Contested Country: Local and Regional Natural Resources Management in Australia

✍ Scribed by Marcus Lane, Cathy Robinson, Bruce Taylor

• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 265
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

In Contested Country, leading researchers in planning, geography, environmental studies and public policy critically review Australia's environmental management under the auspices of the Natural Heritage Trust over the past decade, and identify the challenges that must be met in the national quest for sustainability. It is the first comprehensive, critical examination of the local and regional natural resources management undertaken in Australia, using research sourced from all states as well as the Northern Territory. It addresses questions such as: •How is accountability to be maintained? •Who is included and who is excluded in decentralized environmental governance? •Does the scale of bottom-up management efforts match the scale of environmental problems? •How is scientific and technical fidelity in environmental management to be maintained when significant activities are devolved to and controlled by local communities?The book challenges some of the accepted benefits, assumptions and ideologies underpinning regional scaled environmental management, and is a must-read for anyone interested in this field. Features:•The first comprehensive, critical examination of the local and regional natural resources management undertaken in Australia •Brings together in a purposive, integrated volume, the leading researchers and thinkers in the field •Geographic coverage: the research covered in the volume is sourced from all states and the Northern Territory •Links the Australian experience with local and regional natural resource management to deeper and more powerful theories and concepts

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 6
List of contributors......Page 10
1 Introduction: contested country – regional naturalresource management in Australia......Page 12
Part 1 Policy, promises and practices ofregional resource managementand governance......Page 24
2 From government to governance: explaining andassessing new approaches to NRM......Page 26
3 Invest, divest or empower: interpretations andpractices of regionalisation in Australia’s savannas......Page 40
4 Can community-based NRM work at the scale of largeregions? Exploring the roles of nesting and subsidiarity......Page 54
5 Will Regionalisation achieve integrated Natural ResourceManagement? Insights from recent South Australianexperience......Page 70
6 Interrogating devolved natural resource management:challenges for good governance......Page 86
7 Accounting for performance: public environmentalgovernance in the shadow of the future......Page 102
Part 2 Community engagement, localparticipation and regional capacity......Page 120
8 Seeing Engagement Practitioners as DeliberativeHinges to improve Landholder Engagement......Page 122
9 Community engagement in natural resourcemanagement: experiences from the Natural HeritageTrust Phase 2......Page 140
10 Landcare bowling alone: finding a future in the‘fourth’ phase......Page 158
11 Indigenous natural resource management: overcomingmarginalisation produced in Australia’s currentNRM model......Page 172
12 Decentralised governance for natural resourcemanagement: capacity challenges in Australiaand Canada......Page 190
Part 3 Learning and adapting fromregional and national experiences......Page 210
13 On a learning journey to nowhere? The practice andpolitics of evaluating outcomes of natural resourcemanagement in northern Queensland regions......Page 212
14 Reviewing adaptive management through awicked lens......Page 226
15 Lessons from the Australian experiment 2002–08:the road ahead for regional governance......Page 238
Part 4 Conclusion......Page 252
16 The changing and contested governanceof Australia’s environmental heritage......Page 254
Index......Page 258