Will regionalisation achieve integrated natural resource management? Insights from recent South Australian experience

[Extract] This chapter is concerned with the intersection of two recent and important conceptual and operational trends in environmental management in Australia: the regionalisation of management, and the need for integrated approaches to natural resource management (NRM). While regionalisation of different areas of policy implementation has a long, if not distinguished history in Australia (Beer et al. 2003), the imperative to achieve greater integration of environmental management efforts is a relatively recent phenomenon (Morrison et al. 2004). There has been, over recent years, something of a renaissance of regionalism and regionalisation, particularly in relation to natural resources. Part of the rationale for the regionalisation of NRM has been the promise of improved levels of integration (Abrahams 2005). In this submission, we ask, will the regionalisation of NRM achieve improved levels of integration