Jacqueline Williams

SUCCESS ATTRIBUTES OF REGIONAL NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

The complexity of natural resource management (NRM), which is socially an evolving ‘discipline of disciplines’, creates challenges for society. With the continual degradation of the natural resource base it can be hypothesised that the past and present approaches to NRM in Australia have failed. NRM is recognised in the 21st century as having assumed importance as a development strategy because of the claims that it can contribute towards sustainable livelihoods; thus NRM has two facets: the natural resource base and the institutional arrangements required to maintain this base. Australia is presently going through a transformation with the evolution of a regional NRM systems approach. This paper reports a hypothesised model of a sustainable regional NRM system for Australia.

Next Generation Rural Natural Resource Governance: A Careful Diagnosis

Achieving “sustainable development” requires the exploitation without diminution of financial capital, manufactured capital, intellectual capital, human capital, social and relationship capital, and (particularly) natural capital. This requires effective natural resource governance, to guide human uses of the earth into sustainable patterns. Agriculture and rural communities are central to sustainable development because among other reasons: agricultural activities typically require natural environments; agriculture is resource dependent and fundamental to society; and rural people are frequently relatively poor. Good rural natural resource governance is thus a prerequisite for sustainable development.

Lost in translation : threatened species law in Australia

This chapter will explore the current trends in biodiversity in Australia, the mining boom underway and the evolution of environmental law in Australia since the ‘Rio Declaration on Environment and Development’ (commonly known as the Rio Declaration). The discussion will use a case study focusing on threatened species legislation as the lens to explore the issues. It will concentrate on an IUCN red listed endangered species, the Giant Barred Frog (Mixophyes iterates) whose habitat is potentially threatened by mining activities in the state of NSW, Australia. Institutional issues surrounding the protection of threatened species and their habitats will be examined by comparing legal intent and actual practice. The chapter concludes that the intent of species protection law is currently ‘lost in translation’. New policy initiatives currently underway in Australia will be critiqued and recommendations proposed for law and governance reforms required to adequately protect threatened species.

Water governance: a policy risk perspective

Contemporary management science embraces the analysis and management of risk of strategic or operational failure within the mainstream. Indeed, a failure to do so will, in most circumstances, be considered a failure of governance that may well be legally actionable. However, even in the face of powerful evidence that policy failure (fully or to some degree) is a normal element of water and other natural resource governance, public policy fails to contemplate and manage for this high probability contingency. Drawing on engaged and applied research conducted as part of the CRC Irrigation Futures institutional research program, meta-analysis commissioned by the Murray Darling Basin Authority, an international colloquium on water and conflict, and reviews of legal arrangements for water management, this paper considers the forms of risk of water policy failure, and mechanisms that might be effective in bringing water governance in line with at least the most basic standards of management and governance that apply in the private sphere.

Effective Law for Rural Environmental Governance: Meta‑Governance Reform and Farm Stewardship

Protection of biodiversity is principally concerned with the governance of rural lands and surface waters. This is because intact biodiversity is most likely to be found in rural areas that have not been converted to industry or urbanisation. But Australias biodiversity performance is not heartening, despite the existence of many legal and other instruments and programs. Threatened species in particular have suffered, with 50 animal species and 48 plant species listed as extinct since the passage of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). Public funding for biodiversity protection is also insufficient and under threat, while the complexity of the biodiversity challenge is increasing.

Developing Law and Governance Strategies for Peri-urban Sustainability

Western Sydney is a peri-urban region of Greater Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia lying within the Hawkesbury Nepean catchment. This catchment has high environmental, cultural and social significance providing vital ecosystem services such as drinking water, food, fibre, nutrient and water cycling, fauna habitat and cultural diversity. The economic value generated from these services includes

Ecosystem services: a means to diffuse political land use decisions in peri-urban regions.

1 billion per annum in agriculture and over

Defending the social licence of farming: issues, challenges and new directions for agriculture.

6 million a year in commercial fishing. Western Sydney continues to experience ongoing environmental degradation and water shortages as a result of urban development, population demand and climate change. Land use conflicts, climate change predictions and competition for scarce water resources has placed water and food security as high priority issues, as in many other peri-urban regions across the globe. New law and governance strategies are required for peri-urban regions to harmonise the co-existence of agriculture, urban and other land uses. This paper presents a range of methods developed via a case study in Western Sydney (from 2007 to 2010) to facilitate new law and governance strategies for better legal and institutional protection of peri-urban food security and sustainable production.

Defending the Social Licence of Farming

Research undertaken to advance sustainable land-use in peri-urban Australia has identified the need for greater innovation in natural resource management (NRM). This requires moving from an overly regulation-dependent resource management system to an environmental market system. Under current arrangements, continued resource depletion and degradation; institutional barriers to innovative solutions, and high transaction costs in affecting change are all evident. An environmental markets policy approach would shift emphasis to a market economy and facilitate commercial innovation in the use and conservation of resources. This requires first that the environmental goods and services (or commodities) be clearly identified; and second a market structure to enable trade. Martin et al (Concepts for private sector funded conservation using tax effective instruments Land and Water Australia, Canberra 2007) have proposed a business model for natural resource markets using a multi-attribute, low transaction cost environmental market structure. However to develop such a model requires a consistent methodology and classification system to identify ecosystem services as viable commodities, for ‘marketizing’ these multiple values. A conceptual framework for identifying and valuing ecosystem services is presented using Western Sydney as a case study. The paper also argues that a science informed rather than a science led process may be a more realistic ambition for natural resource management in peri-urban Australia.