No abstract

The region has become a significant scale of governance for the implementation of public policy, including natural resource management (NRM). A community-based regional NRM governance model has been adopted by the Australian government in partnership with Australian state and territory governments. There have been persuasive advocates of this approach both within community organisations and government. Proponents point to advantages such as the capacity to integrate across social, environmental and economic issues; improved investment efficiency; ability to establish appropriate power-sharing and partnership arrangements; better conversion of planning products into on-ground outcomes; and community learning and capacity building. However, concerns have also been raised in the academic literature regarding insufficient devolution of power, lack of downward accountability, exclusion of some stakeholders from decision making, and inadequate vertical and horizontal integration. We interviewed representatives from each of the governance levels (national, state, regional) to examine these concerns, and in doing so identify the strengths and challenges of the Australian experiment with devolved NRM governance. We synthesise the interview data with insights from the literature and make observations on the current state of Australian NRM governance. From this analysis, we identify lessons from the Australian experience to inform the development of multi-level environmental governance systems.

Garden plants that invade native vegetation can be a threat to native ecosystems. The species composition of gardens near the bush in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia is shown to relate to environmental variation and the attitudes of gardeners to their recreation, to native plants and to the bush. Four types of gardens are discriminated: the species‐poor shrub garden; the local native garden; the woodland garden; and the gardenesque. A group of gardeners who valued functional gardens, and the hard work in creating a garden, largely produced gardenesque outcomes. A strongly conservationist group of gardeners had native, woodland or shrub gardens. A group of gardeners who valued romance and privacy largely had woodland gardens. A small group of gardeners who liked gardens to create themselves, and preferred to minimize the act of gardening, tended to the shrub garden outcome. Plant species that invade the bush are least frequent in the more manicured shrub and gardenesque styles of garden than in the more informal local native and woodland gardens, in a dissonance between expressed attitudes and outcomes. Most of the most invasive weeds in the bush are shown to be independent of their occurrence in adjacent gardens, suggesting that integrated control programs involving both all gardeners within dispersal range, and bush managers, are necessary. The existence of a small number of respondents who see benefits in environmental weeds in their gardens, suggests that such programs would be ineffective without regulation, a solution offered by no respondent. However, regulation might be ineffective without community understanding, the raising of which was the main solution suggested by the interviewed gardeners.

New evidence is emerging to suggest that climate change mobility is giving effect to changing forms of island identity among Tuvaluans and i-Kiribati. This nascent shift prompts a number of questions addressed in this paper. What, for example, does climate change migration mean for island identity and its geographic performance? How does the spatialization of identity inform shared experiences of climate change, and how does identity assist in the formation of shared positions from which to advocate for change? Drawing on discourses of sedentarism and mobilization among Tuvaluan and i-Kiribati, we explore performances of identity related to climate change being fashioned and refashioned in different contexts. Migrants climatiques et nouvelles identités ? Les géopolitiques d'adoption ou de rejet de mobilité RÉSUMÉDe nouveaux éléments de preuve indiquent que la mobilité liée au changement climatique commence à donner effet à des formes changeantes d'identité insulaire chez les Tuvaluans et les i-Kiribatis. Ce changement naissant suscite un certain nombre de questions posées dans cet article. Par exemple, que signifie la migration due au changement climatique pour l'identité de l'île et sa performance géographique ? Comment la spatialisation de l'identité influencet-elle les expériences partagées du changement climatique, et comment l'identité aide-t-elle à la formation de positions partagées à partir desquelles on puisse prôner des changements ? En exploitant des discours de sédentarisme et de mobilisation chez les Tuvaluans et les i-Kiribati, nous explorons les performances d'identité liées au changement climatique façonnées et refaçonnées dans différents contextes. Migrantes climáticos y nuevas identidades? La geopolítica de aceptar o rechazar la movilidad RESUMENExiste nueva evidencia que sugiere que la movilidad de cambio climático está dando efecto a las formas cambiantes de identidad

No abstract

This paper seeks to explore two propositions: that islands are constitutive of emotional geographies that may be described as islandness; and that islandness could be a key ontological resource among those who govern (on) islands, particularly where economic development activities generate deep-seated divisions. The paper also responds to two claims: one that localized studies are needed to augment the many that exist of 'globalization from above'; the other that island studies are marginal in geography in the same way that islands seem peripheral to continents. I address these matters with reference to research about major reforms to fiscal and environmental policy in Tasmania, Australia's only island state. There, deep divisions exist about the effects on community and place of various processes of economic globalization and ecological modernization, especially those involving resource-extractive industries such as forestry. Key proponents of the reform process were asked to reflect on how their work was informed by Tasmania's status as both a sub-national jurisdiction of Australia and an island; and were invited to ponder the State's political, economic and environmental position then and now. Interesting on its own terms as a study of political geographies at the microscale, the case also enables general conjecture about the capacity of islandness to generate spaces of rapprochement and craft political practices for agonistic ends.

No abstract

Belonging is an intransitive verb from the Old English langian öat handöand the Middle English (be)longen öto be suitable, advantageous, or appropriate (Merriam Webster, OED). It denotes attribute, adjunct, or dependent status; attachment or possession; and fitness, connection, and appropriate classification or placement. In the first instance, towns are attributed to regions or titles to land. In the second example, feelings attach to places and, felt by someone, affix to how that someone is in place and belongs there. In the last case, a proposed residential development may be seen to belong in its right place or (just as likely) may be seen as misplaced: perhaps public land has been privatized, and valued and established activities then dislodged. Belonging so understood includes its oppositesödispossession, displacement, discord, and misfit. It is fundamental to practices of (more or less) democratic engagement in decisions about land-use planning and development control that are (more or less) informed by an ecological ethic. Belonging also brings into focus who can speak, for whom, and with what effects.Part of the River Derwent, Ralphs Bay is the site of the settlement of Lauderdale, 12 km from the central business district of Hobart, the capital city of the island of Tasmania, one of six states in the federation of Australia. It has various local historical and cultural values, economic and social uses, and environmental management challengesöincluding the pollution of estuarine mudflat sediments by heavy metals and the presence of migratory bird habitats subject to international treaties (Department of Foreign Affairs, 1981; Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 1988). The bay is also the site of significant ongoing conflict about a proposal to build a marina and residential subdivision on the northern end of the mudflats.In this paper, I seek to understand claims of belonging in story lines over the fate of Ralphs Bay that parallel themes in the dramaturgy of environmental politics across the globe (Hajer, 2005;Hajer and Versteeg, 2005). Story lines are generative