Social Learning Through Evaluation: from Evidence Based Management to Collective Action for Complex Problems

The role of evaluation in environmental management in Australia tends to be limited to restricted measures of program effectiveness rather than contributing towards supporting environmental managers in addressing complex environmental problems. This paper shows how a social learning approach can be incorporated into evaluating public investment in environmental management dealing with the complex environmental challenges which are inherently difficult to understand, predict and manage. The paper draws on a case study of salinity management amongst a Landcare group in the wheatbelt region of Western Australia. In this region, there are major knowledge barriers impeding salinity management which are being addressed through a program of participatory trials driven by local landholders linked to research partners and government funding. The research presented in this paper focused on evaluating this innovative initiative and tracking its impact through its design, implementation and monitoring phases. The paper shows that, by incorporating social learning principles and some additional practical elements, program evaluation can promote collective action and critical reflection which can assist individuals and communities to respond to complex problems.Salinity, participation, capacity building, uncertainty, monitoring

MDMA Powder, Pills and Crystal: The persistance of ecstasy and the poverty of policy.

Commonly known as ecstasy, MDMA has been central to the British acid house, rave and dance club scene over the last 20 years. Figures from the annual national British Crime Survey suggest that ecstasy use has declined since 2001. This apparent decline is considered here alongside the concurrent emergence of a ‘new’ form of ecstasy - MDMA powder or crystal - and the extent to which this can be seen as a successful rebranding of MDMA as a ‘premium’ product in the wake of user disenchantment with cheap and easily available but poor quality pills. These changes have occurred within a policy context, which in the last decade has increasingly prioritised the drugs-crime relationship through coercive treatment of problem drug users within criminal justice-based interventions, alongside a focus on binge drinking and alcohol-related harm. This has resulted in a significant reduction in the information, support and treatment available to ecstasy users since the height of dance drug harm reduction service provision pioneered by the Safer Dancing model in the mid-1990s

Environmental Volunteering: Motivations, Modes and Outcomes

Volunteers play a key role in natural resource management: their commitment, time and labour constitute a major contribution towards managing environments in Australia and throughout the world. From the point of view of environmental managers much interest has focussed on defining tasks suitable to volunteers. However, we argue that an improved understanding of what motivates volunteers is required to sustain volunteer commitments to environmental management in the long term. This is particularly important given that multiple government programs rely heavily on volunteers in Australia, a phenomenon also noted in the UK, Canada, and the USA. Whilst there is considerable research on volunteering in other sectors (e.g. health), there has been relatively little attention paid to understanding environmental volunteering. Drawing on the literature from other sectors and environmental volunteering where available, we present a set of six broad motivations underpinning environmental volunteers and five different modes that environmental volunteering is manifested. We developed and refined the sets of motivations and modes through a pilot study involving interviews with volunteers and their coordinators from environmental groups in Sydney and the Bass Coast. The pilot study data emphasise the importance of promoting community education as a major focus of environmental volunteer groups and demonstrate concerns over the fine line between supporting and abusing volunteers given their role in delivering environmental outcomes.environment, volunteering, motivation, Natural Resource Management (NRM)

Slowing the stork : better health for women through family planning

Each year 500,000 women die from causes related to pregnancy - 99 percent of them in developing countries. While many of those pregnancies are unwanted and could have been prevented by family planning, only a minority of developing country couples use effective contraceptive methods. For some women, pregnancy represents a major health risk. Others, of lower risk, do not want any more children. This paper discusses the factors which determine women's use of contraceptives, and how family planning programs reach the large numbers of women at risk from further pregnancies. The most successful family planning policies offer women a variety of contraceptive methods tailored to specific age groups and educational levels. Much program experience suggests that family planning is one of, if not the most cost-effective means of averting maternal deaths. The savings generated by family planning services could be invested in saving the lives and health of women who do want to have more children.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Adolescent Health,Reproductive Health,Early Child and Children's Health,Gender and Health

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

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.participation, decentralisation, governmentality, deliberation

Remotely Engaged? A Framework for Monitoring the Success of Stakeholder Engagement in Remote Regions

The importance of stakeholder engagement for the success of natural resources management processes is widely acknowledged, yet evaluation frameworks employed by administrators of environmental programs continue to provide limited recognition of or insistence upon engagement processes. This paper presents a framework for monitoring and evaluation of engagement that aims to better incorporate community engagement into mainstream environmental programs, in particular in remote regions such as arid and desert regions of the world. We argue that successful monitoring of engagement should not only comprise a generic set of indicators but rather, in addition to the principles of good monitoring practice, should take into account a variety of the stakeholder interests as well as key regional drivers, addressing them at right geographic, institutional and time scale.engagement, evaluation, governance, natural resources, participation, stakeholders

An Introduction to Social Networks for Engaging the Community in Climate Policy

A review of the potential role and importance that social networks can play in engaging the community in climate policy and initiatives. View/download https://www.uts.edu.au/sites/default/files/Cvitanovicetal2014socialnetworksclimatepolicy.pd

Australia’s Resource Use Trajectories

Australia’s export oriented large natural resources sectors of agriculture and mining, the ways in which large scale services such as nutrition, water, housing, transport and mobility, and energy are organized, as well as the consumption patterns of Australia’s wealthy urban households, create a unique pattern of overall resource use in Australia. In an attempt to contribute to a new environmental information system compatible with economic accounts, we represent Australia’s resource use by employing standard biophysical indicators for resource use developed within the OECD context. We are looking at the last three decades of resource use and the economic, social and environmental implications. We also discuss scenarios of future resource use patterns based on a stocks and flows model of the Australian economy. We argue that current extractive economic patterns have contributed to the recent economic boom in Australia but will eventually lead to negative social and environmental outcomes. While there is currently little evidence of political support for changing the economic focus on export-oriented agriculture and mining industries, there is significant potential for improvements in socio-technological systems, and room for more sustainable household consumption.natural resources, resource use patterns and dynamics, physical accounting, resource productivity, social and environmental impacts of resource use, Australia