Adaptive, community-based biodiversity planning in Australia’s humid tropical forests
Seminar by Dr Rosemary Hill
Senior Research Scientist, Human Geography & Planning, Biodiversity Theme, CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences
In Australia’s tropic rainforests, poor performance of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) approaches mandated by national policy highlights the importance of the global search for better models. This paper reports on co-research to develop, apply and test the transferability and effectiveness of a new model and tools for CBNRM in biodiversity conservation. Adaptive co-management, designed with specific communities and natural resources, recognized as linked multi-scalar phenomena, is the new face of CBNRM. New tools used to achieve adaptive co-management include a collaborative focal species approach focused on the iconic southern cassowary, scenario analysis, science brokering partnerships, a collaborative habitat investment atlas and institutional brokering. These tools empower institutions and individuals, ensure ongoing systematic scientific assessment and secure effective on-ground action. Evaluation of effectiveness using a performance criteria framework identified achievement of many social and environmental outcomes. We conclude that effective CBNRM requires multi-scale multi-actor collaborative design, not simply devolution to local-scale governance. Bridging/boundary organizations are important to facilitate the process. Further attention to collaborative design of CBNRM structures, functions, tools and processes for biodiversity conservation is recommended.
Dr Hill is a human geographer specialising in collaborative environmental planning with communities at multiple scales to foster social-ecological sustainability. Dr Hill joined CSIRO in 2006 as a senior scientist, with extensive prior experience in both scholarship and practice in the social science of resource conservation and management, focused in the biodiversity and Indigenous domains. Her expertise lies in: strategic natural resource governance and planning, specialising in biodiversity, Indigenous and protected areas; cross-cultural collaborative research with Indigenous people on environmental management; and interdisciplinary sustainability science. Dr Hill is a member of the World Commission on Protected Areas, and the Commission on Economic, Environment and Social Policy. She is Vice-President of the Australian Conservation Foundation a member of the Board of Ecotrust Australia and the Ministerially-appointed Australian Landcare Council. Dr Hill has received the national Cooperative Research Centres’ Association Award for Excellence in Innovation; the Cassowary Award for Conservation; and the International Women’s Day Award for Excellence.
James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen: Macaulay Suite B
James Hutton Institute, Dundee: Broadcast live in the New Seminar Room
All welcome
For further information please contact
Jenna Gray: jenna.gray@hutton.ac.uk
