Integrating Science into Management of Ecosystems in the Greater Blue Mountains

Effective management of large protected conservation areas is challenged by political, institutional and environmental complexity and inconsistency. Knowledge generation and its uptake into management are crucial to address these challenges. We reflect on practice at the interface between science and management of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area (GBMWHA), which covers approximately 1 million hectares west of Sydney, Australia. Multiple government agencies and other stakeholders are involved in its management, and decision-making is confounded by numerous plans of management and competing values and goals, reflecting the different objectives and responsibilities of stakeholders. To highlight the complexities of the decision-making process for this large area, we draw on the outcomes of a recent collaborative research project and focus on fire regimes and wild-dog control as examples of how existing knowledge is integrated into management. The collaborative research project achieved the objectives of collating and synthesizing biological data for the region; however, transfer of the project’s outcomes to management has proved problematic. Reasons attributed to this include lack of clearly defined management objectives to guide research directions and uptake, and scientific information not being made more understandable and accessible. A key role of a local bridging organisation (e.g., the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute) in linking science and management is ensuring that research results with management significance can be effectively transmitted to agencies and that outcomes are explained for nonspecialists as well as more widely distributed. We conclude that improved links between science, policy, and management within an adaptive learning-by-doing framework for the GBMWHA would assist the usefulness and uptake of future research.     

云冈石窟世界遗产地的可持续发展研究

云冈石窟于2001年被联合国教科文组织世界遗产委员会列入《世界遗产名录》.介绍了云冈石窟的概况、地理条件和地质环境,总结归纳了云冈石窟的特征和杰出价值,指出了云冈石窟存在的问题,并提出促进遗产地真实性和完整性的保护对策,以推进世界遗产的可持续发展.     

Transboundary governance of the Curonian Spit World Heritage Site

This study describes the governance and management structures of the Curonian Spit World Heritage Site, a transboundary protected area shared by Lithuania and the Russian Federation. Focusing on the national park authorities it presents the site from a local administrative perspective. The paper shows that due to strong state level influence and a lack of full stakeholder inclusion, different philosophies and priorities on both sides of the border challenge common management efforts and co-operation. Presenting the existing problems the paper points out the need for increased efforts at the state level as well as for the full inclusion of local communities to remove obstacles and foster co-operation. Hence, by adapting to certain environmental and transboundary governance principles, conflicts can be avoided and better results achieved.     

基于AHP法的旅游资源评价及保护性开发研究——以武当山世界遗产地为例

旅游资源是开展旅游活动,发展旅游业的物质基础。对其进行综合客观的评价,是合理保护与开发旅游资源的重要依据。1994年,武当山古建筑群作为文化遗产被联合国教科文组织世界遗产委员会列入《世界遗产名录》。以武当山为例,利用Yaahp软件,基于AHP法对其旅游资源进行定量分析,得出各指标相对权重。结果表明,武当山资源价值在旅游资源评价中具有重要的地位。根据评价结果及遗产地旅游现状,提出防止旅游过度开发和资源不合理利用的保护性开发策略,以促使遗产保护与旅游活动协同发展。     

Managing an Endangered Asian Bovid in an Australian National Park: The Role and Limitations of Ecological-Economic Models in Decision-Making

Should north Australia’s extensive populations of feral animals be eradicated for conservation, or exploited as a rare opportunity for Indigenous enterprise in remote regions? We examine options for a herd of banteng, a cattle species endangered in its native Asian range but abundant in Garig Gunak Barlu National Park, an Aboriginal land managed jointly by traditional owners and a conservation agency in the Northern Territory of Australia. We reflect on the paradoxes that arise when trying to deal effectively with such complex and contested issues in natural resource management using decision-support tools (ecological-economic models), by identifying the trade-offs inherent in protecting values whilst also providing incomes for Indigenous landowners.     

Local people's perceptions of participating in conservation in a heritage site: A case study of the Wuyishan Scenery District cultural and natural heritage site in Southeastern China

The perceptions and attitudes of local people in heritage sites strongly influence their behaviour related to protecting heritage resources and improving management. In this study, we collected pertinent data through a questionnaire and group discussions to examine local people's attitudes and perceptions toward participation in heritage protection in Wuyishan Scenery District (WSD). Logistic regression was used to identify the factors that influence local people's perceptions of heritage protection behaviours. The results indicate that education level is the most critical factor in local people's initiatives to protect heritage resources. Local people with higher education levels pay more attention to the status of WSD and behave more positively with regard to conservation. Gender and income are relatively important factors in perceptions of heritage. Males have better knowledge of heritage resources than females do, and inhabitants with higher income levels are more likely to participate in protection, especially after WSD was listed as a World Heritage Site. Education level was always a key demographic factor before and after WSD's listing on the Heritage List. Household size was a significant factor before WSD was listed on the Heritage List, but it was not significant after, when household income became a significant factor.     

中国世界遗产的资源管理与可持续发展研究——以登封“天地之中”历史建筑群为例

登封“天地之中”历史建筑群包括8处11项中国古代建筑精华,2010年联合国教科文组织第34届世界遗产大会将其列入《世界遗产名录》。简要介绍了“天地之中”历史建筑群的概况,阐述了其历史背景、建筑特点、文化内涵和遗产价值,分析了遗产资源存在的问题,并从完善管理体制角度出发,对遗产资源的可持续发展提出了相关建议。     

“Unwritten,unsaid, just known”: the role of Indigenous knowledge(s) in water planning in Australia

Water planning processes in Australia have struggled to account for Indigenous interests and rights in water, including the use of Indigenous knowledge in water management. In exploring the role of Indigenous knowledge in government-led water planning processes, how might tensions between Western scientific and Indigenous knowledges be lessened? Drawing on two case studies from northern Australia we examine how Indigenous knowledge is represented and managed as a different social knowledge to that of Western science in a management context where legal and planning conventions assume priority. The role of Indigenous (social) knowledges in developing options and strategies for sustainable water management is contingent upon the participation of Indigenous people in water planning. We suggest that water planning processes must contain the possibility of an explicit approach to mutual recognition and consequent translation of the conceptual and pragmatic bases of water management and planning in both Western scientific and Indigenous domains.     

Heritage as exemplar: a pedagogical role for heritage studies in values education

Studies of heritage at all levels of education can help foster understanding of other peoples and cultures and of the environmental issues facing us all. Used judicially, such studies have a highly positive role to play in educating people everywhere to contribute to making the world a sustainable and just environment for future generations. They provide examples or case studies, in the pedagogical sense used by educationalists, that illustrate many valuable points that are central to a sound values education contributing to ensuring that the public, and hopefully the political elite, are engaged in a push for such a just and sustainable future. Individual examples of heritage sites, and especially of World Heritage properties, contain valuable lessons of great pedagogical value.     

Indigenous Studies Speaks to Environmental Management

This article describes the increasing connections between the fields of Indigenous studies and environmental management and examines some of the ways that an Indigenous studies perspective can guide thinking about environmental management. Indigenous groups have been involved in the management of environmental and natural resources on their lands since time immemorial. Indigenous groups have also become increasingly involved in Western practices of environmental management with the advent of co-management institutions, subsistence boards, traditional ecological knowledge forums, and environmental issues affecting Indigenous resources. Thus, it is an important time for scholarship that explores how Indigenous groups are both shaping and being affected by processes of environmental management. This article summarizes key findings and themes from eight papers situated at the intersection of these two fields of study and identify means by which environmental managers can better accommodate Indigenous rights and perspectives. It is the authors’ hope that increased dialog between Indigenous studies and environmental management can contribute to the building of sustainable and socially just environmental management practices.     

Social Contexts and Customary Fisheries: Marine Protected Areas and Indigenous Use,Australia

Worldwide, the implementation of marine protected areas (MPAs) offers opportunities for delivering fisheries and biodiversity management objectives. In Australia however, the primary function of an MPA is that of biodiversity conservation. Nonetheless, the management of Indigenous customary fisheries is one area where fisheries and biodiversity issues converge. This article examines the relationship between biodiversity and customary fisheries in an MPA context by investigation of the role and importance of Indigenous social contexts. Using case study examples from Australia, I explore the role of Indigenous social contexts in two dimensions: (i) management of traditional fisheries and (ii) Indigenous contribution to fisheries within an MPA. Findings demonstrate two narratives concerning social contexts, one of recognition and the other concerning Indigenous involvement in management. I conclude with a survey of Indigenous management initiatives within MPAs. The article ends with a discussion of the utility of understanding social contexts in any marine management endeavour, specifically other social contexts within an MPA.     

A responsibility–accountability framework for private sector use of a World Heritage Area

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is a natural asset of global significance, spanning 2600?km’s along the Australian coastline. On the southern tip of the GBR is the Gladstone region, where high levels of industrial activity have been juxtaposed with the natural wonder, and World Heritage Listed, GBR. Given these competing local priorities, this research explores local perceptions of the GBR and its management. Exploratory analysis of 38 interviews with residents and stakeholders from Gladstone revealed a potential incongruence between environmental concern and support for more stringent management of the tourism and resources sectors on the GBR. A responsibility–accountability framework (RAF) for managing the use and protection of the GBR is developed by drawing on current theoretical frameworks and the results of the interviews. Importantly the framework highlights the importance of business responsibility combined with monitoring and control mechanisms to ensure accountability and to deliver transparency, education and partnership. Future research should apply the RAF for testing and application in other marine World Heritage Area contexts.     

Old ways for new days: Australian Indigenous peoples and climate change

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how Australia's Indigenous peoples understand and respond to climate change impacts on their traditional land and seas. Our results show that: (i) Indigenous peoples are observing modifications to their country due to climate change, and are doing so in both ancient and colonial time scales; (ii) the ways that climate change terminology is discursively understood and used is fundamental to achieving deep engagement and effective adaptive governance; (iii) Indigenous peoples in Australia exhibit a high level of agency via diverse approaches to climate adaptation; and (iv) humour is perceived as an important cultural component of engagement about climate change and adaptation. However, wider governance regimes consistently attempt to “upscale” Indigenous initiatives into their own culturally governed frameworks - or ignore them totally as they “don't fit” within neoliberal policy regimes. We argue that an opportunity exists to acknowledge the ways in which Indigenous peoples are agents of their own change, and to support the strategic localism of Indigenous adaptation approaches through tailored and place-based adaptation for traditional country.     

Understanding local community attitudes toward industrial development in the Great Barrier Reef region World Heritage Area: are environmental impacts perceived to overshadow economic benefits?

Conflicts between industrial development and environmental conservation can be particularly acute when such development occurs in the vicinity of World Heritage sites. A key example is the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA) in northeastern Australia, where a 2012 review by the World Heritage Council found that rapid port development inshore of the coral reef posed significant risks to local marine ecosystems. Such instances pose pressing challenges for decision‐makers seeking to manage World Heritage sites for multiple values and needs, including those of key stakeholder groups, such as local communities. There is increasingly a societal expectation that public decision‐making takes into account local views and priorities, and that companies seek a ‘social license to operate’. This research explored local community attitudes toward port development associated with the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and coal through the GBRWHA. Using data drawn from a survey and interviews, the research examined how a range of geographical factors, including proximity to gas infrastructure and the perceived impacts and risks of development to the local community, economy and environment shape community perceptions of the industry. Findings suggest that local attitudes toward gas and coal terminal development inshore of the GBRWHA are shaped predominantly by community perceptions of environmental impacts and risks associated with such infrastructure, in contrast to a broader public narrative that focuses largely on economic benefits. A complex combination of other factors, including social impacts, personal environmental values, community trust in industry, and equity in decision‐making and distribution of the risks and benefits of industrial development also contribute. Placed in a broader, global context, the findings have important implications for public decision‐making processes in Australia and elsewhere as they suggest that, for local communities, the perceived impacts of gas development on the environment may overshadow the benefits of industry.     

Testing the scoping phase of a bottom-up planning guide designed to support Australian Indigenous rangers manage the impacts of climate change on cultural heritage sites

Since the early 1990s archaeologists have suggested archaeological and cultural heritage sites (cultural sites) will face major challenges from anthropogenic climate change. While techniques to manage such impacts are emerging, no planning tools exist for bottom-up, community-based management of the issue. This paper forms part of an overarching research project that aims to fill this gap by developing a bottom-up planning guide (the Guide). The paper tests the first of the proposed Guide’s five phases: the scoping phase. It presents the results of workshops conducted with two Australian Indigenous rangers groups. While existing studies document Indigenous peoples’ perceptions of climate change in general, none have focussed on their perceptions of impacts on cultural heritage sites. Here, Indigenous rangers related strong perceptions of particular climate change impacts on specific cultural sites in particular bio-regions. While the rangers were actively engaged with sites, they felt site management should be extended in the face of additional threats from climate change. Rangers were able to nominate a preferred methodological approach, based on a risk analysis of biophysical hazards, as well as local adaptive capacity building in the face of governance challenges. Various barriers to adaptation planning and resource limitations were identified but these were not regarded as insurmountable in terms of the current project. Testing of the scoping phase of the Guide suggested rangers had a strong organisational capacity to achieve practical adaptation results.     

EFFICIENT MANAGEMENT POLICIES FOR URBAN WATER SUPPLY1

ABSTRACT .This paper attempts to spell out the difficult conditions faced by urban water supply managers in achieving overall efficiency. Based upon these conditions, and changes that are likely in the next decade, it then tries to suggest strategies that would lead to even higher levels of efficiency in the future. A blending of political and economic concepts is used to make what is hoped to be a realistic analysis. What do we mean by “efficient”? The usual welfare economics definition is attainable only under a very special and highly unrealistic set of institutional arrangements. As soon as we delegate responsibility to a specialized agency we provide the opportunity, indeed we make it imperative that, in a social sense, a sub-optimization will take place. From the specifics of the indictment of this sub-optimization we can learn something about the opportunities for more efficient management in the future. In general there is an under-exploitation of multiple-function, multiple-objective opportunities. The pressures for sub-optimization hinge very directly on the sources of support and opposition to the water supply agency. A change requires the creation of a broader political base. The search for regional solutions is largely a political problem, and probably the development of flexible, responsive regional agency, so long sought, is still the answer.     

Seeking knowledge of traditional Indigenous burning practices to inform regional bushfire management

ABSTRACT

A transdisciplinary review of the current academic knowledge of Indigenous traditional fire management is presented for the Mt Lofty Ranges in South Australia. For a long time, the roles of Indigenous management of the landscape have either been overlooked or discounted within environmental studies. That situation is beginning to change in many parts of Australia. However, this review of knowledge of traditional Indigenous burning practices specifically for the Mt Lofty Ranges suggests that there is very little formalised, academic knowledge available that could be utilised to inform prescribed burning practices in the region. Perhaps Indigenous peoples’ use of fire was strongly governed by individual choices, or perhaps established regimes demarcated roles across groups; perhaps some areas were burnt regularly and others were left unaltered – there is still no clear evidence from the academic literature to provide even limited understandings of such elements of pre-colonial fire regimes. That gap in knowledge will become increasingly problematic as the need for appropriate, sophisticated burning practices to respond to risk in peri-urban Adelaide increases with a changing climate. To learn from traditional Indigenous land management: (a) formal knowledge needs to be generated on past regional burning practices; and (b) understanding needs to be developed as to whether past burning practices could lead to effective hazard management and biodiversity outcomes within contemporary landscapes. Such an integration of Indigenous knowledge for effective environmental management will only be possible if the injustices of past exclusions of the importance of Indigenous biocultural practices are recognised.     

Sustaining local values through river basin governance: community-based initiatives in Australia's Murray–Darling basin

Australia's Murray–Darling basin (MDB) water plan is an ambitious attempt to balance ecological, social and economic benefits, where a key aspect of the reform process has been recovery of water for environmental use. This paper focuses on a set of initiatives established by a local non-governmental organisation and an Indigenous community designed to engage with local values and priorities and incorporate them into this complex river basin governance system. Contrary to expectations that local and basin-scale interests and outcomes will diverge, the case studies reveal the ability for local groups to collaboratively manage both land and water resources to achieve locally important outcomes, and contribute to basin-scale outcomes. The analysis also highlights a progressive style of community-based environmental management for water management that utilises multiple institutional arrangements and planning pathways to protect the values that are important to local communities, and to nest those values within the broader effort to sustainably manage the basin's water resources.     

THE POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF RESIDENTIAL CONSUMERS ON WATER RATES1

ABSTRACT: The regulatory process such as that for water rates can be viewed as a bargaining process between regulators, utility management, and consumers. This bargaining process involves both political and economic influences. In an attempt to empirically verify that utility rates are a product of both economic and political factors, a sample of publicly-owned water utilities was subjected to regression analysis. As expected, cost and cost-related factors were positive and significant determinants of residential water rates. Using an admittedly imperfect measure of residential user political influence, there was evidence that increased political activity results in lower water rates. Furthermore, the political influence and water rate linkage is more evident in small water utilities than in larger suppliers.