Chapter 31: Strengthening national governance systems to support local self-reliance.

The Australian and increasingly international landcare movement reflects renewed recognition of the concept of personal and local self-reliance within national, provincial and local governance systems. While the word ‘subsidiarity’ is seldom used to describe landcare, the concept deeply espouses and reflects a key governance system principle. Subsidiarity is all about the making of decisions at the most appropriate scale to effect positive outcomes for society. In many of our nations, the emergence of more centralised forms of governance have tended to eschew the subsidiarity principle, implicitly (and often explicitly) diminishing the importance and profile of local self-reliance. This ongoing problem in governance systems across the world brings significant risk to policy domains that fundamentally rely on the behaviour of individuals, property owners and local communities as the first line of action. This chapter explores why local self-reliance is so critical in many policy domains, ranging from environmental management to health and social welfare, disaster preparedness and response, law and order, counterterrorism and even economic development. It then explores several common dilemmas and trends in national approaches to governance that weaken local self-reliance. Finally, the paper explores what governments can do (from national to provincial and local levels) to revisit the subsidiarity principle. In doing so, we celebrate the concept of landcare as a grassroots movement of extremely wide importance