Community targets
Community participation in natural resource management engages people at all levels from their back yards through onto community land. The ACT has strong community participation in some areas of natural resource management (e.g. a high voluntary reduction in water use has occurred during the drought from 2001 to 2006; thousands of volunteers are working on revegetation projects particularly in bushfire-devastated areas), but these volunteers represent only a small fraction of the population and more could be achieved if more people were involved.
Participation may be direct or indirect:
- direct participation by the community includes sharing of knowledge of the park and management expertise by Indigenous owners of Namadgi National Park; community activities such as bird watching groups, and Friends of, Watch and Care groups; paid work in natural resource management; and business contributions
- indirect participation helps shift people’s understanding and behaviour (e.g. by raising the level of local environmental philanthropy or participation in events focused on local landscapes).
Community participation changes as demographics, lifestyles and affluence in the ACT shift, and planning for community engagement must align itself with these changes.
Community action in the ACT has a regional focus and groups cooperate with local catchment management authorities in New South Wales in providing opportunities for joint training and capacity building programs, whole-of-catchment research, and workshops. ACT community groups provide input into regional natural resource management by providing:
- experience in planning and working in groups and networks
- access to major research and educational facilities
- potential for corporate partners and
- recruitment potential for community groups.
Ecological footprint
We all depend on one biosphere for sustaining our lives. Yet each community, each country, strives for survival and prosperity with little regard for its impact on others. Some consume the Earth’s resources at a rate that would leave little for future generations.
Virtually all products consumed in the ACT (food, clothing, energy, building materials, household and luxury items) are sourced from outside the ACT. In 2003/04, Canberra’s ecological footprint was 8.5 gha per person or 2.65 million gha – roughly 11 times the actual 253,800 ha the ACT occupies. It was the highest per capita footprint of any Australian city and is also high by world standards.
Expenditure and household size are critical in determining the size of the ecological footprint:
- more affluent communities have a larger footprint as people can afford to buy more goods
- smaller households have a larger footprint because there are fewer people to share the same resources.
The ecological footprint target is designed to achieve a 15% decrease in the intermediate term and 30% in the longer term. The 30% per capita target reflects the need to firmly establish a trajectory towards global sustainability.
Careful planning is also needed to prevent the ecological footprint of the whole of Canberra increasing as the population grows in size and affluence. Assuming continued population growth at 1% each year until 2030, a 30% per capita decrease in footprint will only translate to a 10% decrease in the total impact of the Canberra population (1.9 m gha).
The ACT Government is already addressing the size of the ACT’s ecological footprint with the introduction of initiatives such as ACT No WAste and the Sustainable Housing Initiative.
Initially, the rate of change is likely to be slow, but should increase as carbon trading introduces strong market incentives for behavioural change.
ecological footprint.
Indigenous engagement
The ACT is N(g)unnawal/Ngambri country.7 The Indigenous people of the ACT have valuable and enduring insights into the land and its management. The ACT can use this knowledge to assist in longterm management of our natural resources. The relationship of Indigenous people to land is fundamental to their existence and can provide insight into how the environment can be valued. Engagement of Indigenous people in managing natural resources will assist in their retention of traditional knowledge and provide another avenue for Indigenous communities to support themselves while dealing with an array of social and economic issues.
This target focuses on putting new arrangements into place quickly. It will result in an increase in the use of traditional knowledge along with ongoing improvement in the level of participation of natural resource management projects by Indigenous people. Some 4000 Indigenous people currently live in the ACT. This population consists of not only Ngunnawal people but also of Indigenous people from other regions within Australia. If 5% of the Indigenous population are currently active in both paid and voluntary natural resource management (the same proportion as for the entire ACT population), doubling this to 10% by 2030, as the population grows, would require an additional 10–15 people involved every year.
- There are several ways of representing the name of the indigenous people of the ACT, reflecting different ways in which the name has been recorded and used historically.
Community capacity
Increased knowledge and awareness in the community will result in increased adoption of positive attitudes, enhanced personal confidence, better skills and improved on-ground results for natural resource management. This target addresses organisational skills, as well as the individual capacity, needed to bring individuals and groups together and manage their natural resource management activities effectively and efficiently.
At least one in five active natural resource management participants need to have appropriate skills to enable them to be able to participate independently or manage others. This ratio needs to stay constant as the number of people in the region increases and as people age or leave the area. For effective delivery, at least 200 new people need to be trained each year to keep up with the targeted growth in participation.
Currently, around 5% of the population of the ACT is engaged in natural resource management. Increasing this number to 10% by 2030 means that at least 270 new entrants adults) need to be trained each year.
Neither of these calculations allows for practitioners ageing or withdrawing, nor for their need to update their skills from time to time. If 10% do a refresher or new course every year that adds an additional 500 training opportunities each year. It is unrealistic to expect that more than 10% of the population will become involved in the longer term.
Community participation
General participation in natural resource management includes activities such as volunteering to work on environmental projects, investing in ethical investments, adopting environmentally responsible habits, and choosing to purchase goods and services with smaller ecological footprints.
Environmental projects in or adjacent to urban areas of the ACT include water quality and riparian assessment, stream bank stabilisation, riparian ecosystem rehabilitation, surveys of flora and fauna, and tree planting. Rural land managers are actively involved in maintaining native grasslands and woodlands. Groups are also removing weeds; revegetating denuded areas; educating and raising awareness; restoring riparian areas and wetlands; surveying, monitoring and researching natural resource management issues; subcatchment planning; and providing advice to government.
A number of community groups collaborate and/or complement each other in conserving and restoring the natural resources of the ACT – the main community natural resource management groups are urban and rural Landcare, Park Care, Horse Paddock Carers and Waterwatch.
Addressing weeds, revegetation and water quality in urban, rural and bush environments
57 Landcare groups and 100 Waterwatch groups
Membership: more than 2500 people in total, ranging from smaller groups to one group of nearly 200 people
Representing all parts of the community: men and women, younger and older, including indigenous people and people from non-English–speaking backgrounds
Individual community groups are supported by umbrella catchment groups – the Ginninderra, Molonglo and Southern ACT catchment groups – who assist with funding, communication, promotion and logistical support. Greening Australia and Conservation Volunteers Australia provide valuable support by coordinating casual and regular volunteers, and providing technical and other support and advice.
Individual volunteers and landholders are also an important part of community-based natural resource management.
Diversifying the range of participation opportunities to reflect the current and future demographic profile of the ACT will promote greater participation. Opportunities also need to reflect the ACT’s diverse cultural identity.
This target aims to achieve higher levels of participation by increasing the range of opportunities available.
Doubling the current (5%) participation rate to 10% by 2030 means that at least 1100 more people need to become permanently involved every year. The rate is likely to grow faster at first as new opportunities pay off, then slow as the proportion reaches 10%. The calculation does not allow for people ageing or withdrawing. The target would be better expressed as person-days participation but no data are as yet available to support this.
Bushcare in the Bush Capital
BUSHCARE IN THE BUSH CAPITAL
Improving Canberra residents’ understanding of their local environment and how to care for it
Participants in Bushcare in the Bush Capital find out about how garden plants can escape into the bush thereby reducing its health and viability. They help conserve the bush at the edges of urban areas, and reduce weeds and grow native plants in their own backyards. New residents of Gungahlin also have the opportunity to learn about their nature parks. For example, creation of the Bush on the Boundary Reference Group in Gungahlin, brings together land developers, local community and catchment groups, scientists, and residents to work collaboratively in addressing the impact of suburban development on surrounding nature parks, reserves and public land, by targeting issues such as cat containment, urban wetlands, illegal dumping and weed control.
Australian Native Plant Society
Photos Micheal Schultz
Integration of planning frameworks
Natural resource management planning cannot exist in isolation from other land-use and related planning in the ACT and the local region. Planning in the region is administered by a range of ACT, NSW, Australian and local government agencies and other organisations. Planning by all agencies needs to be integrated so that conflicting overlaps are reduced and cooperation is ensured – a complex system that needs to match the complexity of the landscape itself.
Strategies and plans taken into account in formulating this plan include:
- the Canberra Plan, Territory Plan and National Capital Plan
- ACT Government natural resources strategies and management plans (including Measuring our progress: Canberra’s journey to sustainability, Think water, act water and Weathering the Change. The ACT Climate Change Strategy 2007 – 2025; strategies for conservation areas and endangered species and habitats; action plans and strategies for threatened species and communities; and guidelines for water-sensitive urban design and environmental flows)
- ACTEW strategies and plans (Future Water Options for the ACT Region - implementation plan, and Water Security for the ACT and Region: recommendations to ACT Government) and
- ACT and regional catchment management group strategies
and plans.
This target will achieve effective cooperation and collaboration between natural resource management and other planning interests. It aims to achieve a more consistent set of natural resource management objectives across all planning mechanisms in the ACT, and ensure that progress is reported regularly and rigorously. Progress towards this goal is likely to evolve gradually as it requires cooperation and new ways of thinking within and across governments.