Tanya M. Howard | University of New England - Australia (original) (raw)
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Papers by Tanya M. Howard
In the wake of the murder of NSW compliance officer Glen Turner, environmental law enforcers are ... more In the wake of the murder of NSW compliance officer Glen Turner, environmental law enforcers are tackling resistance to regulation born not just of corporate greed but of human nature.
Increasing the role of community in the management of natural resources is a stated priority of e... more Increasing the role of community in the management of natural resources is a stated priority of ecologically sustainable development principles. Despite a proliferation of policy and legal requirements for public participation and non-legal guidelines that promote community access to environmental decision- making at both the international and national scale, implementation is often unsatisfactory and difficult to evaluate. For environmental managers, understanding both the potential and limitations of legal rules and policy requirements is important when evaluating the impact of reform efforts. Examining case studies of wind farm governance and natural resource planning in New South Wales, this article considers how legislative commitments to community engagement are experienced in practice. The intention is to move beyond a repetitive focus on how to run a good participatory process to a better understanding of how legislative and policy requirements can more effectively involve communities in natural resource governance. Results are presented within an analytical framework that distinguishes between legislation, policy, practice, evidence and reform elements of natural resource governance. The outcome is a better understanding of how legal requirements, audit and review mechanisms, best practice standards and guidelines can improve the quality and authenticity of community engagement in natural resource governance.
Wild dogs are a widespread, established pest in Australia and have economic, environmental, and s... more Wild dogs are a widespread, established pest in Australia and have economic, environmental, and social impacts. Best practice management recommends coordinated community-led action as a key strategy to reduce this vertebrate pest. This research increased understanding of how citizens organize to collectively manage wild dogs in three case studies from Australia, with attention to the interaction of cultural, structural, and interactional domains of group action. Information asymmetry and changing demographic profiles emerge as challenges to effective group development. Visible community leaders and strong group identity are important, as is peer recognition of community efforts to develop collective action norms. This article complements and extends existing quantitative data sets with qualitative analysis and contextual understanding, while also reflecting on the implications of collective action for wild dog management more broadly. This research is relevant for those concerned with community action and complex issues of vertebrate pest management.
Exploring cases of gas and coal extraction in Australia and the U.S.A., this paper considers inst... more Exploring cases of gas and coal extraction in Australia and the U.S.A., this paper considers instances in which legal and political frameworks have been used to prioritise development interests and minimise opportunities for community objection. Two case studies illustrate the role of law and the influence of politics on environmental conflict, conflict resolution, and participation in decision-making associated with resource extraction. A range of barriers to meaningful community participation in land-use decision-making are exposed by combining legal and non-legal concepts of equity and justice with ideologies of democracy and representation. These include asymmetry in information and resources available to parties; instances of misrecognition of weaker participants; and examples of malrecognition, where community attempts to engage democratic rights of public participation were thwarted by the strategic and deliberate actions of both industry and government. This paper illustrates the limits of current legal approaches to addressing land-use conflict and contributes to the developing scholarship of environmental justice as an analytic framework for addressing complex environmental and social justice issues.
Australian natural resource governance has recently embarked on a new round of regional experimen... more Australian natural resource governance has recently embarked on a new round of regional experimentation. One decade after regional natural resource management bodies were established in response to ideals of devolution and subsidiarity, political commitments to 'localism' have resulted in a paradoxical shift to bigger regional boundaries, and an apparent retreat from values of environmental conservation. A retreat from government funded public good natural resource management has seen a growth in ideals of market instruments and an economic paradigm of productivity and profit begin to dominate. A long held divide between conservation and production landscape values has seen community engagement emerge as the battleground of rural environmental policy. Through two qualitative case studies of community governance mechanisms this paper examines how one Australian jurisdiction has responded to these challenges. Findings include a valuable role for best practice standards and compliance requirement in driving new norms of community engagement; a difficult balance between accountability and innovation in implementing community governance; and significant disruption caused by regular cycles of reform. Recommendations include developing community skills for participatory governance and the development of negotiated accountability frameworks that support rural governance innovation.
Natural resource management (NRM) is a complex public policy field, which challenges conventional... more Natural resource management (NRM) is a complex public policy field, which challenges conventional governance structures. Increasing the role of community in the protection, restoration and management of natural resources is a stated priority of ecologically sustainable development (ESD) principles. Despite a proliferation of legal requirements for public participation and non-legal guidelines that promote community access to environmental decision-making at both the international and national scale, implementation is often unsatisfactory and difficult to evaluate. There is a need to develop methodologies that can improve the design, implementation and evaluation of community engagement. Australia is a member of the United Nations and has participated in the development of international principles for public participation, most notably agreeing to the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21. The terminology of ESD appears in much environmental legislation developed at the national and intra-national level. This paper examines the role of international legal and non-legal frameworks in driving national reform. This paper suggests that existing international frameworks can connect social norms of public participation with legal norms of procedural justice to provide a pathway for improving governance in this complex area. The need to develop robust socio-legal methodologies that can assess implementation of ESD principles provides the impetus for this paper. A possible methodology is outlined, and early empirical results described.
Howard, T., 2015. The " rules of engagement " : A socio-legal framework for improving community e... more Howard, T., 2015. The " rules of engagement " : A socio-legal framework for improving community engagement in natural resource governance. Oñati Socio-legal Series [online], forthcoming. Available from: Abstract Increasing community action in natural resource governance is commonly seen as a pathway for improving decision making, enabling increased on-ground activity and facilitating widespread acceptance of government and industry legitimacy in managing natural resources. Other perspectives on community engagement see the promise of enriching existing or emerging democratic values by addressing the limitations of representative governance. While the practice of community engagement has been well described, more work needs to be done to understand the institutional factors that contribute to the expectations attached to these practices, and how the role of community in natural resource governance can be improved. This article presents findings from a review of academic and practitioner literature on the topics of community engagement and natural resource governance. 127 articles were reviewed and the resulting conceptual framework is described. A thematic analysis of the data-set was then conducted to further clarify and extend the research question. The results reveal a persistent focus on practical aspects of engaging community, without sufficient analysis of how institutional dynamics such as legal requirements, policy drivers and implementation contexts impact on the realities of community environmental governance. The paper concludes with future research directions in the pursuit of improving the role of community in natural resource governance. It is expected that the insights generated through this article will have relevance to other modern democratic societies and be of interest to environmental lawyers, policy makers and community advocates.
17th Annual Cotton Conference, Sep 1, 2014
ABSTRACT Imagine a future where cotton farms are run by sophisticated machines. Computerised syst... more ABSTRACT Imagine a future where cotton farms are run by sophisticated machines. Computerised systems monitor crop conditions; aerial drones collect real time information about your crop; pickers, gins and classers are operated by only a few people, in a 24 hour cycle dedicated to economic efficiency. Sounds like a productivity paradise! There’s only one thing missing…. viable and thriving cotton communities in rural and regional Australia.
Energy Policy, Mar 31, 2015
ABSTRACT In Australia, renewable energy is under pressure in the context of a highly politicised ... more ABSTRACT In Australia, renewable energy is under pressure in the context of a highly politicised debate about how to act on climate change. The recent repeal of an established carbon tax has seen the defunding of significant renewable energy initiatives and a controversial review of the national Renewable Energy Target is threatening key drivers for investment in renewable energy. The current regulatory focus on community 'acceptance' does not facilitate the active community support necessary to challenge this increasingly hostile policy context. This research considers current experiences of community engagement in wind farm governance in one Australian jurisdiction. Through documentary analysis and two qualitative case studies, it examines legal and non-legal requirements for community governance mechanisms and considers how these influence wind farm development in rural areas. Findings include a problematic reliance on procedural compliance in assessing wind farm consultation, domination by vested interests, and reduced expertise in community engagement at the time it is needed most. Recommendations include integration of best practice guidelines in current regulation; harmonisation of policy settings to ensure equity across energy sectors; and an evidence-based commitment to benefit sharing as a strategy for increasing community support of rural wind farm development.
International Journal of Rural Law and Policy, Mar 1, 2015
ABSTRACT Soils provide the foundation for agricultural and environmental systems and are subject ... more ABSTRACT Soils provide the foundation for agricultural and environmental systems and are subject to a complex governance regime of property rights and secondary impacts from industry and domestic land use. Complex natural resource management issues require approaches to governance that acknowledge uncertainty and complexity. Theories of new environmental governance assume that inclusion of diverse perspectives will improve reform directions and encourage behaviour change. This paper reports on a qualitative survey of an international workshop that brought together cross-disciplinary perspectives to address the challenges of soil governance. Results reveal the challenges of talking effectively across disciplines. The findings suggest that strategies for improved soils governance must focus on increasing communication with community stakeholders and engaging land managers in designing shared governance regimes. The need for more conscious articulation of the challenges of cross-disciplinary environments is discussed and strategies for increasing research collaboration in soils governance are suggested. The identified need for more systematic approaches to cross-disciplinary learning, including reporting back of cross-disciplinary initiatives to help practitioners learn from past experience, forms part of the rationale for this paper.
In the wake of the murder of NSW compliance officer Glen Turner, environmental law enforcers are ... more In the wake of the murder of NSW compliance officer Glen Turner, environmental law enforcers are tackling resistance to regulation born not just of corporate greed but of human nature.
Increasing the role of community in the management of natural resources is a stated priority of e... more Increasing the role of community in the management of natural resources is a stated priority of ecologically sustainable development principles. Despite a proliferation of policy and legal requirements for public participation and non-legal guidelines that promote community access to environmental decision- making at both the international and national scale, implementation is often unsatisfactory and difficult to evaluate. For environmental managers, understanding both the potential and limitations of legal rules and policy requirements is important when evaluating the impact of reform efforts. Examining case studies of wind farm governance and natural resource planning in New South Wales, this article considers how legislative commitments to community engagement are experienced in practice. The intention is to move beyond a repetitive focus on how to run a good participatory process to a better understanding of how legislative and policy requirements can more effectively involve communities in natural resource governance. Results are presented within an analytical framework that distinguishes between legislation, policy, practice, evidence and reform elements of natural resource governance. The outcome is a better understanding of how legal requirements, audit and review mechanisms, best practice standards and guidelines can improve the quality and authenticity of community engagement in natural resource governance.
Wild dogs are a widespread, established pest in Australia and have economic, environmental, and s... more Wild dogs are a widespread, established pest in Australia and have economic, environmental, and social impacts. Best practice management recommends coordinated community-led action as a key strategy to reduce this vertebrate pest. This research increased understanding of how citizens organize to collectively manage wild dogs in three case studies from Australia, with attention to the interaction of cultural, structural, and interactional domains of group action. Information asymmetry and changing demographic profiles emerge as challenges to effective group development. Visible community leaders and strong group identity are important, as is peer recognition of community efforts to develop collective action norms. This article complements and extends existing quantitative data sets with qualitative analysis and contextual understanding, while also reflecting on the implications of collective action for wild dog management more broadly. This research is relevant for those concerned with community action and complex issues of vertebrate pest management.
Exploring cases of gas and coal extraction in Australia and the U.S.A., this paper considers inst... more Exploring cases of gas and coal extraction in Australia and the U.S.A., this paper considers instances in which legal and political frameworks have been used to prioritise development interests and minimise opportunities for community objection. Two case studies illustrate the role of law and the influence of politics on environmental conflict, conflict resolution, and participation in decision-making associated with resource extraction. A range of barriers to meaningful community participation in land-use decision-making are exposed by combining legal and non-legal concepts of equity and justice with ideologies of democracy and representation. These include asymmetry in information and resources available to parties; instances of misrecognition of weaker participants; and examples of malrecognition, where community attempts to engage democratic rights of public participation were thwarted by the strategic and deliberate actions of both industry and government. This paper illustrates the limits of current legal approaches to addressing land-use conflict and contributes to the developing scholarship of environmental justice as an analytic framework for addressing complex environmental and social justice issues.
Australian natural resource governance has recently embarked on a new round of regional experimen... more Australian natural resource governance has recently embarked on a new round of regional experimentation. One decade after regional natural resource management bodies were established in response to ideals of devolution and subsidiarity, political commitments to 'localism' have resulted in a paradoxical shift to bigger regional boundaries, and an apparent retreat from values of environmental conservation. A retreat from government funded public good natural resource management has seen a growth in ideals of market instruments and an economic paradigm of productivity and profit begin to dominate. A long held divide between conservation and production landscape values has seen community engagement emerge as the battleground of rural environmental policy. Through two qualitative case studies of community governance mechanisms this paper examines how one Australian jurisdiction has responded to these challenges. Findings include a valuable role for best practice standards and compliance requirement in driving new norms of community engagement; a difficult balance between accountability and innovation in implementing community governance; and significant disruption caused by regular cycles of reform. Recommendations include developing community skills for participatory governance and the development of negotiated accountability frameworks that support rural governance innovation.
Natural resource management (NRM) is a complex public policy field, which challenges conventional... more Natural resource management (NRM) is a complex public policy field, which challenges conventional governance structures. Increasing the role of community in the protection, restoration and management of natural resources is a stated priority of ecologically sustainable development (ESD) principles. Despite a proliferation of legal requirements for public participation and non-legal guidelines that promote community access to environmental decision-making at both the international and national scale, implementation is often unsatisfactory and difficult to evaluate. There is a need to develop methodologies that can improve the design, implementation and evaluation of community engagement. Australia is a member of the United Nations and has participated in the development of international principles for public participation, most notably agreeing to the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21. The terminology of ESD appears in much environmental legislation developed at the national and intra-national level. This paper examines the role of international legal and non-legal frameworks in driving national reform. This paper suggests that existing international frameworks can connect social norms of public participation with legal norms of procedural justice to provide a pathway for improving governance in this complex area. The need to develop robust socio-legal methodologies that can assess implementation of ESD principles provides the impetus for this paper. A possible methodology is outlined, and early empirical results described.
Howard, T., 2015. The " rules of engagement " : A socio-legal framework for improving community e... more Howard, T., 2015. The " rules of engagement " : A socio-legal framework for improving community engagement in natural resource governance. Oñati Socio-legal Series [online], forthcoming. Available from: Abstract Increasing community action in natural resource governance is commonly seen as a pathway for improving decision making, enabling increased on-ground activity and facilitating widespread acceptance of government and industry legitimacy in managing natural resources. Other perspectives on community engagement see the promise of enriching existing or emerging democratic values by addressing the limitations of representative governance. While the practice of community engagement has been well described, more work needs to be done to understand the institutional factors that contribute to the expectations attached to these practices, and how the role of community in natural resource governance can be improved. This article presents findings from a review of academic and practitioner literature on the topics of community engagement and natural resource governance. 127 articles were reviewed and the resulting conceptual framework is described. A thematic analysis of the data-set was then conducted to further clarify and extend the research question. The results reveal a persistent focus on practical aspects of engaging community, without sufficient analysis of how institutional dynamics such as legal requirements, policy drivers and implementation contexts impact on the realities of community environmental governance. The paper concludes with future research directions in the pursuit of improving the role of community in natural resource governance. It is expected that the insights generated through this article will have relevance to other modern democratic societies and be of interest to environmental lawyers, policy makers and community advocates.
17th Annual Cotton Conference, Sep 1, 2014
ABSTRACT Imagine a future where cotton farms are run by sophisticated machines. Computerised syst... more ABSTRACT Imagine a future where cotton farms are run by sophisticated machines. Computerised systems monitor crop conditions; aerial drones collect real time information about your crop; pickers, gins and classers are operated by only a few people, in a 24 hour cycle dedicated to economic efficiency. Sounds like a productivity paradise! There’s only one thing missing…. viable and thriving cotton communities in rural and regional Australia.
Energy Policy, Mar 31, 2015
ABSTRACT In Australia, renewable energy is under pressure in the context of a highly politicised ... more ABSTRACT In Australia, renewable energy is under pressure in the context of a highly politicised debate about how to act on climate change. The recent repeal of an established carbon tax has seen the defunding of significant renewable energy initiatives and a controversial review of the national Renewable Energy Target is threatening key drivers for investment in renewable energy. The current regulatory focus on community 'acceptance' does not facilitate the active community support necessary to challenge this increasingly hostile policy context. This research considers current experiences of community engagement in wind farm governance in one Australian jurisdiction. Through documentary analysis and two qualitative case studies, it examines legal and non-legal requirements for community governance mechanisms and considers how these influence wind farm development in rural areas. Findings include a problematic reliance on procedural compliance in assessing wind farm consultation, domination by vested interests, and reduced expertise in community engagement at the time it is needed most. Recommendations include integration of best practice guidelines in current regulation; harmonisation of policy settings to ensure equity across energy sectors; and an evidence-based commitment to benefit sharing as a strategy for increasing community support of rural wind farm development.
International Journal of Rural Law and Policy, Mar 1, 2015
ABSTRACT Soils provide the foundation for agricultural and environmental systems and are subject ... more ABSTRACT Soils provide the foundation for agricultural and environmental systems and are subject to a complex governance regime of property rights and secondary impacts from industry and domestic land use. Complex natural resource management issues require approaches to governance that acknowledge uncertainty and complexity. Theories of new environmental governance assume that inclusion of diverse perspectives will improve reform directions and encourage behaviour change. This paper reports on a qualitative survey of an international workshop that brought together cross-disciplinary perspectives to address the challenges of soil governance. Results reveal the challenges of talking effectively across disciplines. The findings suggest that strategies for improved soils governance must focus on increasing communication with community stakeholders and engaging land managers in designing shared governance regimes. The need for more conscious articulation of the challenges of cross-disciplinary environments is discussed and strategies for increasing research collaboration in soils governance are suggested. The identified need for more systematic approaches to cross-disciplinary learning, including reporting back of cross-disciplinary initiatives to help practitioners learn from past experience, forms part of the rationale for this paper.