Community Participation and Collaboration in Catchment Management: A multi-disciplinary Approach to Citizen Involvement in Decision-making Processes

This thesis explores community participation in natural resource management. It is based on a study of ‘social harmony’ in catchment strategy development in South East Queensland, Australia. Currently, management strategies are linked to Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) principles, involving collaboration between government, industry and community sectors. The proposed benefits of collaborative politics are improved opportunities for community participation, and ownership in the decision-making processes. Collaborative processes purportedly allow strategists to integrate the knowledge, values and practices of the wider population into the planning processes. However, this thesis questions the effectiveness of collaborative politics on two premises. Firstly, strategists present collaborative politics as an achievable and practical avenue for managing natural resources without necessarily considering the complexities and inconsistencies of human behaviour. Secondly, strategy development is carried out predominantly as a structured technical process that under-estimates the multiplicity of knowledge, rationalities, discourses and realities that influence individual action. Consequently, this thesis argues that the assumptions upon which strategic objectives are based, contradict the needs and concerns that underpin the motives and practices of the grass roots, and undermine the aims of collaborative politics. By exploring personal needs, values, beliefs and knowledge of individual and group participants, this thesis demonstrates that individual participation and commitment to environmental quality issues are determined through rational choice that involves complex reflexive processes. This approach is useful for explaining why attempts to create a collaborative environment are impeded. Members of the wider community generally choose to avoid or minimise engagement with formal strategic processes. Consequently, strategic management is primarily the domain of a small group of actors who possess superior knowledge of relevant issues rather an inclusive, collaborative or participative process. Ironically, this core group inadvertently creates an elitist approach to management. These core participants reinforce the instrumental rationality of a technocratic system while filtering out the non-material values that drive the grass roots. In the final analysis, collaboration is constrained by actors who are the most ardent supporters of the idea of a collaborative community.Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of the Sunshine Coast, 2005