Transcript Slide 1

RURAL NATURAL
RESOURCE
GOVERNANCE REFORM
DIRECTIONS
Professor Paul Martin
Institutions as the
key link: context,
strategy and
resources.
GDP/km2
Mongolia
Great Britain
Iceland
Australia
USA
Determining the feasible/effective rules markets,
governance and coordination arrangements.
China
0
5
10
15
20
25
GDP/Capita
30
35
40
Effective?
Feasible?
Fair?
Mongolia
Population/km2
Mongolia
Great Britain
Great Britain
Iceland
Iceland
Australia
Australia
USA
USA
China
China
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Invasions?
Weeds?
Biodiversity?
Some realities of
rural Australia.
Where is the
money?
Where is the
manpower?
What institutions might ensure resource allocation
does match our national objectives?
9 fundamental rural
NRM challenges
1. Rural NRM resource demands are driven by unique socio-spatial
and ‘autopoietic’ characteristics of rural landscapes.
2. Fundamental NRM challenges are embedded in strategies for
social inclusion (n.b. Aboriginal rights and disadvantage).
3. Relative resource scarcity will fuel increasing conflicts.
4. Many forms of fragmentation (tenure, rules, institutions,
politics) result in governance incoherence.
5. High transaction costs sap the limited financial and human
resources that are nominally available.
6. The treatment of the human dimensions of NRM (behaviour,
capacity, equity) is largely unscientific.
7. NRM motivational arrangements (including incentives and
accountability) are far too weak.
8. Resource politics and policies reflect strategically naïve
positions about rights, rules, and implementation.
9. Governance processes are grossly under-developed compared
to the nature of the challenges.
What rural changes
should we expect?
Representative
Concentration
Pathways
• Population
• GDP
• Energy
consumption/
intensity/mix
• Carbon price at
2100
• Land use
• Climate
(estimate)
• GHG emissions
• Air pollutants
The second industrial transformation
of Australian landscapes
Wayne Meyer, Brett Bryan, Andrew
Campbell, Graham Harris, Ted Lefroy,
Greg Lyle, Paul Martin, Josie McLean,
Kelvin Montagu, Lauren Rickards, David
Summers, Richard Thackway, Sam
Wells, Mike Young.
Discussion: some
challenges in detail
• The accepted rural NRM investment model is insufficient
and extremely vulnerable.
• Transaction cost and incoherence – are rules,
administration, tenures and property based instruments
etc. likely to get worse?
• Will the pursuit of insufficiently developed ‘policy’ ideas,
from government, NGOs, and agencies stand in the way
of sensible resolutions?
The most critical rural
NRM vulnerability?
• Resources, not
rules, are needed
to change
outcomes!
• Funds are not
increasing to
meet the growing
challenge.
• Can we get far
more outcome for
less dollars?
• How can
voluntarism, and
instruments be
made to work far
better?
Fragmentation, transaction
costs and incoherence
• Fragmented laws and
institutional arrangements
– ~250 national laws
– ~100 for weeds alone
• Fragmentation across public
and private tenures
• Fragmentation even within
tenures
– Proliferating instruments,
declining coherence
– The constitutional dimension
Property fragmentation within tenures
AIR-LINKED
Tree carbon
Pasture carbon
Foregone clearing
WATER-LINKED
Surface water
Salinity
Pollutants
INTELLECTUAL
Cultural
Aesthetic
Intellectual property
SUPERVENING
Family/society
Services
Finances
GROUND-LINKED
Minerals
Oil
Gases
Soils
Ownership dimensions
Period/temporality, Security, Exclusion, …….
PRODUCT-LINKED
Food
Fibre
Fuel
Finances
BIODIVERSITY
Iconic species
Iconic habitats
Non-iconic
biodiversity
INCHOATE
Development rights
Cultural values
Others??
7 priorities for reform
1. Apply behavioural science to the design and implementation
of rural governance. (Innovations in institutions to improve weed funding, strategy and
outcomes)
2. Reduce the counterproductive transaction costs (funding,
compliance, coordination). (Various - see Innovations in institutions to improve
weed funding)
3. Harmonise rule administration/ implementation, eventually
architecture) (Various – see Harmonising Australia's Environmental Laws).
4. Create a systemic approach to accountability for harms. (Various
- see Concepts for Industry Co-Regulation of Bio-fuel Weeds)
5. A credible framework for collaborative governance/coregulation (flexible but with teeth). (Various and research in progress)
6. Principles based rural policy impact assessment (including
social impacts of market mechanisms). (Developing a Good Regulatory
Practice Model for Environmental Regulations Impacting on Farmers)
7. Implement an integrated rural sustainability investment
system at the rural landscape scale (Land & Water Australia PR071389)
Where you can find the details
1. Innovations in institutions to improve weed funding, strategy and outcomes, May 2011
RIRDC Publication RIRDC 12/091 ISBN: 978-1-74254-433-5, 113 pages
2. Expert review from a social and economic perspective in Developing the Guide to the
proposed Basin Plan: Peer review reports, pp190-202, Published by the Murray–Darling
Basin Authority, ISBN (online) 978-1-921557-77-4, Australian Government, 2010
3. Concepts for Industry Co-Regulation of Bio-fuel Weeds IUCN Academy of Environmental
Law eJournal, Vol 1, May 2010.p. 1-13
4. Harmonising Australia's Environmental Laws: Scoping of Harmonisation of Environmental
Regulation and Regulatory Practice across Jurisdictions in Australia. Report to the
Australasian Environmental Law Enforcement and Regulators Network, February 2011
5. Policy Risk Assessment. CRC for Irrigation Futures Technical Report Series No. 03/10.
March 2010 at http://www.irrigationfutures.org.au/news.asp?catID=9&ID=1209
6. Evaluation of the Risks and Benefits of Granting Rights in Land, report commissioned
from the Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law and Marsden Jacobs Associates by the
Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, August 2010.
7. Discussion paper: An industry plan for the Victorian environment? Dept. of Sustainability
and Environment, Victoria (2009)
8. Concepts for private sector funded conservation using tax-effective instruments Land &
Water Australia PR071389, November 2007.
9. Developing a Good Regulatory Practice Model for Environmental Regulations Impacting on
Farmers Australian Farm Institute and Land and Water Australia 2007, ISBN978-09803460-4-6
10. Using Environmental Law for Effective Regulation Research project number TPF1 of the
Social and Institutional Research Program of Land & Water Land & Water Australia Natural
Resource Management – People and Policy II, 2002 Australia.
11. Submission on future regulatory reform, with a focus on the rural sector BRCWG
Secretariat Deregulation Group, Department of Finance and Deregulation 14/10/11
They said it better than I ever could:
Match the words to the mind.
He who innovates will
have for his enemies
all those who are well
off under the existing
order of things, and
only lukewarm
supporters in those
who might be better
off under the new.
Insanity: doing the
same thing over and
over again and
expecting different
results.
Can we fix this?
Yes we can!
Bob the Builder