.

Understanding community engagement in plantation forest management : Insights from practitioner and community narratives

Community engagement (CE) processes are an essential component of modern forest management practices. Required under law and in line with modern business paradigms, CE processes need to produce positive social as well as operational outcomes, a balance that is often complicated and idealistic. This paper identifies pathways to successful CE within operational plantation forestry management. Using narratives to explore the multiple experiences of those involved in engagement processes, the paper highlights the perspectives of both practitioners and other stakeholders. Analysing the multiple goals and interpretations of engagement encounters, approaches for improving CE practices used in plantation management and other settings are identified.

Do Australian graziers have an offset mindset about their farm trees

Worldwide, the footprint of agriculture is higher than that of any other land use, making the local decisions of millions of farmers a global force for achieving the maintenance of ecosystem services. Biodiversity offsets are increasingly used to attempt to reconcile conflicts between production and conservation. Offset policies operate on the principle of habitat substitutability, but little work has considered whether those targeted by such policies perceive nature that way. For instance, do landholders perceive trees of different arrangements, ages or species to be interchangeable? We used a large-scale landholder survey to understand how graziers manage their farm trees, and whether their beliefs are amenable to substitution. Three natural clusters were found, that: (A) liked a tidy farm but did not differentiate trees by species, age or arrangement; (B) strongly supported the need for diversity in tree cover; and, (C) preferred woodlands and connective strips to sparse trees. Those positions were consistent with their beliefs about the costs and benefits of different arrangements of trees, but were largely inconsistent with their declared tree planting and protection activities. Tree management activities were more easily explained by commodity (pro-woodland graziers (C) were most likely to be cropping) or by career stage and what that meant for time and money resources to do conservation work (contrasting A and B). Offset policies and policy incentives encouraging vegetative heterogeneity would motivate at least these first two clusters, helping to sustain a diversity of tree cover and thus ecosystem services on farms.

Factors affecting adoption of plantation forestry on farms: implications for farm forestry development in Australia

Summary Many factors influence adoption of plantation forestry as part of the farm enterprise. This paper reviews earlier work, and reports the results of a study of these factors in North East Tasmania. Before landholders are likely to adopt plantation forestry, they must be motivated to consider adoption of a new enterprise, and be able to access adequate information on farm forestry. Information commonly sought by landholders when deciding whether or not to adopt includes that on the biophysical requirements for commercial tree crops, the opportunity costs incurred, and the infrastructure available for farm forestry. Evaluation of this information is influenced by the socioeconomic status, attitudes and values of the landholder. Plantation forestry may only be adopted if all of the above factors combine in such a way that this form of farm forestry is considered the optimal utilisation of an area of land being considered by the landholder for establishment under a new agricultural enterprise. Promoting the uptake of plantation forestry on farms therefore requires development of adequate markets for the products of farm forestry, links between growers and those markets, credible information on economic returns, supportive regulatory environments and adequate information dissemination on farm forestry.

Reversing scattered tree decline on farms: implications of landholder perceptions and practice in the Lachlan catchment, New South Wales

Abstract Scattered trees are declining rapidly on Australian farms, a process that threatens landscape sustainability. Addressing this decline requires, in part, understanding how landholders perceive and manage scattered trees. We explored this via a quantitative survey of landholders in the Lachlan catchment of New South Wales. Although landholders are typically aware that scattered trees are declining more rapidly than other trees on the land they manage, they are less likely to actively encourage their regeneration compared to other trees. Landholders believe scattered trees have many private and public benefits, although they often believe their public benefits are lower than those provided by long strips or large patches of trees. Landholders who undertake mixed grazing and cropping are less likely than those who focus solely on grazing to actively encourage regeneration of scattered trees, and more likely to view them as impacting negatively on their agricultural enterprise. Reversing scattered tree decline requires programs to both increase landholder awareness of their public benefits and to address the specific land management constraints faced by different types of landholders when considering protecting and regenerating scattered trees.