The good, the bad, and the statutory: Are satutory or non-statutory natural resource management plans higher in quality?

Numerous governments around the world have adopted statutory mandates on plan content based on the assumption that they lead to greater consistency and higher quality of plans. While a number of studies have examined the relationship between mandates to develop plans and plan quality, there has been limited study of the influence of state mandates for plan content on plan quality in a regional natural resource management (NRM) planning context. This paper explores the relationship between the quality of regional NRM plans between statutory and non-statutory NRM regions in New South Wales and Queensland, Australia. An analysis of 22 regional NRM plans indicates that there is no evidence of a relationship between plan quality and the presence of statutory mandates for regional NRM plans in New South Wales and Queensland. However, the paper identifies and discusses several other factors with unexpected relationships with an impact on the quality of NRM plans in New South Wales and Queensland, Australia

Close to Home / Made in the UK

The first meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion, convened by Baroness Lola Young. The meeting explored the contribution that forward thinking UK fashion and textile businesses make to local economies, communities and the environment. Baroness Lola Young, Dr Frances Corner OBE (Head of the London College of Fashion) and Martin Buttle (Supply Chain Manager at MADE-BY) started the meeting with opening remarks and introductions. Dr Kate Fletcher (Reader at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion) expanded on the Close to Home/Made in the UK theme. Five shirt presentations followed from UK manufacturers/brands involved in fashion, textiles and footwear: Christopher Raeburn, Dashing Tweeds, Tender Denim, Ardalanish Isle of Mull Weavers and John Smedley. Ruth Potts (New Economics Foundation) then talked about sustaining local economies and economic well-being. A discussion followed with questions and commentary from the audience, who represented a wide cross section of the industry including high street retailers, press, fashion designers and international organisations. Through the sharing of experiences, personal journeys, discoveries, traditions, technologies and crafts, many of the joys, pains, challenges and opportunities for UK fashion manufacturing where explored. A momentum to keep building. A feeling of positivity and urgency. A debate to be continued. Actions for now and the future we create. There was also a Local Wisdom project underway, to record and celebrate the clothes we wear and the ways in which we wear them. Participants shared the story of their clothing and had their portraits taken wearing it in the Westminster Great Hall

An analysis of key governance domains affecting environment outcomes and their social and economic consequences in the Great Barrier Reef: core data tables

The intended outcomes of governance for the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) are made clear in the Reef Long Term Sustainability Plan (LTSP). At its broadest level, the vision for future outcomes in the GBR under the LTSP is "to ensure the Great Barrier Reef continues to improve on its Outstanding Universal Value every decade between now and 2050 to be a natural wonder for each successive generation to come" (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015). The Plan goes on to outline a range of quite specific water quality and reef health targets that it intends to achieve by 2050. This vision and associated outcomes are broadly agreed across the Australian and Queensland Governments and among key sectors with GBR interests. These outcomes are also implicitly supported internationally through recent decisions regarding the future status of the GBR taken by the United Nations Educations, Sciences and Cultural Organization (UNESCO, 2015). This document consists of a number of rapid assessment tables that examine the risk of systemic failure of key governance domains and subdomains that majorly influence outcomes in the GBR. In doing so, we apply the Governance Systems Analysis (GSA) framework tested in Dale et al. (2013). Table 3 provides a description and summary of the results of all the rapid assessments contained in this document. The rapid assessment tables below are organised based on their alignment with the overarching governance themes of Economic Development, Social Development, and Environmental Management. Within all themes, some governance domains are broken down into more distinct subdomains. Most rapid assessment tables in this document describe and assess the governance systems within domains and subdomains in the Environmental Management Theme. Each rapid assessment table consists of a short description of the domain or subdomain, followed by the identification and explanation of the key structural and functional components of each. Based on this, the likelihood and consequences of the each domain's or subdomain's governance system failing are identified. Each table also consequently contains a score for the likelihood of systemic failure and the consequence of systemic failure. Finally, a cumulative risk rating is then derived from the multiplication of each of the aforementioned scores. The rapid assessment tables conclude with the identification of possible or suggested areas for governance reform. The standardised scores described in Table 1 and Table 2 are used throughout this document to indicate the likelihood and consequences of systemic failure of the governance system. The use of standard criteria enables benchmarking of the target governance system over time and repeatability of the assessment/s. The multiplication of the likelihood and consequence scores provides an indication of the risk of failure of the governance system being analysed. Overview References: Commonwealth of Australia. (2015). Reef 2050 long-term sustainability plan. Canberra: Department of the Environment. Retrieved from http://www.environment.gov.au/marine/gbr/long-term-sustainability-plan Dale, A., Vella, K., Pressey, R., Brodie, J., Yorkston, H., & Pott, s. R. (2013). A method for risk analysis across governance systems: a Great Barrier Reef case study. Environmental Research Letters, 8(1), 1-16. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/8/1/015037 UNESCO (2015). Decision: 39 COM 7B.7. Great Barrier Reef (Australia) (N 154). Retrieved from http://whc.unesco.org/archive/2015/whc15-39com-19-en.pd

Disconnected dots?: A systematic review of governance challenges for natural resource management

Concerns for the ongoing and increasing degradation of the natural environment worldwide have increased the impetus for action, and development of governance arrangements to support natural resource management. Despite this, several issues around governance still remain as challenges to the success of natural resource management. This study reports the findings of a systematic literature review of 240 papers to better understand how governance challenges manifest spatially, and how they change over time. Also the paper identifies key priority areas for strategic governance reform. This paper reveals that the capacity of natural resource management governance systems internationally is most limited by factors that limit connectivity and collaboration between stakeholders in decision-making processes, and the alignment of vision and objectives across institutions. The paper also reveals clear spatial disparities and temporal changes in the number of studies and governance challenges identified in natural resource management in developing and developed countries

Evaluating governance arrangements and decision-making outcomes for natural resource management planning: An empirical application of the governance systems analysis framework

Governance continues to be a challenge in the management and conservation of natural resources. It is difficult to strategically address governance challenges without understanding the dynamics, capacities, and knowledge application of institutions within such governance systems. This paper examines the use of Governance Systems Analysis (GSA) to compare, evaluate and benchmark governance arrangements for regional natural resource management (NRM) planning. It is applied in two Australian regional NRM case studies in Cape York and the Wet Tropics. Our analysis of governance arrangements for NRM planning in the two regions finds that while they are structurally and functionally similar, they have different capacities for decision-making about planning. The paper concludes with a discussion of the usefulness and implications of using the GSA as an evaluative framework to analyse governance in regional NRM planning systems

Pokémon Go-ing or staying: Exploring the effect of age and gender on augmented reality game player experiences in public spaces

While the benefits of play and discovery in cities have been widely discussed, the impact of augmented reality games, such as Pokémon Go, induced urban discovery on different demographics and their impact on perceptions of public spaces is yet to be studied. This paper examines the perceptions and usage of public spaces by different demographics of augmented reality gamers. The study finds that there are several statistically significant differences between the experiences of men and women, and players of different ages playing Pokémon Go in public spaces in Australia, particularly in their mobility, sense of marginalization and sense of place

Planning for climigration: a framework for effective action

The phenomenon of ‘climigration’ is an emerging and increasing challenge to human settlements. Climigration refers to community relocation undertaken in response to climate change impacts. This paper adds to early but critical scholarly discussions by providing a land-use planning framework for organising and responding to the governance, policy, institutional and cultural implications of climigration. This paper argues that land-use planning will be increasingly required to manage climigration events over the coming decades and will rely on input and guidance from other disciplines to do so effectively. Climigration is conceptualised as an end-point of climate change adaptation in this paper. Empirical content derives from a multidisciplinary systematic quantitative literature review of international case studies of community relocations. Planning factors with critical, moderate or negligible influences on relocation success are synthesised. These are linked to the roles and functions of land-use planning systems to provide a framework for approaching climigration. The paper provides three interlinked conclusions. The first is that spatial planning systems have potential and capacity to respond to climigration as an extreme form of climate change adaptation. The second is that anticipatory policy frameworks offer the greatest advantages for successful climigration planning. The third conclusion is that maladaptation is a potential but avoidable threat connected to climigration planning

Emerging anti-poverty infrastructural gaps in suburbia: poverty and the voluntary sector across Metropolitan Sydney

Suburbs are subject to numerous stereotypes, including that they lack density, diversity and inclusivity. While these stereotypes have largely been dispelled, the deficit around anti-poverty infrastructure remains understudied. The focus of this paper is to systematically investigate the ostensible mismatch between (a) the emerging suburbanization of poverty, and (b) the potential lack of anti-poverty infrastructure to serve it, with a focus on suburban voluntary sector provision. These aims address the potential infrastructural deficit around voluntary sector provision in suburban areas of prosperous global cities in the Global North. Using Metropolitan Sydney as the case study, we investigate the extent of the suburban infrastructure service deficit across metropolitan space in 2016, comparing poverty patterns and supply of voluntary sector organizations. We find that poor inner and outer suburbs featured fewer services than the inner city, both per capita and per low-income residents, confirming an anti-poverty infrastructural gap