Participatory evaluation for landcare and catchment management groups: A guide for facilitators (original) (raw)
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Current Research in Environmental Sustainability, 2022
Participatory integrated assessment (PIA) emerged as a response to conventional integrated assessment methods in the mid-to-late 1990s. PIA is based on the tenet that more inclusive stakeholder involvement may lead to increased accountability and legitimacy in decision-making, greater levels of trust and social learning between participants, and improved quality and relevancy of knowledge outputs. In this paper, we conduct a systematic literature review to update and deepen our understanding of the approaches, methods, opportunities, and challenges associated with PIA as applied at the catchment scale. Of the total 278 studies identified in our literature search, only 37 catchment-level cases presented a clear PIA application. From our review, lessons learned were drawn in relation to the integration of less-easily quantified areas of social science, entry and exit planning in PIA, boundary work on issue cycles and accounting for the human dimension. We conclude that PIA is a potentially useful approach for navigating the dual social-ecological dimensions of current environmental and resource management issues, especially when projects include tailored objectives and methods, user-friendly outputs, and early and consistent stakeholder involvement. However, we also highlight gaps in the field concerning the integrative reach of PIA, PIA's real-world impact, and the relationship between PIA processes and outcomes along stages of environmental issue cycles. We conclude that further work is therefore still needed to help advance the field of PIA in both research and boundary work practice.
A Participatory Approach for Involving Communities in Catchment Management
In 1997 a catchment management group was established for the 290ha Mangaotama catchment at Whatawahata Research Centre. The group used a Concept Pyramid process to describe their goals and objectives for managing the catchment and as a basis to their decision making. Their goal was to have a well managed rural hill catchment and their subgoals were to create more: viable businesses, healthy ecosystems, protected landscape values, active partnerships, demonstrable environmental performance, and adequate rural services and infrastructure. Applying the Concept Pyramid, the group identified indicators for measuring the state of the underlying systems. They used rich pictures to identify the potential improvements that could be made to the management of the catchment. These recommendations are now being incorporated by the management group into management plans that will be implemented and evaluated over the next five years. The study has highlighted that by respecting each others' contributions, policy makers, scientists, and community members can work together when a systemic, multi-objective approach is taken to community decision making.
Integrating Catchment Ecosystems and Community Health: The Value of Participatory Action Research
Ecosystem Health, 2001
Understanding links between catchment management and community health demands consideration of complex bio-physical, socio-economic, and public health relationships. These relationships cut across a spectrum of health, environment and development considerations and highlight the need for appropriate and integrative modes of inquiry and decision making. What can Participatory Action Research (PAR) contribute towards achieving an integrated approach to catchment management and community health issues? In addition to a methodological overview of Participatory Action Research, this paper reviews other participatory, community, action, and ecosystems-based methods. Commonalities in principles and methods are highlighted across a number of fields of research and practice including rural and com-munity development, public health and health promotion, natural resource management, environmental health, and integrated ecosystem-based approaches. Lessons learned from application of Participatory Action Research are described in relation to a catchment and community health project, based in the Taieri River catchment, New Zealand. The case study emphasizes the importance of both horizontal and vertical connections between diverse coalitions of catchment stakeholders and the contribution of PAR cycles of inquiry, reflection, and action, toward this type of integration. Both generic and location-specific examples highlight the value of participatory methods that respond to the challenge of how to integrate the complex social and bio-physical processes that characterize human and ecosystem health.
Evaluating Catchment Partnerships: Avoiding a Watered Down Approach
2019
Catchment management was initially seen as a 'physical' need for the integration of water policy issues, but a collaborative approach has more recently emerged as a key feature in the Government's policy approach to decision making and implementation. Thus voluntary sector organisations (e.g. Rivers Trusts) are charged with leading multi-level partnerships to not only take on significant physical challenges, but to manage the 'partnership' that are increasingly seen as central to transformational change. The paper is contextualised against a 'Catchment Based Approach' Partnership in receipt of significant funding, to highlight the challenges of developing and the potential utility of an evaluation framework. We draw on and begin to explore a realist approach evaluation, to focus on the ways in which voluntary organisation led catchment partnerships can create the conditions that make environmental change possible. In doing so, we also proffer to enhance our understanding of the role of this vital subsector of civil society. 'Partnership working', 'collaboration' or 'working together' across sectors has a long history in England. It initially dates back to community development initiatives in the 1960s, placed at the very heart of government strategy as a 'third way' form of governance for delivery of public services with the Labour government across the turn of the century (1997-2008) and now under the current political climate we see the strong (and contested) emphasis or discourse on 'civil society'. The present government continues the narrative that has become familiar internationally over the past three decades or so, that Government alone cannot solve the complex challenges facing society. It is however only much more recently that the Government Department in England responsible for the environment, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), has decentralised any power and responsibility to the voluntary sector (Potter and Jacklin-Jarvis, 2018). Water management in England in particular has been typified by a topdown, technocratic and exclusionary approach to any participation (Benson et al., 2014). DEFRA first Catchment Based Partnerships-Increasing the Flow from Civil Society The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) launched the Catchment-Based Approach (CaBA) in 2011, signalling its intent that more locally focussed decision making and action should sit at the heart of the debate about the future direction of improvements to the water environment (Defra, 2013). DEFRA also expected that over time, the approach would become self-sustaining and mature as a mechanism for ensuring that there is strong local support, consensus, effective coordination and efficient channeling of existing and new funding and other resources to deliver local aspirations for the water environment (Defra, 2011). This change in intent also coincided with the new coalition Government's (Conservative/Liberal Democrat) localism agenda to decentralise power and responsibility (Potter and Jacklin-Jarvis, 2018). A National Support Group now champions the CaBA approach and supports partnerships nationally, chaired by and with secretariat support from the CEO and other members of the Rivers Trust, also comprising representatives of the other organisations involved in CaBA (e.g.
The International Journal of …, 2007
Australia has a fragile natural environment which has been radically altered over the past 200 years by land clearing for agriculture and urban development. It has become very urgent that measures are put in place to halt this degradation and in recent years federal and state governments have put in place various policies and funding mechanisms to encourage communities and landholders to take some responsibility for rehabilitating their natural environment. These policies and mechanisms are in a state of constant and ongoing change and this paper examines the effect of these changes on a local community based catchment group in Perth, Western Australia.
The International Journal of Environmental, Cultural, Economic, and Social Sustainability: Annual Review, 2007
Australia has a fragile natural environment which has been radically altered over the past 200 years by land clearing for agriculture and urban development. It has become very urgent that measures are put in place to halt this degradation and in recent years federal and state governments have put in place various policies and funding mechanisms to encourage communities and landholders to take some responsibility for rehabilitating their natural environment. These policies and mechanisms are in a state of constant and ongoing change and this paper examines the effect of these changes on a local community based catchment group in Perth, Western Australia.