Mick Hillman

A critical review of catchment-scale stream rehabilitation programmes

The development of catchment-scale stream rehabilitation programmes in many parts of the world marks a shift from the application of reach-based engineering principles towards an adoption of ecosystem-centred, adaptive and participatory approaches to river management. From a biophysical viewpoint, this represents recognition of the importance of the inherent geodiversity of aquatic ecosystems and the benefits that are gained through enhancing natural recovery mechanisms. As this approach to river management matures, it is important that its key elements and assumptions are subjected to critical appraisal. In this paper, the main features of contemporary catchment-wide programmes are examined through a review of pertinent literature and through examination of various case studies from North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Emerging challenges and tensions include those of generating an authentic and functional biophysical vision at the catchment scale, of developing a proactive adaptive management approach, of achieving genuine community participation and of integrating biophysical and social factors in a transdisciplinary framework. Issues of scale, natural variability and complexity must be addressed in meeting these challenges.

Information Needs for Environmental-Flow Allocation: A Case Study from the Lachlan River, New South Wales, Australia

There is growing recognition at the global scale of the need to reverse, or at least mitigate, the damaging impacts of river regulation and overextraction of water. In New South Wales, the introduction of environmental flows, consolidated in the Water Management Act 2000, is taking place in the context of changing institutional structures, in particular the growth of adaptive management, integrated ecosystem-based perspectives, and increased community participation in the decision-making process. These developments presuppose that the information needs of river managers are understood. This article provides a classification of information needs for decision-making on environmental-flow allocations in New South Wales and then applies this classification to a case study of information use by a river-management committee on the Lachlan River. The discussion argues for the development of “adaptive information” to meet the challenge of integrating differing forms of information in striving to address the new demands of adaptive management.

The Importance of Process in Ecosystem Management: Lessons from the Lachlan Catchment, New South Wales, Australia

Effective river management requires integration of biophysical and human dimensions of the ecosystem, which in turn involves the development of new forms of decision-making processes and institutional frameworks. In New South Wales, institutional changes to river management have been formalized in the Water Management Act 2000. This paper presents the findings of a case study that investigated decision-making processes in the establishment of environmental flow regimes for the Lachlan River in western New South Wales. The study was based on document analysis, observation and interviews with members and support staff of a stakeholder-based river management committee. The findings of the study highlight social capital, adaptive management and consensus decision making as key components in establishing environmental flow regimes as part of a participatory approach to river management.

Knowing Your Place: an Australasian perspective on catchment-framed approaches to river repair

Abstract Australia and New Zealand have been at the forefront of many advances in river management through policy and legislative initiatives and the introduction of participatory frameworks. In part this leadership role is a response to the pervasive extent and impact of post-colonial societies on Australasian environments. Core geographical concepts have contributed significantly to the increased recognition of a ‘sense of place’ in management practice. Grounded and authentic applications recognise explicitly the complexity of interactions across an array of biophysical and social scales. The contribution of geography to river management is particularly significant in the implementation of catchment-framed programmes, the development of generic scientific tools that can be used on a catchment-by-catchment basis, and the application of adaptive management principles that are operationalised within participatory frameworks. Failing to acknowledge geographical concepts can lead to a placeless universalism in river management that is unsustainable and unacceptable in biophysical and social terms.

Institutional change in natural resource management in New South Wales, Australia: Sustaining capacity and justice

Abstract Periods of institutional change are crucial to developing a capacity for just and participatory natural resource management. Whilst the need for such change is often widely recognised, shifting to a new regime is typically uncertain, tentative and uneven. Transitions between regimes are crucial periods when institutional foundations for justice or injustice can be laid for decades. Transitions need to address both formal institutional structures and the informal values, networks and resources that underpin these structures. New South Wales, Australia, has recently undergone a period of major reform in natural resource management, involving substantial institutional and legislative changes. This period of reform illustrates transitional issues of rescaling and changes to decision-making structures. Increased attention to these issues during institutional reform and to the process of transition itself is essential to developing sustainable forms of environmental governance.

Legislating nature for biodiversity offsets in New South Wales, Australia

In the contemporary environmental management landscape, legislation is a principal means through which sustainable outcomes are negotiated. Yet the relations between legislation (as a social practice), nature and justice have been subjected to limited scrutiny. This paper explores these relations through consideration of a system of biodiversity offsets currently being implemented in New South Wales, Australia, following the enactment of the Threatened Species Conservation Amendment (Biodiversity Banking) Act 2006 (NSW). In this paper we investigate the work this legislation does in enacting the materiality of nature in order to explore the interrelations of materiality, law and concerns for environmental and ecological justice. We argue that the act of ‘legislating nature’ is simultaneously a ‘mode of matter-ing’ (Law 2004) that in the case of biodiversity banking (BioBanking), resituates biodiversity within new meanings, spatialities, human–nature relations, and which accounts for biodiversity at a state, rather than local, scale. Utilising the work of Latour, we examine the processes of ‘translation’ required to generate abstracted ‘biodiversity values’ that can be traded and moved between locations. Examination of these processes leads to a consideration of the broad requirements of environmental and ecological justice as a theoretical and political response to BioBanking.