Natural resource management is increasingly focusing on the benefits of regional planning and management. Viewed as the middle ground between ‘top‐down’ bureaucracy and ‘bottom‐up’ community activism, regional approaches are favoured by government at all levels. Such approaches have evolved in parallel across sectors, as governments pursue better policy delivery and programme implementation. This paper explores the rhetoric behind current interests in regional delivery and suggests other institutional means of achieving the objectives behind the rhetoric. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Natural resource management is increasingly focusing on the benefits of regional planning and management. Viewed as the middle ground between 'top-down' bureaucracy and 'bottom-up' community activism, regional approaches are favoured by government at all levels. Such approaches have evolved in parallel across sectors, as governments pursue better policy delivery and programme implementation. This paper explores the rhetoric behind current interests in regional delivery and suggests other institutional means of achieving the objectives behind the rhetoric.

No abstract