1. No category

Developments Down under
- current trends in science and policy
for managing Australian landscapes
NCEAS 13 September 2007
Andrew Campbell
1
Outline
• Australian context
• Learning for Sustainability
• The role of knowledge
• Improving knowledge systems
• Introducing AEON
2
My perspectives
• Farming background south-eastern Australia
• Forestry & rural sociology training
• Extension officer
• National Landcare Facilitator
• Post-grad studies, Holland & France
• Senior Executive, Australian Government
• 7 years as CEO of Land & Water Australia
• Triple Helix Consulting
– landscapes, lifestyles & livelihoods
3
Australia: the continent
•
Area comparable to mainland US
•
7% to 10% of world’s species
•
oldest, most isolated continent
•
oldest living life forms, tallest flowering plants
•
largest areas of coral reef and sea-grass
•
Mega-diverse, extraordinary endemism
1350 endemic vertebrate spp
•
37,000km coastline
•
3rd largest fishing zone
The driest, flattest, most poorly drained, nutrient
depleted and geologically stable continent
5
The lowest run-off and streamflow of any continent,
and the world’s most variable climate
High
0.7
Australian lowland rivers
Means that Australian lowland rivers
are the most variable on Earth
0.6
0.5
Index of
Variability
(Martin Thoms)
0.4
0.3
Colorado
0.2
Mississippi
cooper
limpopo
vaa
fit
ura
hua
ree
god
son
colorado
nth
yangtze
sth
missis
vis
syr
0
sao
Low
amazon
0.1
Based on Puckridge et al (1998)
Perth’s Annual Storage Inflow GL (1911-2005)
1000
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
Annual inflow
1911–1974 (338 GL av)
1975–1996 (177 GL av)
Notes: * year is taken as May to April and labelled year is beginning (winter) of year
** inflow is simulated based on Perth dams in 2001 and 2005 is total until 3 August 2005
1997–2004 (115 GL av)
2004
2001
1998
1995
1992
1989
1986
1983
1980
1977
1974
1971
1968
1965
1962
1959
1956
1953
1950
1947
1944
1941
1938
1935
1932
1929
1926
1923
1920
1917
1914
0
1911
Total annual* inflow** to Perth dams (GL)
900
through the macroscope
• a small young nation in a vast ancient continent
• unique biological & cultural richness and diversity
in a highly variable climate
• at the sharp end of global climate change
• communities on-side
• few people and dollars per unit landscape
• malleable institutions, an open economy
• sufficient know-how to make progress
• the sustainability journey is the challenge of our age
8
Sustainability issues are typically
characterised by (after Dovers):
• highly variable spatial and temporal scales
• the possibility of absolute ecological limits
• irreversible impacts and related policy urgency
• complexity, connectivity, uncertainty & ambiguity
• cumulative rather than discrete impacts
• value-laden issues & new moral dimensions
• systemic problem causes
• contested methods and instruments
• ill-defined property rights and responsibilities
• expectation of stakeholder/citizen participation
9
The integration challenge
• Managing whole landscapes
- “where nature meets culture” (Schama)
- landscapes are socially constructed
- beyond ‘ecological apartheid’
- sustainability means people management
- engage values, perceptions, aspirations, behaviour
• Integration
-across issues – e.g climate, energy & water
-across scales
-across the triple helix
-landscapes, lifestyles & livelihoods
10
The Australian Natural Resource
Management (NRM) Policy Context
Lots to like about the overall approach:
•
Agreement on the big issues & need for coordinated, ‘joined up government’
•
Unprecedented commitment from PM down, reflected in CoAG agenda & $$
•
Primary industries increasingly seeing NRM as their business (if not yet ‘core’)
•
Grassroots farmer and community participation – Landcare and the regional
model comprise a wonderful platform
•
Hard issues like property rights finally on the table
•
Innovative measures to allocate resources – e.g. Bush/Plains Tender
•
Leading new approaches to landscape ecology that recognise that landscapes
are socially constructed and people are integral
•
Vibrant NRM research scene, rural R&D model,
some outstanding researchers and exciting research
11
Fitzgerald wilderness
12
Whole
landscape
community led
conservation
Bush wisdom with the community
• Information collection on an area basis, not
subject or species
• Research hot wired to action
• Information stored in and spread from a
regional base
• Continuity of work, staff and population
13
A big policy agenda
• Defining environmental deliverables - leadership
• Fostering innovation
– Breakthrough technologies
– Smarter institutions, including markets
• Best-practice regulation
• Sorting out the planning hierarchy (i.e. the Federation)
• Juicier carrots and smarter sticks
• Monitoring and evaluating impact
• Continental scale analysis and prediction
• Bringing the community along
14
The role of knowledge
• Knowledge (along with commitment and capacity) is one
of three essential conditions for the development of more
sustainable systems of resource use and management
• We need better knowledge for three reasons:
– To help make better decisions
– To underpin the innovation process
– To learn as we go along
(so that at least we make new mistakes)
15
Knowledge 101
•
Knowledge happens between the ears
•
An individual cognitive process and highly contextual:
– “I only know what I know when I need to know it”
•
Revealed in artifacts (writing, art, formulae, products etc), skills, experience,
rules of thumb and natural talent (Dave Snowden)
•
Across quite different domains:
– Including local, Indigenous, scientific, strategic (organisational)
•
And different sectors:
– research, policy, management, planning, extension, education, monitoring
•
people default to known, trusted, accessible sources:
– credibility, dialogue, easy access & honesty all critical
– timing is crucial:
knowledge is most useful when it is needed
• The organisation of research is thus critical
16
Knowledge Systems
• At societal and professional levels, we must think about how the
knowledge system as a whole works to serve three key purposes:
– Better decision making
– Fomenting and supporting innovation
– Longer term evaluation, learning and adaptive management
•
The NRM knowledge system is a classic ‘human activity system’ (‘soft’) as
opposed to natural or designed systems (‘hard’)
•
No-one set out to design and build national or international NRM knowledge
systems
•
But they exist, and we invest a lot of money in them
•
There is value in analysing the whole system to
identify ways of helping it to work better
17
Analysing knowledge systems
• Description
– Boundaries: defining the scope of analysis
– Components: describing the elements within these boundaries
• Purpose
– How well the system as a whole can be directed to serve priorities at
the relevant scale (sub-national, national, regional, international etc)
• Function (performance)
– How well it serves the knowledge needs for more sustainable
management of natural resources: decisions, innovation, learning
• Cohesion
– How well the various components of the system
work together in delivering intended functions
towards a desired purpose
18
R&D Corporations
•Cotton
•Fisheries
•Forest and Wood Products
•Grains
•Grape and Wine
•Land & Water Australia
•Rural Industries
•Sugar
Australian
Pork
Limited
Some components of the Aust
NRM Knowledge System
Australian
Greenhouse
Office
CSIRO
ANU
Horticulture
Australia
Knowledge
Generation and
Management
Australian
Bureau of
Statistics
Geoscience
Australia
Universities
Australian
Wool
Innovation
Cooperative Research Centres
Community
Landcare
groups
Regional
NRM Bodies
Water
Authorities
Commercial
Advisory
Services
Commercial
Knowledge
Adoption
Indigenous
Land
Corporation
•E-Water
Farmers
•Plant based Management of Dryland
Community
Salinity
Australian
State NRM &
Water Grants
Govt NRM
•Irrigation Futures
Ag Agencies
Facilitators
National Land and
•Weed Management
National
Water Resources
•Tropical Savannas Management
Landcare
Department
of
Audit
Program
•Australasian Invasive Animals
Agriculture Fisheries
•Coastal Zone, Estuary and
and Forestry
Natural
Waterway Management
Dairy
Heritage
Trust
•Cotton Catchment Communities
Australia
•Desert Knowledge
Department of
Environment and Heritage
•Greenhouse Accounting
•Sustainable Forest Landscapes
National Water Commission
•Landscape Environments and Mineral
Exploration
Bureau of
Productivity
Departments of State (FMA Act)
Rural
Commission
National
Sciences
Coastcare
Statutory Agencies (FMA Act) within portfolios
Water
Initiative
Meat and
Livestock
Australia
Legend
Statutory Agencies (CAC Act) within portfolios
Corporatised R&D Corporations (Statutory Funding
Agreement)
Funding Programs
Policy and
Programs
Bushcare
Hobby
Farmers
Indigenous
Communities
Local
Governments
Rural
residential
Envirofund
National
Action Plan
for Salinity
and Water
Quality
The Australian NRM knowledge system
• Total Ag & NRM research spend nationally exceeds $1B per year
• Crowded, fragmented scene
– 40 ‘core’ agencies in the NRM knowledge business at Commonwealth level
– >80 agencies in wider NRM knowledge system at national level
– not counting their equivalents in eight other jurisdictions
• Relevant knowledge for a given decision is rarely dictated by agency,
regional, commodity or state boundaries
– or temporal boundaries – a 20 year old project (especially maps, surveys etc)
can still be highly pertinent
• ‘grey’ literature (consultancy reports etc) poorly recorded,
lots of wheels being reinvented
• How to get the whole system working better?
20
Analysing the NRM Knowledge System
- purpose and cohesion
• The system does not currently appear to be purposeful
– no capacity to comprehend or analyse the whole
– plenty of helicopters, no air traffic control or satellites
• A Cohesion hierarchy:
communication < coordination < synthesis < synergy
– Linkages between sectors are generally poor
– Ditto knowledge domains: local, indigenous, scientific, strategic
– We tend to fund the boxes, not the arrows
– There are no effective system-level communication
or coordination mechanisms
21
Analysing the NRM Knowledge System
- function
• How well does the system as a whole meet and respond to the needs of
its users? How does it help us to make better decisions and to learn our
way to more sustainable NRM?
– Generally not as well as it could or should
– OK on nature, cause and extent of problems
– Poor on predicting impact of interventions or continental change,
and on generating practical, profitable, adoptable solutions
– Very poor on monitoring resource extent and condition, and management
practices
– Consequently poor at servicing monitoring and evaluation needs
– Very poor at sharing information on what is happening
where and lessons learned across the whole system;
– amnesia is systemic, built in, guaranteed…
22
Improving
the Australian NRM Knowledge System
Function – helping us to learn at all levels
• Memory aids – making stuff easy to find and access
• M&E tools that pull out and underline the lessons
• Ways of honouring, retaining and tapping into elders
• Centres of Excellence
• Lift the game on Monitoring & Evaluation
• A long term research, monitoring & analysis network
23
Enter AEON
Australian Ecosystem Observing Network
• High level question: “how are Australian ecosystems changing and
what does this mean for the services they provide”
• $20m start-up grant from the National Collaborative Research
Infrastructure Strategy, aiming to deliver:
• Improved understanding of cause and effect in landscapes
• Foundation for innovation along the value chain
– Research knowledge to practice, management tools and policy
– Pro-active adaptation
• Systems thinking, integration across disciplines, trans-disciplinary
research
• Continental scale analysis and synthesis
24
AEON elements
1.
National centre focused on analysis, integration, synthesis and
prediction (probably based at University of Queensland);
2.
Regional hubs linked to national issues and communities of users
and managers – catchments and regions;
3.
Technical, ‘hard systems’ infrastructure such as new high resolution
data sets, wireless networks, sensors and systems
25
–
nationally distributed sensor networks linked by state of the art ICT;
–
Long term ecological research sites,
integrating water, soils & biodiversity data streams;
–
Integrating and building on the LTER and OzFlux network
–
Supported by environmental genomics
capability
Australian Ecosystem Observing Network
CORE DATASETS
ANZLIC
AUSCOPE
(Geospatial Reference Framework
& Earth Systems Model)
Govt Datasets (ASRIS, NCAS,
NVIS, NLWRA, FireWatch etc)
PRIVATES
(SKM, ESRI, Google, Telstra,
Leica)
BoM
(New water accounting system)
CSIRO/BoM
(Climate models)
GLOBAL
(GTOS, LTER, MEA)
International
Links
IMPROVED POLICY & PRACTICE
NCEAS, NEON (US)
ECN (UK)
LTER network
Flux network
GTOS
National Centre
for Analysis &
Synthesis
SCIENTIFIC
KNOWLEDGE
RESPONSE
MEASUREMENT
Data services
link to NCRIS 5.16
Platforms for
Collaboration
RELATED NCRIS
COMPONENTS
ENABLING
TECHNOLOGIES
ICT
Data management
Environmental genetics & genomics
Sensors, metering & telemetry
Remote sensing & high res imagery
Citizen science tools
Other
(TBC)
C, N, H2O etc
26
AEON HUBS
South-east QLD
Tropical-Arid
Transect
C, N, H2O
BiodiversityFire
Invasives
PFC
IMOS
Living Atlas
Population Health
AUSCOPE
Biological Systems
C, N, H2O
Biodiversity
Nutrients
Development vs
water yield
Southern
Forests
C, N, H2O
Biodiversity
Fire
Water yield
Irrigated
MDB
C, N, H2O
Groundwater
Nutrients
Soil health
South-west
WA
C, N, H2O
Biodiversity
Groundwater
Fire
The regional model:
an integrated approach
• The regional model (56 catchment bodies) is an ambitious
attempt to implement sustainable NRM at a landscape scale:
– Devolve decision making & resource allocation to appropriate scale
– Tap into and build on deep local knowledge and connection to place
– Work across issues and industries in an integrated way
• integration means making whole
– across scales, issues, land tenures and land uses
– in the users’ context
• that requires excellent relationships
• And comprehensive knowledge
27
Making the system more Cohesive
• First ensure that activities are transparent and accessible
across the whole system
• Fund the arrows, not just the boxes
– Especially between knowledge sectors & knowledge domains
– Mandate, train and resource brokers and boundary spanners
– Interconnected knowledge networks – exploit new technologies
– A First Stop Knowledge Shop for the regional model
• Reward collaborative behaviour
28
Knowledge assets of interest
Magazines
Publications
Reference
books
•Reference
books
(Guidelines
Journal•Journal
articles and
manuals
etc)
articles•Research
reports
•Pamphlets
Conference
•Magazines
proceedings
Researchproceedings
•Conference
report
Current
Specialist
research
Research directory
projects•Programsadvice
•Projects
•Specialist
contacts
Current
research
for
advice
programs
Spatial datasets
Funding
opportunities
Anecdotal
evidence
Knowledge needs
Decision
Decision
support tools
frameworks
•Models
•Decision frameworks
Models •Spreadsheets
Spreadsheets
NRM Toolbar interface
NRM search
Google Australia
Organisation
assets
Advanced
[Searches on
selection]
Square icon
indicates
which
search
engine is
selected
R&D Directory
This Worked Here!
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Events and funding
Decision tools
Knowledge market
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In summary
• Knowledge is fundamental for sustainability
• Public science is fundamental for sustainability knowledge
• Research investors are ‘keepers of the long view’
• The R&D (scientific inquiry) process itself must be nested
within an appropriate framework of governance,
management, adoption and legacy effort
• We need better prediction, analysis and synthesis
capabilities - AEON should help
– Lots of scope for international partnerships!
• Understanding the knowledge need is crucial
31
Contacts
http://www.clw.csiro.au/tern/
http://www.ncris.dest.gov.au/capabilities/tern.htm