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Local and Regional Partnerships in Natural Resource Management: The Challenge of Bridging Institutional Levels

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Abstract

Although collaboration and multi-stakeholder partnerships have become a common feature in natural resource management throughout the world, various problems are associated with attempts to up-scale community-based natural resource management from the local to the regional level. To analyze the reasons behind these problems, this article reports on two examples of collaboratives in Australia: local Landcare groups, and regional natural resource management (NRM) bodies. Recent government-induced changes have shifted the focus from local Landcare group action to strategic planning and implementation by regional NRM bodies. Two typologies of collaboratives are applied to analyze the characteristics of both these groups. The study uses data from 52 qualitative interviews with key informants at the local and regional level in Victoria and Tasmania, participant observation, as well as literature and document analysis. The article illustrates how the groups’ distinct characteristics can cause conflicts when the different types of collaboratives operate in parallel. In addition, the article reports how stakeholders perceive the level of community participation in decision-making processes. The key message is that the benefits of community participation and collaboration that arise at the local level can be lost when these approaches are up-scaled to the regional level unless there is an intermediary or ‘mediating structure’ to facilitate communication and create the link between different types of collaboratives.

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Notes

  1. This Committee is composed of representatives from Landcare and other community groups. It serves as an information channel between groups and the CMA and advises the CMA.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research. The research was approved by the University of Tasmania Human Research Ethics Committee (Reference Number H9195). Thanks to all the people who agreed to be interviewed or contributed in other ways to this research, as well as to four anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

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  1. Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, Socio-Economic Research Group, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen, AB15 8QH, Scotland, UK

    Katrin Prager

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  1. Katrin Prager
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Correspondence to Katrin Prager.

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Prager, K. Local and Regional Partnerships in Natural Resource Management: The Challenge of Bridging Institutional Levels. Environmental Management 46, 711–724 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-010-9560-9

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