Land managers – implementing programs or  a journey of discovery?
(posted 27 July 2004)

The Australian rural community is struggling with what seems an ever growing list of natural resource management challenges – increasing salinity, strangled rivers, depleted groundwater, diminishing biodiversity, soil loss and degradation, and disappearing vegetation.

In response, a raft of Federal and State Government legislation has been enacted in the last decade and an array of policies and programs implemented to improve the way we manage our landscapes. Many of these regulations, policies and programs are single issue focused and seek to achieve an outcome that is prescribed by people other than the land manager. 

It is arguable that these interventions do not sufficiently take account of the human dimension and how we come to accept and implement change.  Further, it is arguable that they do not have a sound ecological foundation in that they do not reflect the interactive nature of the elements of and the complexity of ecosystems.

A different, and potentially more effective, way of achieving improved natural resource management is to view Australian farmers and other land managers as  being on a journey of discovery; a journey to discover how better to live in Australian landscapes. For this they need to develop and apply adaptive management techniques so they learn on the way. They truly are knowledge workers acting on behalf of all Australians, for the present and future generations. 

Adapting the words of Mandy Sayer, University of NSW 2002 Literary Fellow, they will need the rewarding experiences, the surprises, and the discoveries that can only come from a focus on the process. According to Sayer, it is our preoccupation with outcomes and universal prescriptions that interfere with the journey. 

The challenge for policymakers and agencies involved with those who manage our land and water resources is to acknowledge the value of the “rewarding experiences, the surprises and the discoveries” and incorporate the ethic of capacity building and creativity in their policies and programs.

Tony Gleeson
Chair, Cooperative Venture for Capacity Building for Innovation in Rural Industries