Supporting Landscape and NRM boards to Navigate Complexity

What Challenges do Landscape Boards Face Today?

Landscape and Natural Resource Management Boards have been striving for many years to nurture and care for this country upon which we all rely for our lives and livelihoods. It is a challenging task, made all the more complex in recent years.

Climate change is manifesting in myriad ways. Since 2019, South Australia has experienced at least three devastating bushfires, a global pandemic, a major river flood, more fires, a drought and an unprecedented algal bloom. Biodiversity is becoming more fragile as crucial species become extinct. Farmers are struggling to make ends meet.

There is unprecedented strain in our communities as our young people experience climate anxiety, and the need to adapt is urgent. With the publication of more climate modelling from specialists like James Hansen, the prospect of +2°C sometime in the 2030s is no longer out of bounds. The more we learn, the more dire our problematique appears. Developing an ability to adapt is not only important, but urgent. The collective challenge is now generally accepted to be regeneration on a bioregional basis.

How Can We Achieve Regeneration?

One significant problem that is often not even recognised is the way that we plan using processes inherited from mechanistic management habits. Plans that are linear, relying upon prediction in an increasingly uncertain world. Additionally, consultation processes that draw out ideas from communities without dealing with the biases against change that we all express.

These approaches may have worked in times gone by when the economic and climatic conditions were more stable, but they are doomed to fail in complex and unpredictable environments.