T he new regional arrangements for natural resource management ( NRM) in Australia have been built upon a premise of community-based management, reflecting the increase in participatory approaches and citizen involvement within NRM. Given this increase there is still a paucity of literature regarding the field of facilitation for researchers and practitioners currently working within participatory frameworks in NRM. A Delphi survey technique was used to conduct an Australia-wide study on NRM facilitation. The study highlighted that NRM facilitators often preformed a multiplicity of potentially conflicting roles (e.g. facilitator and change agent). Many challenges were also identified by study participants, such as institutional dysfunction and o\'erloading community volunteers. However, a number (~f facilitation strategies were also identified, such as stakeholder mapping and capacity audits, as a means to combat the challenges. While the facilitation challenges were framed within the context of NRM, the strategies to improve facilitation may be transferable to other sectors and applications.
Hawkesbury's Systemic Development differs from other systemic approaches is that it has a pedagogical, rather than methodological focus, with individual and social learning outcomes, and with ethical as well as instrumental concerns. The paper describes the logic of this approach, particularly the key role of epistemic learning in the development of systemic praxis. The approach is confronting epistemologically, and therefore emotionally, in the face of persistent experiential and conceptual challenges. The Centre for Systemic Development (CSD) was formed to enable a move to occur beyond the academy, and three early examples of its work are described. These illustrate the development of the extra-mural process of systemic development, that include workshops and 'shop-work' projects to enable the practice of: experiential and inspirational learning, self and social awareness, systemic methodologies, dealing with issues of complexity and ethics, and of a future orientation for strategic development. The university context proved too rigid for these activities, and therefore an independent Systemic Development Institute (SDI) was established to carry on the development of the ideas through praxis.
Alaska Clean Seas (ACS), the oil industry spill response cooperative on Alaska's North Slope, has prepared a new core response plan to give ACS operations staff the tactical information they need during a spill response and to allow ACS members to prepare streamlined response plans for facilities. The project grew from the work of the joint agency/industry North Slope Spill Response Project Team, which re-evaluated North Slope response capability. The ACS Technical Manual allows operators to concentrate on spill prevention and overall response strategies. The manual is innovative in that it is based primarily on the operational needs of the responder rather than regulatory demands—although it addresses the regulations, too. Volume 1, Tactics Descriptions, is the heart of the plan and was prepared primarily by ACS operations personnel. These tactics provide building blocks for facility scenarios and contain diagrams; descriptions; equipment, personnel, and support requirements; and operational considerations. Text is minimal in the tactics descriptions, which comprise mainly graphics and tables. The tactics cover safety, containment, recovery/storage, tracking/surveillance, burning, shoreline cleanup, wildlife, disposal, logistics/equipment, and administration. The manual's other volumes provide a facility and environmental map atlas and an Incident Management System manual.
An oil spill response model, configured for operation on a personal computer, was developed for the Canadian Beaufort Sea (in the Mackenzie Bay-Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula area) for a consortium of oil companies operating in the region. The spill model predicts the drift, spread, evaporation, dispersion, emulsification, and shoreline interaction of spilled oil in ice-infested waters. Wind conditions and ice distribution data are input by the user. Currents are provided by a three-dimensional, fine-grid hydrodynamic model of the study region forced by river flow and wind. The spill model allows the user to reinitialize the spill location based on observations and to simulate either instantaneous or continuous spill scenarios. The model predicts the spill's trajectory, the areal distribution of the oil slick, the oiled shoreline, and the oil mass balance as a function of time. Model output is provided on a color ink printer or a color graphics monitor.
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