Marking change : changing marks : social benchmarking for interdisciplinary ecosystems management : case study : agriculture and diffuse source pollution from acid sulfate soils, NSW, Australia

Abstract

To incorporate concepts of sustainable agriculture into policy formulation, and decision making for ecosystem management there is a need to integrate social, environmental and economic objectives. This thesis explores a Social Benchmarking model for achieving this integration. The social benchmarking methodology has been designed to respond to complex ecosystem problems that are caused by diffuse source pollution. It is a multimethodology approach that develops qualitative and quantitative data for measurement of change over time, combined with participative processes for identifying best practices and developing tools for providing information to decision makers. The philosophy behind the process is to actively acknowledge that each stakeholder has a vested interest in their own future and that they need credible information to enable them to reach agreement on future ecosystem issues. The research was conducted in seven coastal catchments in New South Wales, Australia between 1998 and 2003. The case study explores the issues raised by problems from acid sulfate soils. Oxidation of these soils causes acidification of soils and diffuse source pollution of water. It is relatively simple to treat at source, but there are multiple sources and entry points from private and public land. The impacts can be a lowering pH to less than 3, affecting water quality, biodiversity and downstream industries. This has resulted in conflict between the multiple stakeholders. Such environmental problems are challenging much of the orthodox thinking and effectiveness of policies. To achieve sustainable development, government agencies need to change their operational ideas away from purely efficient use to include environmentally and socially acceptable use of resources by multiple stakeholders. The key themes of this thesis are using a benchmarking system to provide feedback to industry groups and the role and relationship between human and social capital for participatory and evidence based policy development. How to align education and regulatory policies with best practice standards and incentives so that institutions support building adult skills and community capacity to change. Thus, this thesis develops social indicators of human and social capital for stakeholders associated with acid sulfate soils, along with environmental and economic indicators. The benchmarking system provided feedback to the industry groups (beef, cane, dairy and tea tree landholders) about where their industry was positioned relative to others in the industry, identified best practices and provided the mechanism for triple bottom line reporting. There are three reports within the scope this thesis. The first report 'Farming community ideas about the way forward' in 1998 described the industry, provided baseline data and introduces major issues, such as how there is considerable concern about developing a balance between education and regulation within stakeholder groups. Using participatory research to validate the survey results, the best management practices were identified. One industry, the sugar cane industry, was tackling managing acid sulfate soils and felt they were in control. This was due to their emphasis on building human and social capital. They had developed a soil sampling program and aligned their best practice standards and regulatory policies. The soil sampling program was investigated and guidelines developed to enable sharing of this knowledge in other industries. "Keys to Success" is best practices guidelines about how to sample for acid sulfate soils. The last report in the series "Four years on: What Changed?" looks at these same four industries and the changes that have occurred, while also exploring in more detail the policy implications including: Investing in adult education policies to increase adult skills over 4 years resulted in 25% increase in knowledge and behavioural change (sustainability performance indicators). Access to strong social capital, increases likelihood of life long learning and accounts for variation in human capital and behavioural change. Number of information resources accessed was highly correlated with positive attitude to behavioural change. Lack of equity between institutional and civil stakeholders undermines belief system and social capitals by causing conflict and loss of trust in institutions. These books form the basis of a social/sustainability reporting system, they also provided the basis of the communication strategy to build human capital within the stakeholder groups. One final contribution to the communication facet of this thesis is the proceedings from an OECD funded workshop, Agriculture and Ecosystems Management. These proceedings were aimed at policy and academic stakeholders and attempt to investigate the relationship between the divergent viewpoints held by social, environmental and economic researchers. Building human capital and thereby capacity of individuals and groups to move beyond agricultural production and to become natural resource managers requires alignment of policies and ongoing support and change in institutional thinking. Building strong social capital is the key to facilitating change particularly where collective action is required, but contradictory information and policies can rapidly undermine social capital. Within the context of the acid sulfate soils case study, results from this research indicate that communication of information about change in society through reporting mechanisms is an important facet of facilitating sustainable development that requires more attention in policy and institutional frameworks.

Date of Award	2003
Original language	English