Landscapes, lifestyles

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Landscapes, lifestyles livelihoodsSRES 11
March 2008

• Andrew Campbell
• Triple Helix Consulting

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Key Points

• Sustainability is the challenge of our age
• Business as usual is not a viable option
• We need new thinking for this challenge
• Young professionals are and will be crucial
• Some career tips from an antediluvian old fart

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My perspectives

• Farming background western Victoria
• Forestry rural sociology training
• Extension officer Vic govt
• Manager, Potter Farmland Plan
• National Landcare Facilitator
• Development of NHT NAP in Aust Government
• 7 years as CEO of Land Water Australia
• Now out on my own again

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Landscapes, Lifestyles and Livelihoods

• Triple Helix, not triple bottom line
• interwoven and interdependent
• richer than an accountancy metaphor
• separates lifestyles from economics
• heterogeneity is implicit
• not agri-centric
• Developing Australian Landscape Literacy
• We need an alphabet, grammar canon, grounded
  in place

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A word on landscape

• Managing whole landscapes
• - where nature meets culture (Schama)
• - landscapes are socially constructed
• - beyond ecological apartheid
• - NRM means people management
• - engage values, perceptions, aspirations,
  behaviour
• Integration
• across issues e.g climate, energy water
• across scales fixing the Federation
• across the triple helix
• landscapes, lifestyles livelihoods

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Engaging the community

• no magic bullets, most knowledge resides in the
  community
• we face major societal choices
• Sustain what? For how long? Over what area?
  For whose benefit? Measured by whom?
• sustainable NRM behaviour change
• economic regulatory signals remain weak
• many responses need to be collective
• trickle down adoption doesnt work for
  sustainability
• need new spaces for debate
• eg deliberative fora, citizens juries

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Australian NRM issues are typically characterised
by (after Dovers)

• highly variable spatial and temporal scales
• the possibility of absolute ecological limits
• irreversible impacts and related policy urgency
• complexity, connectivity, uncertainty ambiguity
• cumulative rather than discrete impacts
• value-laden issues new moral dimensions
• systemic problem causes
• contested methods and instruments
• ill-defined property rights and responsibilities
• expectation of stakeholder/citizen participation

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a huge policy agenda

• Defining environmental deliverables - leadership
• Fostering innovation
• Breakthrough technologies
• User-friendly metrics and measuring systems for
  carbon, water energy
• Smarter institutions, including markets
• Best-practice regulation
• Sorting out the planning hierarchy (i.e. the
  Federation)
• Integrated, whole-of-government, all
  governments approaches to climate, water and
  energy interactions
• Setting minimum standards
• Juicier carrots and smarter sticks
• Monitoring and evaluating impact - including
  long-term sentinel system
• Bringing the community along

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through the macroscope

• a small young nation in a vast ancient continent
• unique biological cultural richness and
  diversity in a highly variable climate
• communities on-side
• few people and dollars per unit landscape
• malleable institutions, an open economy
• sufficient know-how to make progress
• the sustainability journey is the challenge of
  our age

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Australia the continent

• Area comparable to mainland US
• 7 to 10 of worlds species
• oldest, most isolated continent
• oldest living life forms
• tallest flowering plants
• largest areas of coral reef and sea-grass
• 37,000km coastline
• 3rd largest fishing zone

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The driest, flattest, most poorly drained,
nutrient depleted and geologically stable
continent
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The lowest run-off and streamflow of any
continent, and the worlds most variable climate
High
0.7
Means that Australian lowland rivers are the most
variable on Earth(Martin Thoms)
0.6
0.5
Index of Variability
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
Low
vis
colorado
ree
ura
vaa
syr
sth
nth
limpopo
cooper
amazon
fitzroy
sao
son
god
hua
missis
yangtze
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Biodiversity

• 12 mega-diverse countries have 60-70 of worlds
  biodiversity
• Oz the only industrialised economy of the 12
• EXTRAORDINARY ENDEMISM
• Centre of marsupial radiation
• 1350 endemic terrestrial vertebrates (Indonesia
  is next highest with 850 species)
• 30,000 sp flowering plants (85 endemic)
• gt300,000? Invertebrate taxa (gt95 endemic)
• 93 amphibians 89 reptiles 85 mammals
• worlds highest reptile diversity

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Biodiversity

• One of the worlds most diverse fish faunas
  (3500 spp)
• 50 of the worlds sharks and rays
• Southern coastline
• Highest known diversity of red and brown algae (
  gt 1150 species)
• Highest known diversity of crustaceans, sea
  squirts and bryozoans

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watery facts

• Water use is increasing
• Water supply is probably decreasing
• (and definitely becoming less reliable)
• Community concern is very high
• Water is a major political and policy priority
• Water is cheap to buy, but expensive to move
• Especially up hill, or through small
  pipes/nozzles
• Energy, climate and water issues are converging

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Perths Annual Storage Inflow GL (1911-2005)
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Murray-Darling Basinfrom Bryson Bates (CSIRO)

• Present
• Past 5 years driest 5-year period on
  record
• Australian droughts have become hotter since
  1973
• SE Australia snow depths _at_ October 1
  decreased 40 in last 40 years
• Climatic record will be subjected to
  intense scrutiny through South Eastern
  Australia Climate Initiative
• Runoff projections (Beare Heaney, 2001)
• 2050 ?10 to ?19 (B1) or ?14 to ?25
  (A1)
• 2100 ?16 to ?30 (B1) or ?24 to ?48
  (A1)
• Projected agricultural costs US0.6B (B1)
  to US0.9B (A1)

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Unhelpful assumptions

• the driest inhabited continent
• governments cant agree on water
• cities could take all our water
• environmental flows and irrigation security are
  incompatible

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Existing farming grazing systems

• Leak water, sediments, nutrients, biocides,
  , CO2, CH4, and biodiversity in many
  regions
• export young people from rural communities
• Most degradation occurs in extreme (if not
  unexpected) events
• Ad hoc broadacre land clearing is no longer
  tenable
• Clearing grazing of rivers streams amplifies
  problems
• Water needs to be used much smarter

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Variation in water use efficiency within sectors
DRDC - More Milk and Dollars, MDBC project
I7044, Schofield and Thompson
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We need farming systems that are

• diverse, resilient, well-buffered, anticipatory,
  flexible, responsive, opportunistic
• highly tuned to a variable climate
• optimally leaky
• much more profitable
• eg. twice the production from half the area with
  quarter the water
• producing carbon, energy and water where
  appropriate
• integrated into regional economies
• attuned to lifestyle aspirations

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Existing farming grazing systems

• not tuned to Australian climates, soils, biota
• Quotes from two graziers (Qld WA)
• If we had discovered England, do you think wed
  have shot all the sheep and cattle, cleared all
  the oak forests, and grazed it with kangaroos?
• and
• I am sick and tired of trying to keep alive
  animals and plants that just want to die in this
  country, while shooting and clearing animals and
  plants that are adapted to it and just want to
  live in this country.

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On-ground change for individuals

• three pillars people need to want to change,
  to know what to do, and have the means to do it
• commitment
• influenced by sense of place and of community
  (local wider)
• know-how
• options need to be viable and adoptable
• capacity
• can be helped at the margins with incentives

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Adoption reality check

• Old adoptability rules still apply (Pannell et al
  2006)
• Economic regulatory signals remain weak
• On-farm change is more likely where innovations
• Offer relative advantage over existing
  systems/approaches
• Are not too complex
• Can be trialled, tested and evaluated (preferably
  on a modest scale)
• Fit with the farmers outlook, capacity and
  farming system
• Offer good returns within a reasonable timeframe
• But relative advantage can be defined in
  interesting ways.

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A farmer perspective
Too many policies remain prescriptive
Farmers have a strong sense of place, built on
generations of land management.
Partnerships with landholders, based on trust,
and respectful of their sense of place are an
essential precursor to more successful
approaches.
Tom Cynthia Dunbabin, Bangor Dunalley,
Tasmania, Winners of the 15th McKell Medal
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The Dunbabin Sense of Place Model

• Landholders strong sense of place drives
  environmental actions through responsibility
  towards, and passion for the place (farm, beach,
  mine etc).

• Shared knowledge (science, cultural history etc),
  and broader understanding of place, greatly helps
  in developing and implementing positive actions.

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The Dunbabin Sense of Place Model (2)

• When legislation, or other forced change impacts
  on the SoP of the landholder, responsibility
  becomes accountability and passion becomes social
  stigma - driving a negative reaction rather than
  a positive action.

• Measures such as stewardship payments have to be
  tailored in a way that strengthens the passion
  and responsibility that drive the positive
  actions.

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The Dunbabin Sense of Place Model (3)

• well designed programs add to the effectiveness
  of the original model not overturn it...

• There is no need to change the strong Sense of
  Place farmers or other resource users have. It
  is far better to enhance that by adding
  additional values, values shared by the wider
  community.

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Sustainabilityanother form of relative advantage

• Still a useful term wont go away
• Needs to be unpacked grounded at farm and
  landscape scale
• Sustain what? Over what area? For how long?
  For whose benefit? As measured by whom?
• SAGE farmers
• A group of leading farm businesses from across
  diverse commodities
• Convened by LWA to look at how leading businesses
  understand and measure farm sustainability
  performance
• Working on a Farm Sustainability Dashboard

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SAGE Sustainability dashboard
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Fitzgerald wilderness
Whole landscape community led conservation
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Bush wisdom with the community

• Information collection on an area basis, not
  subject or species
• Research hot wired to action
• Information stored in and spread from a regional
  base
• Continuity of work, staff and population

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The regional NRM investment model an integrated
approach

• The regional model (56 catchment bodies) is an
  ambitious attempt to implement sustainable NRM at
  a landscape scale
• Devolve decision making resource allocation to
  appropriate scale
• Tap into and build on deep local knowledge and
  connection to place
• Work across issues and industries in an
  integrated way
• integration means making whole
• across scales, issues, land tenures and land
  uses
• in the users context - landscapes, lifestyles
  livelihoods
• that requires excellent relationships
• And comprehensive knowledge

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People in neo-Georgian houses shouldnt throw
stones

• The redesign imperative does not just apply to
  farming systems
• Cities also have a huge ecological footprint
• Urban lifestyles are equally unsustainable, with
  a bigger disconnect from resource condition

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The urban-rural divide - not as wide as we think?

• Some parallels
• income distribution (Neil Barr)
• lifestyle aspirations (Lia Bryant)
• systemic unsustainability
• shifts in perceptions values needed
• gap between expert aspirations and availability
  of practical, profitable, easily-adoptable
  solutions
• desperate need for new options technologies
  systems

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A true Australian would

• only use drinking water for drinking
• live work in buildings, towns cities tuned to
  climate and landscape (eg AGO, 60L, Homebush)
• check out www.60Lgreenbuilding.com
• use more renewable energy (sun, wind, wave)
• emphasise native species/habitats in cuisine,
  gardening, pets, holidays
• put comparable voluntary effort into
  environmental repair as they expect of farmers

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Rethinking the environment

• as integral to national identity
• from a cost to an opportunity
• from fixing problems to strategic repositioning
  
• from public policy problems to vibrant, globally
  sexy industries

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The environment industries(1996-97 figures from
EIAA report)

• a dynamic, new economy sector
• 500B global market growing 7 per year
• Oz market 8.6 Billion (ex tourism)
• 1.6 GDP
• resource providers 14, equipment manufacturers
  28, services 58
• 2000 firms employing 127,000 people
• 300m exports growing fast
• know-how can be a major export earner

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Young professionals

• Will continue to be in great demand
• Can shape remarkable careers
• Mobility and flexibility crucial, BUT
• Build on a solid base of skills and expertise
• Understand yourself, how you relate to others,
  how others see you
• Take time out to sharpen the saw (several times)
• Cultivate mentors, patrons, exemplars
• Dont forget to have a life!

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Take home messages

• Sustainability is the challenge of our age
• You are key players in the biggest game of all
• The Australian environment, and sustainability
  industries, are critical to national identity and
  competitiveness
• Rich and diverse opportunities for environmental
  professionals in almost every aspect of economy
  and society
• Work out what you want and what you have to offer
• Be opportunistic, but dont lose sight of long
  term goals
• GO FOR IT!