Integrating Natural Resource Management for Better Environmental Outcomes

Abstract

Severe problems of fragmented policies and uncoordinated implementation undermine natural resource management in Australia. There have been promising signs of progress through activities such as the National Forest Policy, Council of Australian Government water reforms, National Land and Water Resources Audit, the Murray‐Darling Basin initiative and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality to integrate resource policies. There have also been some notable successes at State and local level. But fragmentation endures. This paper provides evidence of the enduring problem of fragmentation and presents a framework to analyse Australia's experience in natural resource management. The analysis reveals the multi‐dimensional character of the problems and identifies a diverse set of actions that need to be taken to improve integration in policy and implementation. Particular attention is given to the potential for regional programs to contribute to improved integration and NRM.

Keywords:

• Integration
• coordination
• natural resource management
• ecologically sustainable development

Notes

Correspondence: Marcus B. Lane, Geographical and Environmental Studies, University of Adelaide. E‐mail: [email protected]

Collaborative and community‐based environmental management, watershed or catchment management, are just a few of the common operational modes in which integration is pursued (Lane 2003).

There have been, for example, some significant reviews including those by the Productivity Commission (1999), the NHT Mid term review (AFFA 1999), Parliamentary Inquiry into Catchment Management (2000).

For critical reviews of the Wentworth Group's views see Lane et al. (2004) and Lunney (2003).

Whether or not integration can be ‘achieved’ it can certainly build capacity by providing some kind of integrative ‘one‐stop‐shop’ which makes it easier for ‘end‐users’ to navigate the system.

And these are not necessarily mutually exclusive. (Cairns (1991) expands these arguments into 24 ‘barriers’ to integration.)

For example, the perception that integrated resource management is inefficient and wasteful is rarely compared with the gross inefficiency and waste that occurs as a result of technocratic planning (Forester 1989; Weber 1998).