6 results
9 - Getting the Message Right: Tools for Improving Biosecurity Risk Communication
- Edited by Andrew P. Robinson, University of Melbourne, Terry Walshe, Mark A. Burgman, Imperial College London, Mike Nunn
-
- Book:
- Invasive Species
- Published online:
- 03 July 2017
- Print publication:
- 08 June 2017, pp 206-228
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
14 - Sustainability
- from Part 3 - Theory
- Edited by Helena Bender, University of Melbourne
-
- Book:
- Reshaping Environments
- Published online:
- 05 February 2013
- Print publication:
- 17 July 2012, pp 305-334
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Introduction
In the classic story The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (1895) a 19th century adventurer creates a machine that can travel into the past and the future. At the start of exploring what is possible with this new creation the character is caught up in the excitement of discovery. What was the past like? What does the future hold? As the plot progresses there is an awakening to the realisation that each action that the adventurer takes, intentional or not, has implications for the future.
Sustainability is widely used as a guide to a more desirable future. It continues to increase in popularity as an ideal underpinning decision-making, but there is still no agreement on the usage of the term. In part this is because authors writing on sustainability make a choice between thinking of sustainability as a theoretical concept and thinking of it as a practice, or way of life. This chapter considers sustainability to be both of these things, and that both are important partners in understanding and acting responsibly in the world. Practice needs to be underpinned by and respond to theory. The theory is rooted in observations of and reflections about how humans want to act in relationship with the Earth’s systems, and as a theory needs to be critically revised. There is an extensive literature on how to practice sustainability, but it is harder to find accessible discussion of the theoretical concept. Thus, this chapter explores the theory and, to a small extent, the practice of sustainability as a concept that links past, present and future and offers a model to all adventurers on the planet Earth.
4 - Changing the landscape management paradigm with farmers
- from Part 1 - Cases
-
- By Ruth Beilin
- Edited by Helena Bender, University of Melbourne
-
- Book:
- Reshaping Environments
- Published online:
- 05 February 2013
- Print publication:
- 17 July 2012, pp 82-113
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Introduction
This case study describes a community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) program for conservation on private agricultural land. The farmers and government agencies in this study are associated with the Victorian Landcare program, now Landcare (LC); and in particular with the formation of Farmcare groups in the Strzelecki Ranges of Victoria, an area known historically as ‘the Heartbreak Hills’. CBNRM programs create a platform for farmers and their government support agencies to converge around changing landscape management outcomes. The program began in this cleared, highly eroded, steep hill country, located approximately two hours from the city of Melbourne, in 1992 and is ongoing. This chapter reflects on LC’s role as a CBNRM program, focusing on its ability to provide an umbrella organisation for the negotiation of ideas about sustainability in this landscape. In this way the LC program is positioned between and becomes a part of the negotiation of land management changes that are driven by the interpretation of science, technology and community local knowledge. This chapter describes how local people linked their individual property scales to a regional catchment scale, utilising ideas from systems thinking. By re-imagining their landscapes as connected to the wider landscapes around them, they came to change their management objectives. Ultimately this created different conservation and agricultural norms and values and changed their understanding of what it means to be ‘sustainable’.
What is Landcare?
Landcare in Victoria began in 1986 with an alliance between the Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) and the Victorian Department of Environment and Conservation (VDEC). These two agencies had very different programs. The VFF was focused on maximising production and markets for farmers’ products; and the Department was concerned with conservation values associated with revegetation, stream management, weed control, and increasing biodiversity associated with indigenous plant and animal species. Their decision to work together was heralded as a ‘win-win’ situation for farmers and conservationists, providing an opportunity to jointly define and implement a vision for sustainable landscapes in the state. In 1990 this model was taken up at a national level with a partnership between the National Farmers Federation (NFF) and the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) to promote Landcare nationally. LC is intended to promote local identification of important landscape management issues, to seek local solutions and to involve local communities in partnership with the responsible agencies to improve natural resource management (NRM) decision-making for sustainable landscape outcomes.
13 - Conceptualising change
- from Part 3 - Theory
-
- By Ruth Beilin
- Edited by Helena Bender, University of Melbourne
-
- Book:
- Reshaping Environments
- Published online:
- 05 February 2013
- Print publication:
- 17 July 2012, pp 277-304
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Introduction
This is the first of the theory chapters in the textbook and it covers a range of big ideas. These big ideas have featured in the case studies. Theory is strongly linked to practice, and there is a ‘chicken and egg’ dilemma in knowing whether theory precedes practice or practice creates theoretical understanding. In this book the authors emphasise the strong link between practice and theory. Therefore, this chapter describes theoretical ideas as they are used by practitioners in real-life decision-making situations.
Several assumptions underpin the chapter and the book. The most important one to begin with is to conceive of everything on Earth and in the galaxies surrounding it as part of the same system or multiple systems depending on how these are defined. In Chapters 14 and 16 on sustainability and systems, respectively, there is a discussion of what it means to be part of a system; and the authors of this text consider that systems thinking leads to interlinked ways of thinking and doing, defining and solving problems. The second assumption in this chapter is that the elements within any system, however it is defined, affect all other elements or parts of that system. This interconnectedness is complex because, as is discussed further in this book, interconnectedness may be obvious or it may be obscure. It may be immediately clear that there is an interaction between parts of the system. If a car is defined as a system, then the starting of the motor causes various mechanical parts to interact and these can be both heard and seen depending on the viewer’s vantage point. However, there are also times when the interconnectedness in a system is not so clear. In some regional areas of Australia, this has been the case where there has been a slow rise of salt across a watershed or catchment. This is accompanied by a rising water table. The salt and the water table are underground and not immediately visible to someone passing by. The gradual increase in salt in the upper surface of the soil (where it will affect plant roots) is a situation that can develop undetected and be observed only over many years (Stone 1994). The gradual salinity increase within the soil builds up until the soil is too salty to grow most crops.
8 - Burning questions
- from Part 1 - Cases
- Edited by Helena Bender, University of Melbourne
-
- Book:
- Reshaping Environments
- Published online:
- 05 February 2013
- Print publication:
- 17 July 2012, pp 187-206
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Fire history describes, as few phenomena can, the interplay between humans and landscape, which is to say it illuminates the character of each. (Pyne 1990, p. 1133)
For me fire is part of a bigger narrative about learning to live like an Australian.
(Campbell 2003, p. 245)Introduction
In this chapter the idea of what fire and bushfires (called ‘wildfires’ in other places) mean in Australian society is examined in two ways: historically, as interpreted through literature, and through a visual analysis of two Australian colonial paintings. Fire has an important place within people’s interactions and relationships with the world around them. People have always used fire to shape and manipulate the natural environment. Yet people also fear fire as it can be a source of danger. In Australia, fire is something that features very powerfully in the popular imagination because it is associated in many Australian landscapes with uncontrolled bushfires.
Interestingly, the term ‘bushfire’ has a meaning that is specific to Australian society. According to the Australian Merriam-Webster dictionary online (2011), the term ‘bushfire’ refers to ‘an uncontrolled fire in a bush area’. In turn, the term ‘bush’ refers to ‘a largely uncleared or sparsely settled area (as in Australia) usually scrub covered or forested: wilderness …’. ‘Bushfire’ therefore literally refers to a fire that starts in a non-suburban setting – on areas commonly associated with nature conservation. However, there is a conflation of meanings in the common use of the term ‘bushfire’. As more and more housing is built in the area called the ‘peri-urban’ – on the edge of cities and close to the Australian bush – more and more people are moving to live next to these nature conservation areas. Consequently, these areas cannot always be described as ‘sparsely settled’. The expansion of these more heavily settled, bush areas has increased the number of people exposed to bushfire risk. This has, in turn, increased people’s expectations that fire authorities will take measures to protect people and their properties from bushfire. Furthermore, while ‘bushfire’ is the common terminology for fire associated with treed landscapes, grass fires are also common in the Australian landscape. In the Australian idiom, the term ‘bushfire’ has therefore become a catch-all phrase. It refers to a wildfire anywhere and to fires that turn out to be deliberately lit or the result of accidental occurrences such as machinery sparks, as well as fires that come from lightning strikes or combustion associated with prolonged hot weather conditions.
Of biodiversity and boundaries: a case study of community-based natural resource management practice in the Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia
- AMANDA LO CASCIO, RUTH BEILIN
-
- Journal:
- Environmental Conservation / Volume 37 / Issue 3 / September 2010
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 16 September 2010, pp. 347-355
-
- Article
- Export citation
-
In the Cardamom Ranges (Cambodia) community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is proposed by the international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) community as a natural resource management strategy to achieve the targeted outcomes associated with the protected area (PA) management plan. Local people are expected to participate in CBNRM projects such as community forestry (CF) in order that the protected area management plan can be realized. The experiences of the local people are juxtaposed against the aims of these local biodiversity projects. Overall, it is accepted by the NGOs and government agencies that communities need to be involved in the design and management of the PA and that the protection of biodiversity resources can only occur with the provision of alternatives for local livelihood options to decrease land clearing for agriculture and harvesting of wild foods and animals. This case points to a basic misalignment between biodiversity conservation and CBNRM. Participants in this study contested the meaning and usefulness of the PA and the CF projects. Their concerns were cultural, social, economic and political, exposing uneven relations of power and uncertainty associated with the long term outcomes. Participation itself required scrutiny in this situation, as did the promotion of a global biodiversity ‘good’ over local understandings of place and landscape. Lessons from more than 20 years of participatory CBNRM may be used to reconfigure the CBNRM ideal, to assist planners and implementers towards an integrated approach with biodiversity values reflected in both conservation and local production systems, acknowledging that these systems are culturally constituted.