It marks a major shift towards incorporating the theory of systems into natural resource management. It does so by emphasising the importance of the context or ‘problem situation’ and by providing for two important steps in the process, the implementation stage and a rigorous basis for synthe- sising the findings. However, this framework omitted one important compo- nent. Although Bellamyet al. (2001) identified in the text a range of factors that reflect the worldviews or mental constructs of the evaluation team (for example, the values, priorities, experiences and organisational culture) which will influence the formulation of the problem and the analytical models used, it was not incorporated explicitly as a step in the framework. Consequently this framework suppresses the importance of mental constructs to the process and the potential impacts that this may have on the outcomes of the eval- uation. Because of this the mental constructs including assumptions of the researcher are not made explicit. Hullet al. (2002) showed empirically that assumptions about nature were embedded in people’s preferences for envi- ronmental policy and management and constrained people’s vision of what environmental conditions could and should exist, thereby constraining the future that could be negotiated, further emphasising the need for the practi- tioner’s assumptions to be made explicit.
In this book a general systemic framework for understanding problem- solving (Jayaratna, 1994) is used and described in Section 5.2. There are three contexts in which any method is used and their identification is important in understanding how they are used and whether or not they are effective (Jayaratna, 1994). The three contexts are creation, selection/interpretation and action. The constructed method reflects the mental constructs of the creators, whereas the people who select the method to solve their perceived problem may try to interpret the method through their own mental constructs.
Those who ultimately have to use the method may apply it according to their mental constructs; consequently the context in which the method users interpret the method may change its nature, form, structure and content, and therefore its effectiveness (Jayaratna, 1994). A fuller examination is given in Chapter 6.
resource management policy are components of a policy mix which has been inadequate as the driver of behavioural change in agriculture towards sustainable land management outcomes. Not only were the policies based on disciplinary science, but also the policy-makers and managers were products of the same system, trained mostly in narrowly focussed disciplinary research, which shaped their mental constructs. Although integrated approaches had an alternative epistemology to that of CCP, this was not adopted and the approaches were practised with the epistemology of normal science. That is to say, those who selected and used the method may have interpreted the method through their own mental constructs. Therefore, the policy models, whether they were CCP or one of the integrated methodological alterna- tives, were shown to be practised within the normal scientific paradigm. Out of this paradigm came such axioms as the integrity and stability of nature and the view that people were outside the system in an objective approach.
Consequently changes in natural resource management policy from CCP to integrated approaches operated only at the level of tools, techniques and methods and were not marked by a paradigm shift. However, the ecology of the 1990s and 2000s has replaced these notions with concepts of resilience, non-linearity and multiple-stable states, and the dynamics of systems of linked people and nature (Wallingtonet al., 2001). Science, society and nature are interlinked into a whole system, and a new epistemology, theory and praxis are required to meet the challenges of producing resilient sustainable systems.
From the review of natural resource degradation in Chapter 3, it is clear that existing natural resource policies have failed to manifest sustainable land management practices that will mitigate natural resource degradation.
The current integrated resource management policies, which support adap- tive management, are the latest attempt to address the issues of natural resource degradation. The audit of natural resource management since 1997 (National Land and Water Resources Audit, 1997) has shown no improvement in natural resources despite the amount of public funding directed at these issues.
It has been suggested that the failure of science to resolve certain problems may be due to uncertainty about whether the appropriate questions are being asked, and whether problems are addressed with appropriate theoretical and methodological tools and within an appropriate paradigm (Wynne, 1974). It is time to rethink the questions when decisions result in persistent problems.
Science, society and nature are interlinked, and a new epistemology, theory and praxis are required to meet the challenges with a greater emphasis on
the way that we understand, define and formulate the problem. In Chapter 5, we review the literature for the emerging theories of understanding the dynamics of natural resource management in complex systems and construct a framework from which to examine the dynamics of the WA agricultural region.
A contemporary epistemology and framework for natural resource management of the
twenty-first century
Separations of disciplines and politics are artefacts of the human mind, not characteristics of the real world.
Donella Meadows and Jennifer Robinson, 1985