Catherine Allan | Charles Sturt University (original) (raw)

Papers by Catherine Allan

Outlook on Agriculture

This review seeks to understand the implications of using “adoption” to evaluate agricultural soi... more This review seeks to understand the implications of using “adoption” to evaluate agricultural soil management outreach in the twenty-first century. The act of changing from one practice to another practice is referred to as “adoption”. The concept of adoption is closely associated with the design and evaluation of agricultural extension programs. Although focusing on adoption is deeply entrenched in agricultural extension, some scholars question the usefulness of the concept in light of the complexity and uncertainty that characterises farming in the twenty-first century. We present a purposeful review of literature that considers adoption in relation to three general approaches to agricultural extension; top-down, bottom-up and co-constructionist, with an emphasis on land management in Australia. The conceptual fit of adoption as a measure of success for each extension approach is explored. We conclude that the usefulness of adoption of individual practices or tools as a measure of...

Water for the Environment, 2017

This chapter introduces the concept of stakeholder engagement within water resource management wi... more This chapter introduces the concept of stakeholder engagement within water resource management with a focus on environmental water programs. It explains why stakeholder engagement is critical, and the theoretical basis for effective stakeholder engagement. Moving from theory into practice it advocates for principle-based engagement through 10 key principles, and describes 5 key steps for successful implementation. Three short case studies demonstrate some of the principles of stakeholder engagement and the varying challenges associated with stakeholder engagement in different situations. Further examples of principles, and steps, from around the world are also highlighted. It must be recognized that stakeholder engagement is individual to the situation, dynamic, and one of the most challenging components of any management program, hence highlighting how critical it is to include and prioritize both from a funding and human resource side. Even though resourcing stakeholder engagement usually adds short-term complexity and cost, in general effective stakeholder engagement reduces transaction costs and leads to more successful long-term outcomes.

Water for the Environment, 2017

Abstract Environmental water is often a contentious investment in the environment that must be de... more Abstract Environmental water is often a contentious investment in the environment that must be delivered under uncertainty regarding the ecological and social benefits they deliver. Adaptive management can be used to facilitate decision making under uncertainty, and use new knowledge and understanding to improve management decisions and outcomes over time. However, there is a perception that adaptive management has failed to deliver improvements in decision making and learning. Monitoring and evaluation are an essential feature of adaptive management. However, past monitoring for river protection and restoration has too often been of insufficient quality to facilitate adaptive learning. Moreover, environmental water represents a class of protection and restoration that is inherently difficult to monitor, and some of the learnings are not evident in part because fragmented assessment, documentation, and reporting of adaptive management can obscure successes. We outline a set of general principles for improving monitoring, evaluation, and adaptive management of environmental water regimes, and provide several examples from Australia and North America. Successful adaptive management depends upon the formation and maintenance of strong partnerships and an appreciation of the importance of individuals in teams. Through such partnerships, it is possible to coordinate monitoring programs over large scales, create programs of requisite simplicity, and use innovative approaches to evaluation. Finally, we note that although adaptive management has occurred in the past, too often it has been poorly documented and reported. The inclusion of reflectors in monitoring and evaluation teams will better capture the lessons learned by individual programs, improving adaptive management into the future.

Other community capacity assessment frameworks Academic derived frameworks Frameworks in use Capi... more Other community capacity assessment frameworks Academic derived frameworks Frameworks in use Capital types Mountjoy et al. 2013 Assessment categories Mitchell et al. in preparation Mountjoy et al.

Natural resources are important to Australia economically and culturally, but land and water are ... more Natural resources are important to Australia economically and culturally, but land and water are being degraded, especially in our intensive agricultural zones (Australian State of the Environment Committee, 2001). In response to this degradation Australian governments have encouraged voluntary change in the management behaviours of landholders, and have invested heavily in a variety of participatory information and support delivery models such as Landcare (Curtis and Van Nouhuys 1999). In general these participatory models have emerged from, and remained consistent with, the traditional agricultural extension paradigm, in which governments provide expert research and advice, and landholders receive and act (or not) on that information. The cases we discuss in this chapter are attempts to move beyond the traditional extension paradigm by encouraging and empowering natural resource managers to be part of the whole information generation and sharing process. This empowerment was enabled through Participatory Action Research. CSU Research Output http://researchoutput.csu.edu.au participants share the intention to learn from their own practice using a mix of their own skills and university expertise, and to use their new learning to make a positive difference in their community. Case 1: Landcare Action Research This local scale project was initiated in early 2005 by a community employed coordinator of a Landcare network in Victoria, with the aim of helping local Landcare continue to support its members. With assistance from Charles Sturt University and the North East Catchment Management Authority a small research project was developed and implemented by 15 local people. The approach involved the participants interviewing people from their own area, documenting the key lessons from the stories which emerged, then collating and analysing these (Allan 2006). Although small in scope and scale, and funded by in-kind contributions alone, the outcome of the research has provided direction for a funded community learning project. Case 2: Social data for catchments This regional scale project commenced in 2002. CSU researchers worked with the Wimmera Catchment Management Authority staff and Board to gather social data to underpin the implementation of regional natural resource management plans. The project had a substantial budget, including both cash and in-kind resources provided by the Catchment Management Authority, local governments and state agencies. Regional stakeholders were partners in all aspects of the research, which involved quantitative and qualitative data creation and analysis (Curtis and Byron 2002; Curtis, Byron and Mackay 2005). Case 3: Triple Bottom Line for Irrigation This large, multi-region project has completed the development of an irrigation reporting framework that includes economic, environmental and social values, a framework often referred to as Triple Bottom Line (TBL) reporting (Mitchell et al., 2006). The case study is driven by the Cooperative Research Centre for Irrigation Futures. This Centre brings financial resources and considerable in-kind support from its numerous constituent research institutions. In the early stages of the project the researchers from Charles Sturt University promoted PAR as the most appropriate method to develop the TBL framework. The overall project involves several individual case study groups, one with the goal of developing a Triple Bottom Line report for the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Company. This TBL case study group has a mix of industry and research participants; the former responding to the researchers' offer of help to develop their TBL reporting process. Case study 4: The Billabong Heartlands Project The Billabong catchment, on the Eastern edge of the Murray-Riverina Region of NSW, was one of four focus catchments for Heartlands, a large, government funded natural resource management project. The Billabong Heartlands Project was managed by a Steering Committee comprising farmers, Landcare employees, agency staff, scientists and academics. Participatory Action Research was identified as a useful way to gather base-line social information to underpin decision making within the Heartlands project as it could also facilitate early and genuine community participation in the project. PAR also had the potential to build and enhance the relationships needed for good project communication. The PAR research team comprised five landholders, two scientists from the Canberra based the national research organisation CSIRO, four Landcare employees, an officer from a farm forestry agency, another involved with dryland salinity and three social scientists from Charles Sturt

Local Land Services, or any other individual or organisation consulted or involved in the research.

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2021

As the significance of environmental degradation for humanity becomes apparent, the challenge of ... more As the significance of environmental degradation for humanity becomes apparent, the challenge of developing expertise in integrating science, advocacy and implementation has been acknowledged. Addressing recent and ongoing global challenges including mass extinction, climate change, disease and threats to food, water and power security requires employment of evidence-based science in multi-faceted approaches. Ensuring the mobilisation of new knowledge in practice, both in policy and on-ground actions, takes many researchers into the realm of advocacy, where facts and values become equally important. In the nexus between research and practice, guidance in integrating approaches is required. Drawing on the fields of conservation biology, systems theory and feminist science, this paper offers a new conceptual framework to guide researchers and professionals; one that supports practice by encouraging action and advocacy. The framework, intentional ecology, requires examination of ethics...

Environmental Management, 2017

Managers of land, water, and biodiversity are working with increasingly complex social ecological... more Managers of land, water, and biodiversity are working with increasingly complex social ecological systems with high uncertainty. Adaptive management (learning from doing) is an ideal approach for working with this complexity. The competing social and environmental demands for water have prompted interest in freshwater adaptive management, but its success and uptake appear to be slow. Some of the perceived "failure" of adaptive management may reflect the way success is conceived and measured; learning, rarely used as an indicator of success, is narrowly defined when it is. In this paper, we document the process of adaptive flow management in the Edward-Wakool system in the southern Murray-Darling Basin, Australia. Data are from interviews with environmental water managers, document review, and the authors' structured reflection on their experiences of adaptive management and environmental flows. Substantial learning occurred in relation to the management of environmental flows in the Edward-Wakool system, with evidence found in planning documents, water-use reports, technical reports, stakeholder committee minutes, and refereed papers, while other evidence was anecdotal. Based on this case, we suggest it may be difficult for external observers to perceive the success of large adaptive management projects because evidence of learning is dispersed across multiple documents, and learning is not necessarily considered a measure of success. We suggest that documentation and sharing of new insights, and of the processes of learning, should be resourced to facilitate social learning within the water management sector, and to help demonstrate the successes of adaptive management.

Landscape and Urban Planning, 2017

h i g h l i g h t s • Stakeholder perceptions and management of spontaneous regrowth were identif... more h i g h l i g h t s • Stakeholder perceptions and management of spontaneous regrowth were identified. • Regrowth is viewed through three frames: Accept, Ambivalent and Control. • Each frame was expressed through associated positive and/or negative narratives. • The frames and narratives could be used to promote biodiversity outcomes from the regrowth.

Italian Journal of Agronomy, 2013

The sustainable development of agricultural systems is currently challenged by many complex agro-... more The sustainable development of agricultural systems is currently challenged by many complex agro-environmental issues. These are characterized by an incomplete understanding of the situation and the problems that arise, and the conflicting opinions that result, issues over boundaries that are often difficult to define, and controversy over the multiple goals and uncertain outcomes. Added to these characteristics, we also have the slow and often inadequate uptake and implementation of research outcomes in this complex, real world. In order to improve sustainability of agro-ecosystems, agronomic research must move away from the linear research approaches and extension practices adopted so far that have focused purely on biophysical agroecosystems. The theoretical operational space of agronomic research must be transformed by considering agronomic issues as part of a broader social-agro-ecosystem. One aspect of this transformation is the inclusion of knowledge collected on a local level with the participation of farmers on the ground. The integration of local experiential knowledge with traditional agronomic research is by necessity based on the participation of many different stakeholders and there can be no single blueprint for how best to develop and use the input received. However, agronomists and policy advisors require general guidelines drawn up from actual experience in order to accelerate positive agronomic change. We address this need through a comparative analysis of two case studies; one involves multi-stakeholder research in a cropping system in the dairy district of Arborea, Sardinia, Italy. The central question was: How can high crop production be maintained while also achieving the EU target water quality and minimizing the production costs? The second case is a multi-stakeholder soil health project from southeastern Australia. Here the central question was: How can soil decline be prevented and reversed in this district, and soils made more resilient to future challenges? The Social Learning for the Integrated Management and sustainable use of water (SLIM) framework, a useful heuristic tool for exploring the dynamics of transformational change, guided the analysis of the case studies. Within this framework, a key indicator of success is the emergence of new knowledge from the creation of new spaces for learning between researchers and local stakeholders. The Italian case study appears to have been the most successful in this sense, as opportunities for joint exploration of research data allowed new potential farming responses to the central question to emerge. The multi-stakeholder processes in the Australian case focused more on providing public openings for individual learning, and missed the opportunity for new knowledge to emerge through joint exploration. We conclude that participatory approaches may enable transformative practice through knowledge integration, but that this process is not an automatic outcome of increased community participation.

The Rangeland Journal, 2004

Microlaena stipoides is widespread in the higher rainfall areas of Australia. It is consistently ... more Microlaena stipoides is widespread in the higher rainfall areas of Australia. It is consistently reported in the literature as providing high quality forage, yet anecdotal evidence suggests a wide range of opinions about the value of M. stipoides among graziers who manage areas with abundant M. stipoides. This paper addresses three questions relating to this divergence of opinion. Are landholders responding to inherent variability within M. stipoides? Is M. stipoides responding to different site and management conditions, prompting landholders to value it preferentially where site or management suit? Or are the landholders' judgments of M. stipoides influenced less by the actual performance of the grass on their properties than by social factors? Data collected from ten properties in the Victorian Upper Murray included a morphological assessment of M. stipoides samples, quantitative site and pasture information and qualitative data from interviews with property managers. Ecotypi...

Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 2012

Integrated water resource management (IWRM) is a response to current acknowledgement of the compl... more Integrated water resource management (IWRM) is a response to current acknowledgement of the complexity and wickedness of water management. IWRM aims to enable appropriate responses via multi-party participation. Adaptive management-purposeful learning for improved action-is a useful tool for integrating water resource management. It provides a framework to enable participatory processes and social learning to contribute to changed policies and practices. However, the institutional constraints on moving to adaptive management (and hence IWRM) are many and deeply entrenched. The paper explores these constraints by considering the almost unconscious, and generally uncritical, reliance on 'projects' in natural resource management. Using examples from Australia, it reflects on the defining features of natural resource management 'projects' and critically considers these in relation to the conditions needed for adaptive management, social learning and IWRM. Projects, bounded in time and space and strongly tied to political and financial cycles, encourage short term planning and action, not to mention risk avoidance and solidification of power differentials. Active reflection on the nature of projects provides a useful space to explore a possible clash between the normative idealistic and the critical realist perspectives of integrating water management.

International Journal of Water Resources Development, 2014

The failure of conventional approaches to achieve equitable and sustainable water management has ... more The failure of conventional approaches to achieve equitable and sustainable water management has prompted a new way of perceiving and acting with water. This is creating a 'new water paradigm' that emphasizes broader stakeholder involvement; integration of sectors, issues and disciplines; attention to the human dimensions of management; and wider recognition of the economic, ecological and cultural values of water. This article reviews three approaches arising within the new water paradigm: integrated water resources management; ecosystem-based approaches; and adaptive management. The article concludes that the strengths of each approach address different moral and ecological challenges. Combining these strengths, while minimizing tensions, may contribute to more effective water management in the Anthropocene.

Outlook on Agriculture

This review seeks to understand the implications of using “adoption” to evaluate agricultural soi... more This review seeks to understand the implications of using “adoption” to evaluate agricultural soil management outreach in the twenty-first century. The act of changing from one practice to another practice is referred to as “adoption”. The concept of adoption is closely associated with the design and evaluation of agricultural extension programs. Although focusing on adoption is deeply entrenched in agricultural extension, some scholars question the usefulness of the concept in light of the complexity and uncertainty that characterises farming in the twenty-first century. We present a purposeful review of literature that considers adoption in relation to three general approaches to agricultural extension; top-down, bottom-up and co-constructionist, with an emphasis on land management in Australia. The conceptual fit of adoption as a measure of success for each extension approach is explored. We conclude that the usefulness of adoption of individual practices or tools as a measure of...

Water for the Environment, 2017

This chapter introduces the concept of stakeholder engagement within water resource management wi... more This chapter introduces the concept of stakeholder engagement within water resource management with a focus on environmental water programs. It explains why stakeholder engagement is critical, and the theoretical basis for effective stakeholder engagement. Moving from theory into practice it advocates for principle-based engagement through 10 key principles, and describes 5 key steps for successful implementation. Three short case studies demonstrate some of the principles of stakeholder engagement and the varying challenges associated with stakeholder engagement in different situations. Further examples of principles, and steps, from around the world are also highlighted. It must be recognized that stakeholder engagement is individual to the situation, dynamic, and one of the most challenging components of any management program, hence highlighting how critical it is to include and prioritize both from a funding and human resource side. Even though resourcing stakeholder engagement usually adds short-term complexity and cost, in general effective stakeholder engagement reduces transaction costs and leads to more successful long-term outcomes.

Water for the Environment, 2017

Abstract Environmental water is often a contentious investment in the environment that must be de... more Abstract Environmental water is often a contentious investment in the environment that must be delivered under uncertainty regarding the ecological and social benefits they deliver. Adaptive management can be used to facilitate decision making under uncertainty, and use new knowledge and understanding to improve management decisions and outcomes over time. However, there is a perception that adaptive management has failed to deliver improvements in decision making and learning. Monitoring and evaluation are an essential feature of adaptive management. However, past monitoring for river protection and restoration has too often been of insufficient quality to facilitate adaptive learning. Moreover, environmental water represents a class of protection and restoration that is inherently difficult to monitor, and some of the learnings are not evident in part because fragmented assessment, documentation, and reporting of adaptive management can obscure successes. We outline a set of general principles for improving monitoring, evaluation, and adaptive management of environmental water regimes, and provide several examples from Australia and North America. Successful adaptive management depends upon the formation and maintenance of strong partnerships and an appreciation of the importance of individuals in teams. Through such partnerships, it is possible to coordinate monitoring programs over large scales, create programs of requisite simplicity, and use innovative approaches to evaluation. Finally, we note that although adaptive management has occurred in the past, too often it has been poorly documented and reported. The inclusion of reflectors in monitoring and evaluation teams will better capture the lessons learned by individual programs, improving adaptive management into the future.

Other community capacity assessment frameworks Academic derived frameworks Frameworks in use Capi... more Other community capacity assessment frameworks Academic derived frameworks Frameworks in use Capital types Mountjoy et al. 2013 Assessment categories Mitchell et al. in preparation Mountjoy et al.

Natural resources are important to Australia economically and culturally, but land and water are ... more Natural resources are important to Australia economically and culturally, but land and water are being degraded, especially in our intensive agricultural zones (Australian State of the Environment Committee, 2001). In response to this degradation Australian governments have encouraged voluntary change in the management behaviours of landholders, and have invested heavily in a variety of participatory information and support delivery models such as Landcare (Curtis and Van Nouhuys 1999). In general these participatory models have emerged from, and remained consistent with, the traditional agricultural extension paradigm, in which governments provide expert research and advice, and landholders receive and act (or not) on that information. The cases we discuss in this chapter are attempts to move beyond the traditional extension paradigm by encouraging and empowering natural resource managers to be part of the whole information generation and sharing process. This empowerment was enabled through Participatory Action Research. CSU Research Output http://researchoutput.csu.edu.au participants share the intention to learn from their own practice using a mix of their own skills and university expertise, and to use their new learning to make a positive difference in their community. Case 1: Landcare Action Research This local scale project was initiated in early 2005 by a community employed coordinator of a Landcare network in Victoria, with the aim of helping local Landcare continue to support its members. With assistance from Charles Sturt University and the North East Catchment Management Authority a small research project was developed and implemented by 15 local people. The approach involved the participants interviewing people from their own area, documenting the key lessons from the stories which emerged, then collating and analysing these (Allan 2006). Although small in scope and scale, and funded by in-kind contributions alone, the outcome of the research has provided direction for a funded community learning project. Case 2: Social data for catchments This regional scale project commenced in 2002. CSU researchers worked with the Wimmera Catchment Management Authority staff and Board to gather social data to underpin the implementation of regional natural resource management plans. The project had a substantial budget, including both cash and in-kind resources provided by the Catchment Management Authority, local governments and state agencies. Regional stakeholders were partners in all aspects of the research, which involved quantitative and qualitative data creation and analysis (Curtis and Byron 2002; Curtis, Byron and Mackay 2005). Case 3: Triple Bottom Line for Irrigation This large, multi-region project has completed the development of an irrigation reporting framework that includes economic, environmental and social values, a framework often referred to as Triple Bottom Line (TBL) reporting (Mitchell et al., 2006). The case study is driven by the Cooperative Research Centre for Irrigation Futures. This Centre brings financial resources and considerable in-kind support from its numerous constituent research institutions. In the early stages of the project the researchers from Charles Sturt University promoted PAR as the most appropriate method to develop the TBL framework. The overall project involves several individual case study groups, one with the goal of developing a Triple Bottom Line report for the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Company. This TBL case study group has a mix of industry and research participants; the former responding to the researchers' offer of help to develop their TBL reporting process. Case study 4: The Billabong Heartlands Project The Billabong catchment, on the Eastern edge of the Murray-Riverina Region of NSW, was one of four focus catchments for Heartlands, a large, government funded natural resource management project. The Billabong Heartlands Project was managed by a Steering Committee comprising farmers, Landcare employees, agency staff, scientists and academics. Participatory Action Research was identified as a useful way to gather base-line social information to underpin decision making within the Heartlands project as it could also facilitate early and genuine community participation in the project. PAR also had the potential to build and enhance the relationships needed for good project communication. The PAR research team comprised five landholders, two scientists from the Canberra based the national research organisation CSIRO, four Landcare employees, an officer from a farm forestry agency, another involved with dryland salinity and three social scientists from Charles Sturt

Local Land Services, or any other individual or organisation consulted or involved in the research.

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2021

As the significance of environmental degradation for humanity becomes apparent, the challenge of ... more As the significance of environmental degradation for humanity becomes apparent, the challenge of developing expertise in integrating science, advocacy and implementation has been acknowledged. Addressing recent and ongoing global challenges including mass extinction, climate change, disease and threats to food, water and power security requires employment of evidence-based science in multi-faceted approaches. Ensuring the mobilisation of new knowledge in practice, both in policy and on-ground actions, takes many researchers into the realm of advocacy, where facts and values become equally important. In the nexus between research and practice, guidance in integrating approaches is required. Drawing on the fields of conservation biology, systems theory and feminist science, this paper offers a new conceptual framework to guide researchers and professionals; one that supports practice by encouraging action and advocacy. The framework, intentional ecology, requires examination of ethics...

Environmental Management, 2017

Managers of land, water, and biodiversity are working with increasingly complex social ecological... more Managers of land, water, and biodiversity are working with increasingly complex social ecological systems with high uncertainty. Adaptive management (learning from doing) is an ideal approach for working with this complexity. The competing social and environmental demands for water have prompted interest in freshwater adaptive management, but its success and uptake appear to be slow. Some of the perceived "failure" of adaptive management may reflect the way success is conceived and measured; learning, rarely used as an indicator of success, is narrowly defined when it is. In this paper, we document the process of adaptive flow management in the Edward-Wakool system in the southern Murray-Darling Basin, Australia. Data are from interviews with environmental water managers, document review, and the authors' structured reflection on their experiences of adaptive management and environmental flows. Substantial learning occurred in relation to the management of environmental flows in the Edward-Wakool system, with evidence found in planning documents, water-use reports, technical reports, stakeholder committee minutes, and refereed papers, while other evidence was anecdotal. Based on this case, we suggest it may be difficult for external observers to perceive the success of large adaptive management projects because evidence of learning is dispersed across multiple documents, and learning is not necessarily considered a measure of success. We suggest that documentation and sharing of new insights, and of the processes of learning, should be resourced to facilitate social learning within the water management sector, and to help demonstrate the successes of adaptive management.

Landscape and Urban Planning, 2017

h i g h l i g h t s • Stakeholder perceptions and management of spontaneous regrowth were identif... more h i g h l i g h t s • Stakeholder perceptions and management of spontaneous regrowth were identified. • Regrowth is viewed through three frames: Accept, Ambivalent and Control. • Each frame was expressed through associated positive and/or negative narratives. • The frames and narratives could be used to promote biodiversity outcomes from the regrowth.

Italian Journal of Agronomy, 2013

The sustainable development of agricultural systems is currently challenged by many complex agro-... more The sustainable development of agricultural systems is currently challenged by many complex agro-environmental issues. These are characterized by an incomplete understanding of the situation and the problems that arise, and the conflicting opinions that result, issues over boundaries that are often difficult to define, and controversy over the multiple goals and uncertain outcomes. Added to these characteristics, we also have the slow and often inadequate uptake and implementation of research outcomes in this complex, real world. In order to improve sustainability of agro-ecosystems, agronomic research must move away from the linear research approaches and extension practices adopted so far that have focused purely on biophysical agroecosystems. The theoretical operational space of agronomic research must be transformed by considering agronomic issues as part of a broader social-agro-ecosystem. One aspect of this transformation is the inclusion of knowledge collected on a local level with the participation of farmers on the ground. The integration of local experiential knowledge with traditional agronomic research is by necessity based on the participation of many different stakeholders and there can be no single blueprint for how best to develop and use the input received. However, agronomists and policy advisors require general guidelines drawn up from actual experience in order to accelerate positive agronomic change. We address this need through a comparative analysis of two case studies; one involves multi-stakeholder research in a cropping system in the dairy district of Arborea, Sardinia, Italy. The central question was: How can high crop production be maintained while also achieving the EU target water quality and minimizing the production costs? The second case is a multi-stakeholder soil health project from southeastern Australia. Here the central question was: How can soil decline be prevented and reversed in this district, and soils made more resilient to future challenges? The Social Learning for the Integrated Management and sustainable use of water (SLIM) framework, a useful heuristic tool for exploring the dynamics of transformational change, guided the analysis of the case studies. Within this framework, a key indicator of success is the emergence of new knowledge from the creation of new spaces for learning between researchers and local stakeholders. The Italian case study appears to have been the most successful in this sense, as opportunities for joint exploration of research data allowed new potential farming responses to the central question to emerge. The multi-stakeholder processes in the Australian case focused more on providing public openings for individual learning, and missed the opportunity for new knowledge to emerge through joint exploration. We conclude that participatory approaches may enable transformative practice through knowledge integration, but that this process is not an automatic outcome of increased community participation.

The Rangeland Journal, 2004

Microlaena stipoides is widespread in the higher rainfall areas of Australia. It is consistently ... more Microlaena stipoides is widespread in the higher rainfall areas of Australia. It is consistently reported in the literature as providing high quality forage, yet anecdotal evidence suggests a wide range of opinions about the value of M. stipoides among graziers who manage areas with abundant M. stipoides. This paper addresses three questions relating to this divergence of opinion. Are landholders responding to inherent variability within M. stipoides? Is M. stipoides responding to different site and management conditions, prompting landholders to value it preferentially where site or management suit? Or are the landholders' judgments of M. stipoides influenced less by the actual performance of the grass on their properties than by social factors? Data collected from ten properties in the Victorian Upper Murray included a morphological assessment of M. stipoides samples, quantitative site and pasture information and qualitative data from interviews with property managers. Ecotypi...

Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 2012

Integrated water resource management (IWRM) is a response to current acknowledgement of the compl... more Integrated water resource management (IWRM) is a response to current acknowledgement of the complexity and wickedness of water management. IWRM aims to enable appropriate responses via multi-party participation. Adaptive management-purposeful learning for improved action-is a useful tool for integrating water resource management. It provides a framework to enable participatory processes and social learning to contribute to changed policies and practices. However, the institutional constraints on moving to adaptive management (and hence IWRM) are many and deeply entrenched. The paper explores these constraints by considering the almost unconscious, and generally uncritical, reliance on 'projects' in natural resource management. Using examples from Australia, it reflects on the defining features of natural resource management 'projects' and critically considers these in relation to the conditions needed for adaptive management, social learning and IWRM. Projects, bounded in time and space and strongly tied to political and financial cycles, encourage short term planning and action, not to mention risk avoidance and solidification of power differentials. Active reflection on the nature of projects provides a useful space to explore a possible clash between the normative idealistic and the critical realist perspectives of integrating water management.

International Journal of Water Resources Development, 2014

The failure of conventional approaches to achieve equitable and sustainable water management has ... more The failure of conventional approaches to achieve equitable and sustainable water management has prompted a new way of perceiving and acting with water. This is creating a 'new water paradigm' that emphasizes broader stakeholder involvement; integration of sectors, issues and disciplines; attention to the human dimensions of management; and wider recognition of the economic, ecological and cultural values of water. This article reviews three approaches arising within the new water paradigm: integrated water resources management; ecosystem-based approaches; and adaptive management. The article concludes that the strengths of each approach address different moral and ecological challenges. Combining these strengths, while minimizing tensions, may contribute to more effective water management in the Anthropocene.