Leaders: Profs. Helen Ross and Ockie Bosch, University of
Queensland, Gatton
Full title: Integrating research and management at property and
regional scales through participatory knowledge building
Project 3.1.3
Summary | Limitations of knowledge and
information | Better information management needed | User-friendly
support | Objectives | Approach and methods | Outcomes |
Outputs | Project team |
This project flows on from a scoping study conducted by Bosch
and Ross in 2001–02 It provides a means to combine different
forms of knowledge and embed them in ongoing management practices,
through a participatory knowledge-building process.
The project will develop and test effective processes and tools
for participatory knowledge building and community-based learning,
and to help knowledge-building to become institutionalised in
management practice at both regional and property scales.
A case study is being conducted in collaboration with the
Northern Gulf Resource Management Group (NGRMG). The study is
focusing on integration and use of knowledge (at property level)
from landholders, scientists and agency staff.
It aims to encourage community-based learning through adaptive
management. In the process it will identify ways of meeting Natural
Resource Management (NRM) policy requirements alongside the needs
of graziers, and identify ways of implementing regional plans and
government policies on private and leasehold land.
Close collaboration with Themes 1, 2 and 4 are being
established. The project will provide ongoing capacity and
infrastructure (including user-friendly computer based tools) for
knowledge building in the northern Gulf that can be extrapolated
for other areas.
In deciding their courses of action (such as their property
management, financial strategies and household futures), property
holders need to integrate a wide range of information and
knowledge: from personal knowledge, various sciences, policies,
financial influences and social influences. Their trust in these
sources, and psychological make-up (e.g. resistance to change or
risk-taking), openness or resistance to different sources and types
of information, and social orientations and considerations (such as
willingness or otherwise to join groups) affect what information
they take into account, and how they weigh it up and integrate
it.
Previous CRC research (Arnott et al. 1999—see Publications
and PDF links below) has shown the importance of the learning
styles of landholders. Policy makers are similarly constrained by
needing to make policies with incomplete information, and the
inability to foresee consequences beyond their areas of expertise
and responsibility.
Researchers are also confounded because the knowledge they
create is often not integrated with the implicit systems of the
managers. Further, scientific findings may apply to different
regions or scales to where their use is required so their
applicability may be limited and need local testing.
Our consultations during the scoping study point to a clear need
for better information management, in which fragmented pieces of
knowledge are integrated, made sense of and compiled for different
users and purposes into a usable whole. This includes all forms of
information and knowledge, from scientific, experiential, or
traditional ecological knowledge, to understandings of the social
and economic interactions and forces that affect the ecological
relationships.
Our past experience shows that while there is a growing demand
for computer-based tools to provide ready access to information and
assist decision-makers to think through issues, the vast majority
of current-generation Decision Support Systems (DSS) are far from
user-friendly.
Ockie Bosch has a substantial record in participatory
development of user-friendly DSS tools, organised around
users’ ways of thinking. Helen Ross’s background in
participatory methods and ways of eliciting environmental knowledge
(‘mental models’) will further enhance these
participatory methods of knowledge building.
- Assist the CRC to integrate its own, and other, research-based
knowledge (Themes 1, 2 and 3) and communication activities (Theme
4) towards informing sustainable land management practices and
effective institutional arrangements for specific regions and
issues of concern to the CRC.
- Conduct participatory knowledge-building activities to enhance
the integration of knowledge of regional systems, and the
usefulness and application of the systems knowledge by landholders,
policy makers and other stakeholders operating at both property and
regional scales.
- Encourage the practice of adaptive management and monitoring
(trialling and testing management interventions) by property
holders, government agencies and other interested parties in order
to institutionalise knowledge-building.
- Capture and present the integrated knowledge in user-friendly
one-stop electronic and non-electronic forms.
- Contribute to PhD and postdoctoral research training on the
Tropical Savannas, with a focus on interdisciplinarity, knowledge
creation and integration.
To achieve better information management and effective
co-learning, direct involvement of land managers is required. A
systems approach is needed to ensure that each stakeholder
group’s relationships to environmental issues and other parts
of the system (such as political influence) are well
understood.
In this project we will found the systems approach in a
'visions' process that asks questions such as: Where do we want to
be? Where are we now? How do we get there? How will we know when we
get there? What is the ongoing environmental changes within which
we operate/make decisions?
Systems analysis will enable identification of linkages between
environmental, social and economic dimensions of achieving each
part/goal of the vision. Adaptive management provides a mechanism
for developing and testing strategies to achieve the vision, by
applying and refining scientists’ and managers’ new
knowledge. It thereby facilitates an ongoing process of
knowledge-building.
The approach to be taken in this project will build upon the
Integrated Systems for Knowledge Management (ISKM - Bosch et al,
1996—see Reference link below). ISKM integrates the above
elements into a knowledge-building process, which is designed
to:
- support an ongoing process of constructive community dialogue
to develop practical resource management decision support; and
- strengthen and enhance the application of tools and methods to
promote participation and self-help in natural resource
management.
- An understanding of effective processes for participatory
knowledge-building and community-based learning suited to the
people and circumstances of the Tropical Savannas, to assist in
sustainable property and regional management (including resolution
of incompatibilities between regional and property scale);
- Institutionalisation of participatory knowledge-building in
solving management dilemmas at property and regional levels;
- Ongoing capacity and infra-structure for knowledge building in
the northern Gulf area.
- A tool-kit comprising computerised knowledge base capturing an
amalgamation of landholder, agency and scientific knowledge that
can be used for:
-
- management strategies on how to best achieve different goals
that will help to achieve a vision of a sustainable region (for
research purposes a subset of high priority goals will be selected
with stakeholders, eg. better fire management, grazing management,
community development);
- solutions for integration and implementation of policies and
regional plans, at property level (e.g. on-ground property
management strategies, tenure-based solutions, market-based
solutions, off-sets, best management incentives);
- Criteria for monitoring how well we are doing in achieving the
vision;
- An institutionalised adaptive management and monitoring
framework that helps to ensure ongoing knowledge building in the
region;
- Tool-kit of processes for effective participation in visioning,
goal setting and ongoing knowledge building.
While the initial outputs will be specific to the northern Gulf
region, they will provide a format or 'shell' for convenient
application elsewhere in the tropical savannas, and much of the
captured knowledge will prove applicable elsewhere.
Prof. Ockie Bosch, UQ
Prof. Helen Ross, UQ
Dr Manda Page, UQ
Adele Vagg, UQ
Collaborating staff
Dr Jeremy Russell-Smith
Dr Peter Jacklyn
Dr John Ludwig
Noeline Gross, NGRMG
Christine Saunders, NGRMG
Doug Quirk, NGRMG/Carpentaria Shire
