TERMS OF ENGAGEMENT: CONSENSUS OR CONTROL IN REMOTE AUSTRALIAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT?

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Thomas G. Measham, Carol Richards, Cathy Robinson, Silva Larson and Lynn Brake

July 2009 ISSN: 1834-5638

Further information: Clive Spash - www.clivespash.org Bev Rose - bev.rose@csiro.au CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems GPO Box 284, Canberra ACT 2601 Australia www.csiro.au © CSIRO 2007. All rights reserved. This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cwlth), no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the Commonwealth.

Terms of Engagement: Consensus or Control in Remote Australian Resource Management?

Thomas G. Measham1, Carol Richards2, Cathy Robinson3, Silva Larson4 and

Lynn Brake5

ABSTRACT Community based natural resource management (NRM) has seen a shift in the discourse from participation to engagement, reflecting a focus on increasingly active citizen involvement in management and action. This paper considers this shift in relation to two contrasting theoretical perspectives. The first is deliberative democracy, drawing on Habermas, which emphasises the importance of discussing and rationalising values and actions. The second is governmentality, or ‘governing through community’ which draws on Foucault, emphasising neo-liberal management styles and ‘self-help’. In considering the empirical relevance of these theoretical perspectives, this paper draws on a case study of public engagement in NRM in the Lake Eyre Basin, a remote, inland region of Australia. This research yielded a practical set of “factors for success” for public engagement in remote areas. The findings support the view that, especially in remote regions, public engagement in NRM reflects contrasting goals. We make two conclusions. First, that these contrasting objectives emphasise the tension between deliberative and neo-liberal conceptualisations of engagement; and second, the evidence for neo-liberal interpretations of engagement are stronger than for deliberative interpretations of engagement in the case study region. Keywords: participation, decentralisation, governmentality, deliberation

1 CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, GPO Box 284, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia tom.measham@csiro.au 2 School of Social Science, University of Queensland, St Lucia QLD 4103, Australia 3 CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, 306 Carmody Rd, St Lucia QLD 4067, Australia 4 CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Davies Laboratory, Aitkenvale QLD 4814, Australia 5 University of South Australia, GPO Box 2471, Adelaide SA 5001, Australia

T.G. Measham, C. Richards, C. Robinson, S. Larson and L. Brake

INTRODUCTION

Public, or community, engagement is a key feature of collaborative approaches to

NRM (Petts, 2006; Kellert et al., 2000; Lane et al., 2007). This type of interaction

goes beyond stakeholder engagement, i.e. the involvement of a discrete set of

interest holders (AccountAbility, 2005; UNEP, 2001). Public engagement is

concerned with incorporating residents and communities of interest in a range of

NRM dimensions such as ecological restoration and catchment management, and

environmental conservation across urban to rural environments (Petts, 2007; Leach

et al., 2005; Rogers, 2005). One way to consider public engagement is that it is a

sign of healthy democratic functioning in society (Skocpol and Fiorina, 1999). By

contrast other authors draw attention to the practical benefits of public engagement

for more effective implementation of NRM programs, and to overcome some of the

widely noted limitations of implementing NRM (Leach et al., 1999; Broderick, 2005).

There is an increasing need to critically consider public engagement and its role in

NRM governance in relation to empirical evidence (Jordan, 2008). In this paper we

consider the role of public engagement in relation to two theoretical perspectives:

deliberative democracy and ‘governmentality’. In doing so, we present an empirical

case study of defining the ‘factors for successful engagement’ in a remote area of

Australia, as perceived by local residents and government managers.

Recent interest in public engagement builds upon the established focus on

participatory environmental management, developed in the wake of heavy criticism

of top-down regulation (Kapoor, 2001). Public engagement can be seen as moving

beyond passive participation to a focus on generating shared understanding and

mutually acceptable agenda for resource management held by multiple actors. It

emphasises actively reaching out to voices that are infrequently heard (Bloomfield et

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Terms of Engagement: Consensus or Control in Remote Australian Resource Management?

al., 2001). In the domain of NRM, public engagement is defined as ‘processes and

practices in which a wide range of people work together to achieve a shared goal’

(Aslin and Brown, 2004).

The rise of engagement has been accelerated by the shift towards

decentralised governance for NRM throughout the world (Larson and Ribot, 2004;

Lane and McDonald, 2005). While the aspiration of decentralisation is nominally that

local and regional communities should have a say in the management of resources,

questions have been raised over the extent to which governments have devolved

adequate rights and resources to match this responsibility (Agrawal and Ostrom,

2001). In particular, it has been suggested that adequate discretionary powers to

manage natural resources are rarely conferred, limiting power to effect change

(Ribot, 2003; Herbert-Cheshire, 2000).

In the next section we consider public engagement from two contrasting

perspectives, drawing on Habermas and Foucault respectively. Following this we

present a case study concerned with empirically defining what makes public

engagement successful in a remote area of Australia from the perspectives of

government officers and community residents. The case study is discussed in

relation to the two contrasting theoretical perspectives (in a similar way to Boonstra

and Frouws, 2005).

Engagement in Theory and Practice

One way to conceptualise public engagement is as an example of the ‘deliberative

turn’ in environmental planning, namely a shift away from simply ‘majority rules’

towards authentic, collective engagement on decisions about matters which concern

us in any given context (Dryzek, 2000; Habermas, 1984, 1987; Parkins and Mitchell,

2005). This conceptualisation is consistent with the promise of community-based

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T.G. Measham, C. Richards, C. Robinson, S. Larson and L. Brake

NRM, with an emphasis on involving community members directly in the

management of resources at the local and regional scale (Kellert et al., 2000). An

important question is whether deliberative and inclusive processes lead to improved

social or environmental outcomes (Bloomfield et al., 2001; Robinson et al.,

forthcoming). In the case of resource management, there are some examples of

satisfactory outcomes, sometimes expressed in terms of improved quality of

decisions (Beierle and Konisky, 2001; Ribot, 2004; Eames, 2008). However there is

widespread recognition that due to the practicalities of decentralised NRM, public

engagement frequently falls short of delivering its promise. Particularly in developing

countries, centralised governments have been reluctant to devolve adequate power

to regional communities, resulting in empty or limited deliberation (Leach et al., 1999;

Ribot, 2003). In developed countries, there are more positive signs but there

remains a question over the capacity of rural communities to adequately participate,

and concerns over the legitimacy of engagement processes which may be

manipulated by powerful elites (Niemeyer and Spash, 2001; Robins and Dovers,

2007).

An alternative way of conceptualising decentralised NRM is in terms of a neo-

liberal reduction in state directed management of natural resources and assistance

for land resource managers (Holifield, 2004; Liverman and Vilas, 2006). In the place

of more direct modes of managing resources, since the late 20th Century policies

have focused on shaping the context in which management occurs, setting policy

‘targets’, while leaving actual management decisions and actions to individuals

operating in a private sector environment (Higgins and Lockie, 2002; Summerville et

al., 2008). Public engagement in this context relates to the notion of self-

improvement for individuals and communities through engaging in NRM initiatives

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Terms of Engagement: Consensus or Control in Remote Australian Resource Management?

(Cheshire, 2006). This conceptualisation partly explains the plethora of self-help

guide books for NRM amongst other topics (see eg. Johnson, 2006; Kelly, 2006).

An important question stemming from this conceptualisation concerns the

extent to which self-help actions by individuals constitute genuine participation

(Edwards, 1998). Cheshire (2006:139) argues that whilst this mode of governance

emphasises the importance of local decision making, it does not mean that

individuals and communities are able to pursue their own interests. Rather, their

conduct is managed by the state ‘at a distance’ where, in Foucauldian terms,

regulatory disciplinary mechanisms result in self-governing by politically docile

citizens who are ‘free’ to choose to align their conduct with the priorities of the state.

Considering de-centralised NRM governance in this manner, the role for community

engagement diverges from one of deliberation over fundamental questions towards a

role of accepting the conditions under which NRM programs are carried out in order

to implement the strategic plans and targets of governments (Cheshire, 2000, 2006;

Kington et al., 2008).

Alongside the question of how to conceptualise engagement in theoretical

terms, a prominent topic of inquiry has been how to achieve public engagement in

practical terms. For example, Wondolleck and Yaffee (2000) focus on the logistics of

engagement by establishing local ownership of problems, building shared

understandings, and being inclusive, with a distinct focus on helping practitioners

make collaboration work. A number of researchers have since attempted to distil

lessons and present guidelines for effective engagement in different NRM contexts

(Aslin and Brown, 2004; Rogers, 2005; Nelson and Pettit, 2004). It is in this vein that

the case study presented in this paper was conducted: to identify the ‘success

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T.G. Measham, C. Richards, C. Robinson, S. Larson and L. Brake

factors’ contributing to effective public engagement in the Lake Eyre Basin of

Australia.

ENGAGEMENT ‘SUCCESS FACTORS’ IN LAKE EYRE BASIN

The Lake Eyre Basin (herein the Basin) is a large arid area constituted by substantial

portions of the states of South Australia, Queensland and Northern Territory, as well

as a small portion of New South Wales (Figure 1). The Basin is characterised by low

and variable rainfall and occasional floods which drain into Lake Eyre. Regionally

based NRM groups are tasked with engagement with local residents, state

governments and the Federal Government to apply public priorities through local

actions. Three such boards overlap significantly with the Basin: Northern Territory

NRM Board, South Australian Arid Lands NRM Board and Desert Channels

Queensland. In addition, a thin slice of the New South Wales Western Catchments

NRM Board overlaps with the eastern fringe of the Basin. In terms of its social

characteristics it features a small, sparse and unevenly distributed population, with

town centres mostly around the edges of the Basin itself, including Alice Springs,

Longreach and Broken Hill. At approximately 1.2 million square kilometres, it covers

around one-sixth of the Australian landmass and is among the world’s largest

internally draining river systems (LEBA, 2009). The population features a relatively

high proportion of Indigenous residents compared with the national average. Key

economic activities include mining, pastoralism and tourism. The Basin is valued for

its unique ecosystems, which support rare and endangered plant and animal species

(LEBA, 2009; Herr et al., 2009).

The NRM governance of the Basin is a complicated and overlapping mix of

local, regional, state and Basin specific arrangements (Larson, 2009), as is

characteristic of Australian NRM governance in general (Everingham et al., 2006).

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Terms of Engagement: Consensus or Control in Remote Australian Resource Management?

Spurred by a request from the Lake Eyre Basin Community Advisory Committee

(see LEBA, 2009 for an overview), the project team were commissioned to develop a

program of research including: 1) a social and economic profile of the Basin; 2)

identifying ‘success factors’ for public engagement in NRM relevant to the Basin; 3)

case studies of key NRM issues affecting regional NRM organisations within the

Basin; and 4) developing a monitoring and evaluation framework. The focus of this

article is on the second component of the research program. For more information

on the other components see Larson et al. (2009) and Measham and Brake (2009).

The rationale for identifying ‘success factors’ for engagement in NRM was

strongly influenced by the geography of the Basin, a remote, arid region of Australia

characterised by sparse populations, variable access to resources and distance from

decision making centres such as capital cities, which complicated engagement

between residents and other stakeholders (Stafford Smith, 2008). The difficulties

faced by remote regions in Australia is characterised by the lack of resources and

the spatial scale of environmental challenges, compared to more densely settled

regions. This was illustrated by Robins and Dovers (2007) who sorted all 56

Australian formal NRM regions into 10 classes based on their area, funding

allocations, remoteness, distance to decision making centres and proximity to

research facilities. Their results imply an uneven playing field for conducting NRM,

with remote parts of Queensland and South Australia generally disadvantaged

compared to denser settled areas. Compounding the relative lack of resources for

arid and remote regions is the intensity of the challenges faced by these regions.

Issues that are common to rural Australia - such as drought, declining terms of trade,

threatened profitability and population decline - are compounded by the sheer size,

isolation and harsh climatic conditions in remote and arid lands (Herbert-Cheshire,

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T.G. Measham, C. Richards, C. Robinson, S. Larson and L. Brake

2000). Given these characteristics, achieving effective engagement between

residents and policy makers poses additional challenges.

METHODS

The research presented in this paper involved three components, described below.

• Interviews with government NRM Liaison Officers

• Interviews with Lake Eyre Basin residents

• Workshops with regional NRM management organisations.

Although decentralised NRM in Australia is conducted by a network of 56

regional organisations, federal and state governments assign ‘Liaison Officers’ to

oversee the regional system. These officers engage directly with their respective

regional groups and help administer state and federal grants to these organisations.

Given the key role of these individuals in the mechanics of regional governance, they

were invited to take part in an in depth interview to help address the research

questions posed through this study. A total of eight regional Liaison Officers were

identified as being responsible for different parts of Lake Eyre Basin from the

perspectives of state and federal governments. All eight officers agreed to a semi-

structured interview conducted by two of the authors. The interview questions

focused on:

• Roles and expectations for regional NRM organisations

• Characteristics of successful NRM interactions

• Personal stories of successful projects

• Challenges facing public engagement

• Potential measures of successful engagement .

For further details see Measham and Brake (2009).

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Terms of Engagement: Consensus or Control in Remote Australian Resource Management?

Due to the expansive study area and the sparse nature of populations, the

research team employed a ‘community-based researcher’ approach to conduct

interviews with residents of the Lake Eyre Basin. The strategy was developed in line

with methodological principles proposed by Rea and Young (2006) and Leung et al.

(2004). This strategy is particularly suited in contexts where researchers would take

a long time to build up sufficient trust and networks for interviewees to feel

sufficiently comfortable to take part in an interview.

Five community-based researchers were recruited and provided with

equipment, a small allowance, a set of interview questions and training conducted by

the project team, involving practice interviews. The questions provided to

community-interviewers were the same as those for government Liaison Officers

discussed above. Community-interviewers were encouraged to approach potential

interviewees through their own networks, whilst being mindful to seek representation

across basic demographic factors and industry sectors. The five community-based

researchers interviewed between 8 and 12 participants each, resulting in 49

interviewees in total. Those interviewed included pastoralists, rural consultants, local

business operators, members of Landcare groups (i.e. grassroots environmental

organisations – see Curtis and Lockwood (2000) for a discussion), local council

officials, mining industry staff, and ‘on the-ground’ NRM Project Officers working with

regional NRM organisations.

Both sets of interviews were recorded and transcribed. The project team

conducted qualitative analysis of both sets of interviews. Analysis involved grouping

the interviews into key themes with the assistance of NVivo software (QSR, 2009).

The analysis was conducted by three of the authors of this paper. The analysts

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T.G. Measham, C. Richards, C. Robinson, S. Larson and L. Brake

compared emerging themes and settled on the set which formed the basis for this

paper.

Following the interview analysis, two workshops were conducted with the

managers and field staff from two regional NRM organisations in the Basin: The

South Australia Arid Lands Board and Desert Channels Queensland. The

workshops were attended by 11 and 6 participants respectively. At these

workshops, the initial findings from the interviews were presented for feedback and

confirmation. Staff were asked how these findings related to their own work and

experiences of public engagement.

RESULTS

The findings from each set of interviews are presented sequentially. The first section

presents the findings of interviews with Regional Liaison Officers (government

perspectives), while the second section presents views of the local residents

(community perspectives).

Government Perspectives

There was a general perspective from government Liaison Officers that, across

Australia, NRM boards varied enormously in the degree to which they were

perceived as ‘community organisations’ versus ‘another arm of government’. In the

case of the Lake Eyre Basin, two of the regional NRM organisations (SAAL NRM

Board and NT NRM Board) have specific statutory powers and operate under

government legislation, whilst DCQ strongly distances itself from government and

presents itself as an independent organisation (yet receives the majority of its

funding directly from state and federal programs).

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Terms of Engagement: Consensus or Control in Remote Australian Resource Management?

Government interviewees emphasised the importance of long term on-ground

staff who have the necessary experience, respect and credibility that underpin

effective engagement. Staff need both the capacity to tune in to government

agendas and processes and the rapport to interact with diverse community needs

and expectations. A major challenge for remote regions is attracting staff in the first

place, as well as retaining them. A key issue to achieving this is being able to offer

adequate tenure for new staff. This is particularly true when needing staff who can

perform the multiple and diverse roles frequently required in regional NRM.

Government interviewees noted that ‘getting out on the ground’ and spending

time in the field with the stakeholders is an important factor in successful

engagement in remote areas. They were aware of the inherent challenges of doing

so in remote areas given the large areas and small number of staff. They noted that

this required strong commitment from regional NRM organisations. Interviewees

noted that in the Northern Territory, the regional jurisdiction extends well beyond the

Basin and only one regional officer is physically located within the Basin (Alice

Springs), with the remainder being located in Darwin. The officer located in Alice

Springs was seen as a critical investment in on-ground staff. A local presence plays

a huge role in fostering community input into planning and delivery of NRM

initiatives. Successful on-ground facilitators are approachable and know how to

interact with different organisations and sectors.

Successful NRM engagement was considered to involve reviewing and

adapting engagement processes. At the organisational level, this involves reviewing

internal governance processes including adjusting the composition of board citizen

representatives from time to time. At the individual level, staff also need to be

adaptive in terms of how to engage with different sectors or organisations and take

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T.G. Measham, C. Richards, C. Robinson, S. Larson and L. Brake

note that over time community perspectives can change. Part of this flexibility

involves identifying emerging priorities and the most effective ways to address these.

Regional organisations need to pay attention to new research on key issues such as

pests and seek to apply suitable technologies to address those challenges. It was

also noted that regional organisations have a role in identifying gaps in knowledge

and policy responses, and being flexible about working on those gaps with other

agencies.

Government Liaison Officers emphasised that regional NRM organisations

need to be determined to engage remote communities due to the particular

challenges of remote environments. Being determined and adaptive about the

manner in which engagement is conducted were thought to achieve successful

outcomes across the greater distances and environmental characteristics of the

Basin. Dealing with government programs also requires patience and persistence.

Over time, developing an understanding of the avenues within the policy

environment can provide access to important information and knowledge.

Government agencies have developed processes to ensure investments are

accounted for and appropriate outcomes are achieved. Continued investment

depends on being able to achieve the milestones that policy frameworks dictate. On

the other hand, community support depends on timely and significant outcomes that

satisfy community interests. Central to the success of regional NRM engagement is

achieving the milestones as defined by government agencies to maintain

transparency, whilst interpreting these in a way that is regionally relevant. Apart

from the strategic skill in navigating this, it is also recognised that meeting

compliance requirements under the regional NRM model requires substantial

resources in terms of time and money, in addition to the resources required for the

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Terms of Engagement: Consensus or Control in Remote Australian Resource Management?

engagement activities. One element of the adequacy of resources concerned how

those resources are managed. To successfully engage the public, regional NRM

organisations should have a degree of flexibility in managing their resources, and

conduct ‘self assessment’ to improve internal management of resources.

Recognising the value of partnerships and relationships is a crucial element of

successful engagement particularly in remote areas where NRM is considered more

time consuming and expensive. Crucial partners noted for regional organisations

were the government agencies responsible for the problems in question, as well as

research organisations, particularly when it comes to engaging with the public on

new challenges. It was noted that some of the regional NRM challenges were

generally understood (eg. weed and feral animal management) whilst others were

less understood (eg. the effect of climate change) and partnerships can assist with

these.

Regional NRM organisations are governed by a board of residents who,

officially, are selected based on their skills and knowledge. However, it was

generally agreed that those regional organisations that are successful at engaging

the public, are also representative of spatial areas and industry sectors (eg.

pastoralism and tourism). Achieving representation helps to develop a collective

vision and tune into community needs. Importantly, collective vision cannot simply

apply at the local scale. It also requires alignment across jurisdictions and scales of

influence.

Most participants emphasised the importance of maintaining and improving

communication, which can be more difficult across the great differences associated

with remote locations. Participants suggested that the key to achieving effective

communication was in part related to flexibility and the ability to adapt, such as

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T.G. Measham, C. Richards, C. Robinson, S. Larson and L. Brake

through use of different communications techniques and using feedback to align,

assess and adjust.

Community Perspectives

Inevitably, many of the NRM challenges identified by Basin residents were related to

its sheer scale. A number of the interviewees noted how the Basin area covered

one-sixth of the Australian land mass, and contained a wide diversity of people,

landscapes and management problems. With this scale also come issues of

distance and time – many of those interviewed felt that regional NRM organisations

were not always sensitive to the time taken to travel long distances to meetings.

Residents highlighted the need to ensure that not all meetings were in central

regions because ‘people on the fringes feel excluded and they tend to disregard

what’s happening’. The ‘huge amount of time and money’ required for engagement,

given these geographical realities, was also noted. A key issue for community

residents was that policy meetings and planning processes which affect the Basin

should be held within the Basin itself. For example it was noted as important that the

LEB Ministerial Forum (where Ministers and their advisors from the Federal

Government and each of the States come together to discuss current topics relevant

to LEB) is actually held within the Basin, so that residents can observe or even take

part.

Having acknowledged that the sheer scale of the Basin is somewhat

overwhelming for interviewees in terms of NRM, participants emphasised the

importance of local engagement. Many of those interviewed identified more with

localised and smaller scale projects, revealing how trust and working partnerships

took place at this scale.

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Terms of Engagement: Consensus or Control in Remote Australian Resource Management?

Participants noted that it was difficult to allocate time and resources to get

engaged in additional NRM burdens while trying to maintain successful businesses

and cash flow with variable incomes. In this way, the effects of the seasons directly

influence individuals’ ability to engage in NRM. Seasonal variability over long

periods of time was also reported to hinder the assessment of whether given NRM

projects had been successful. Interviewees noted that grant programs tend to have

short timeframes which neither match the longer timeframes of desert regions nor

provide security for attracting staff to NRM roles, thus the staff with whom the public

engage tend to leave before the outcomes of their interactions become apparent.

During the interviews, many Basin residents noted that, in relation to NRM

issues, there were a small number of community leaders who take on more roles

than others. These people were highly valued by the community and tended to be

engaged at a number of levels, often beyond issues of NRM, such as involvement in

local progress associations or in organising sporting events. One negative aspect of

their involvement in numerous community projects and events was the tendency of

these people to be overburdened, often taking on roles because ‘no one else would

do them’. It was noted that taking on too many roles can cause people to become

stretched too far and they ‘burn-out’ i.e. become disaffected to the point of

abandoning their commitments. Many interviewees argued this issue was more

acute in remote areas where population numbers are lower yet the number of roles

to be filled is similar to more densely settled areas, as reflected by the following

quote:

“It’s a challenge. Because the cost is huge, because of the distances involved

and the logistics. The isolation is enormous. [There is] social exhaustion.

There’s such a small handful of people that you wear out and get exhausted.”

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T.G. Measham, C. Richards, C. Robinson, S. Larson and L. Brake

In the case of volunteers serving on regional committees and the like,

providing effective compensation for travel and related costs and above all greater

recognition of their efforts would go some way to alleviating ‘burn-out’ and encourage

others to get involved.

Along with government interviewees, many of the community residents

interviewed placed a high priority on communications. Interviewees identified that

good communication occurs when NRM staff are able to engage residents one to

one. In particular, making an effort to visit pastoral properties and discuss matters in

person was important as it provided valued access to relevant staff. Clearly

articulating the roles of a given NRM organisation was a crucial basis for successful

engagement, and also raised the profile of that organisation in the eyes of

participants. The ability to listen to, and consider, community needs was a key issue

rather than pre-empting those needs. Participants emphasised the importance of

individual ‘translators’ who convey information between different actors and

knowledge domains. Maintaining transparency in communicating with the public was

also identified as important. When successful, there was a perception that

communication can avoid ‘reinventing the wheel’ and also strengthen existing

networks and promote trust. Achieving this trust requires treating people fairly and

respecting different perspectives and interests.

Somewhat incongruously, participants also expressed a strong concern that

there should be ‘less talk and more action’. For some participants, the desire for

more ‘on the ground action’ was in response to the bureaucratic nature of regional

NRM organisations – where too much time was spent in ‘talkfests’, and large

volumes of paperwork detracted from tangible action. For many, engagement

processes that occurred at the local level and were directly linked to visible

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Terms of Engagement: Consensus or Control in Remote Australian Resource Management?

management activities proved that the local population was being listened to, and

confirmed that they had an important role to play in NRM planning and actions.

Workshops with Regional Groups

Following the interviews, the workshops provided feedback on the findings of both

sets of interviews and compared the findings with the experiences of staff from

regional NRM organisations that represent the interface between community

residents and government policy audiences. The workshops assisted the authors to

distil the themes into a short summary presented in Table 1.

TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE

The workshops allowed each of the regional organisations to reflect upon their

own experiences with public engagement and the challenges they face. There were

some distinctions between the two groups, one being a longer established

organisation with a history of working closely with community residents on NRM

activities. The other group was relatively newly established and was a statutory

authority of a state government, making it more difficult to portray themselves as

independent to residents. These distinctions are presented in Box 1 below.

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T.G. Measham, C. Richards, C. Robinson, S. Larson and L. Brake

Box 1: Different experiences of engagement

Group 1: Constrained by statutory arrangements

Due to their statutory obligations and funding arrangements Group 1 were limited in

their ability to engage residents beyond discussing the delivery of specific priorities

and policies defined by state and federal agencies. In terms of human resources,

they were more exposed to the challenges facing public offices in remote regions,

including high staff turnover and skills shortages. Accordingly, they had a

disadvantage from an engagement point of view due to the need for new recruits to

start again to build trust, or the tendency to rely heavily on a small core of longer

term officers. In response to these challenges the group was carefully building local

networks as well as meeting their statutory obligations.

Group 2: Flexibility to engage effectively

Due to more flexible statutory arrangements, the second group was able to engage

with local residents on a wider range of topics and to adapt the format of public

engagement accordingly. While the group was directly involved in delivering the

policies and programs of state and federal governments, it had a greater ability to

tailor these to local priorities (and in some cases reject policy guidelines if they did

not suit local conditions). The group was more able to listen to and act upon the

priorities of local residents, which assisted them to build trust. In contrast to common

problems of staff turnover and skills shortages in remote areas, the group attracted

and retained skilled and experienced staff, due to a track record of fruitful interaction

with the public.

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Terms of Engagement: Consensus or Control in Remote Australian Resource Management?

DISCUSSION

The rhetoric of regional NRM emphasises community discussion and collective

decision making (Agrawal and Ostrom, 2001; Whelan and Oliver, 2005), but the

empirical evidence demonstrates a difference between rhetoric and reality, a

distinction that is noted in a wide range of contexts (Boonstra and Frouws 2005;

Ribot 2004; Lane and Williams 2008). This inconsistency is at least partly explained

by the conflicting goals inherent in NRM, for example those of residents compared

with non-residents, and those of the public and private sectors (Lane et al.,

forthcoming). The case study presented here highlights tensions faced within

regional NRM organisations in particular, who are tasked with being ‘the voice of

community’ while simultaneously aligning with government priorities; to be

independent whilst being effective partners, to be determined yet adaptive.

In considering the central question posed in this paper, i.e. to what extent can

public engagement in NRM be interpreted as deliberative democracy or as governing

through community, the case study presents some evidence for both interpretations,

but more evidence in favour of the latter, drawing on Foucauldian theory (Herber-

Cheshire, 2000). Reflecting the discourses of deliberation, community residents

emphasised the importance of independence. Both government and resident

perspectives noted the importance of communication. However, communication

alone does not constitute deliberation. Residents emphasised the importance of

respect and considerate listening as key elements of successful engagement. By

contrast, they also focused on ‘getting on with the job’, which lends itself to a more

instrumental interpretation of public engagement, and NRM in general. Rather than

endorsing the Habermasian notion of rationalising one’s values and arguments

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T.G. Measham, C. Richards, C. Robinson, S. Larson and L. Brake

through communicative action, Basin residents rejected ‘talkfests’ in favour of local

action.

The evidence from the government liaison interviews was more

straightforward. The clearly articulated emphasis on aligning public engagement

efforts with government priorities provides strong evidence that public engagement is

simply a mechanism to achieve a policy agenda. In essence, public engagement is

seen as a mechanism to encourage residents to make choices within a heavily

constrained set of options, and to take up subsidies for actions specified by given

policies. This strongly reflects the notion of neo-liberal programs aimed at shaping

behaviour within a narrow range of rewards and penalties (Higgins and Lockie,

2002). In this context, ‘effective’ engagement was conceptualised as that which best

serves the short-term interests of state and federal bureaucracies rather than

regional community concerns. The findings of this research are consistent with the

work of Farrelly (2005) who found that prescriptive management and limited genuine

community engagement led to mistrust and alienation amongst residents. In other

cases, policy concerns over the potential outcomes from genuine public engagement

have been linked with disbanding democratically oriented governance arrangements

(Darbas, 2008).

Our results highlight that regional differences in governance arrangements

can make a big difference. Although each of the three regional NRM organisations

within the case study area were government funded, two were extensions of state

governments and one was an independent incorporated body. This translated into

two important distinctions. The first of these concerned the area of discretionary

funds. The state authorities had less discretion in the use of resources, which made

it more difficult for them to adapt their management decisions to local priorities. This

19

Terms of Engagement: Consensus or Control in Remote Australian Resource Management?

finding was consistent with the work of Ribot (2003) who emphasised that

discretionary resources were a crucial pre-requisite to democratic delivery of regional

NRM. A second distinction was that the non-statutory organisation also had the

freedom to publicly comment on the priorities of governments, and had been known

to oppose some policies. This freedom of speech went a long way to promote trust

with local residents and to facilitate successful engagement processes (Whelan and

Oliver, 2005; Skocpol and Fiorina, 1999). These issues concern the relative

autonomy of regional organisations and our case study demonstrates that autonomy

is particularly sensitive in remote regions, because these regions are more different

(socially and ecologically) and more distant from regions where external decisions

are generated (Stafford Smith, 2008).

Some community interview participants were concerned about the role of

NRM regional bodies because governments were perceived to have passed on the

responsibility for NRM to regional bodies but not necessarily the power to set their

own agendas. This concerns directly echoes the concerns of regional NRM in

Australia (Lane et al., 2004; Marshall, 2008) and de-centralised NRM in general

(Agrawal and Ostrom, 2001). There was also a concern that the regional NRM

organisations constituted another layer of bureaucracy with their own paper work

and ‘talkfests’. For these reasons, residents frequently conceptualised regional NRM

organisations (both statutory and non-statutory) as ‘de facto governments’ in that

they are government funded and appear to do the work of government. This reflects

the overall complexity of the Australian NRM governance system comprising

overlapping government agencies and quasi-government entities which span

different scales and roles (Everingham et al., 2006). Above all, the community

interviews draw attention to the overall lack of autonomy of regional groups, and the

20

T.G. Measham, C. Richards, C. Robinson, S. Larson and L. Brake

need for more independence in public engagement. These concerns are consistent

with the limitations of decentralised governance in Australia noted by Boxelaar et al.

(2006).

Empirically, this paper demonstrates that public engagement in the case study

area relies heavily upon community champions. Many of these active citizens

volunteer their services through a number of local organisations in addition to NRM

regional NRM organisations. The problem of ‘burn-out’ was regularly reported,

revealing the downside of public engagement in remote locations where community

action substitutes for government management (Cheshire, 2006). The issue of

relying heavily on volunteer efforts to achieve environmental outcomes is also known

to arise in urban areas (Measham and Barnett, 2007), however, it may be particularly

acute in remote areas where populations are small and sparse (Stafford Smith,

2008).

CONCLUSION

In considering the theoretical question of whether public engagement in regional

NRM can be conceptualised more in terms of deliberative democracy or in terms of

governing through community, we present two conclusions based on our case study.

First, the evidence for viewing engagement as governing through community was

much stronger than the evidence for viewing engagement as a deliberative process

in its own right. Second, there was strong evidence of active resistance on behalf of

community residents against the ‘de facto’ government of regional NRM

organisations.

We conclude also that the role of context is also important, as the case study

area contained neighbouring regions where the experience of engagement and the

21

Terms of Engagement: Consensus or Control in Remote Australian Resource Management?

governance processes underpinning it were distinct. Underlying this is a set of

tensions between the different purposes of what engagement is about, causing a

multitude of competing demands: To be independent yet maintain effective

partnerships; to be the voice of the community whilst being in alignment with

government priorities; to achieve public and private benefits, and to be determined

yet adaptive. All of these are complicated by the realities of remote regions: sparse

populations, long ecological cycles, and distance from centres of government.

Public engagement is likely to continue to play a major role in NRM. For

these reasons, understanding the principles and techniques of engagement is

crucial. This paper has outlined key features of successful engagement for remote

areas such as Lake Eyre Basin region of Australia. Recognising that there are

different dimensions to engagement – deliberative and instrumental – is an important

step towards understanding and supporting public engagement processes that can

be mutually satisfactory for multiple parties.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The impetus for this research came from the Lake Eyre Basin Community Advisory

Committee. Funding for this research was provided by the Desert Knowledge

Cooperative Research Centre. Thanks to Toni Darbas and Clive Spash for helpful

comments on an earlier version of this paper, and to Alex Herr for cartographic

assistance.

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Figure 1. Lake Eyre Basin study area

Table 1. Factors for successful NRM engagement according to government and community interviews

Factors identified by all Factors identified by government participants

Factors identified by community residents

Developing trust Being transparent Independence

Adequate resourcing Determination to achieve outcomes

Respecting desert timeframes

Effective communication Being adaptive Getting on with the job

Being inclusive Aligning efforts with government priorities

Avoiding ‘burnout’