FORUM: Bioregional Conflict Resolution: Rebuilding Community in Watershed Planning and Organizing

Abstract

/ Watershed-based planning has been held as a vanguard for integrated ecosystem management based on a collaborative process. Watershed managers, however, must contend with conflicts that run much deeper than interests for economic development versus sustaining ecosystem health. With data from a survey of members of watershed organizations, we characterize the valued-based conflicts that watershed managers are likely to face in planning. We propose that utilizing collaborative decision-making strategies is important, but successful long-term watershed planning requires rebuilding a community-based infrastructure that can support important social and bioregional networks and partnerships.KEY WORDS: Conflict resolution; Watershed planninghttp://link.springer-ny.com/link/service/journals/00267/bibs/24n1p1.html

Adaptive Governance of Social-Ecological Systems

“…A growing literature on polycentric institutions (124,125,181) demonstrates that flexible coping with external drivers and rapid change is enhanced by systems of governance that exist at multiple levels with some degree of autonomy, complemented by modest overlaps in authority and capability (155). Such flexible institutional arrangements have been judged as inefficient because they look messy and are nonhierarchical in structure, but they help provide a repertoire of general design principles that can be drawn on by resource users at multiple levels to aid in the crafting of new institutions that cope with changing situations (182,183).…”

Spatially bounded regions for resource governance

“…Others (e.g. McGinnis et al 1999;Webler and Tuler 1999) make a case that smaller river catchments can sometimes form a natural unit encompassing cultural and social commonalities.…”

“…When similar recurring ecological communities are replaced by a different set of recurring natural units, landscape boundaries can be observed and their underlying causes inferred fairly accurately (Forman and Godron 1981;Hansen and di Castri 1992;Forman 1995). Considerable gains in efficiency can be made if planning, priority setting, and resource governance actions take account of these boundaries (Reid and Murphy 1995;Johnson et al 1999;McGinnis et al 1999;Brunckhorst 2000;Field et al 2003).…”

The rhetoric behind regionalization in Australian natural resource management: myth, reality and moving forward

“…Recently, integrated resource management and reducing conflict have been given as benefits of regional planning (Dale & Bellamy, 1998). Watershedbased approaches in the United States are widely acknowledged as a means of conflict resolution (Thomas, 1997;McGinnis et al, 1999). Graycar (1981), in his analysis of the Australian Assistance Plan, noted that ineffective interorganizational arrangements were not overcome by the Plan's regional structures.…”

“…Historically, regions were bounded by rivers and other natural landmarks. Boundaries are also strongly influenced by historic and current interactions between resident populations (John & Whitehead, 1997;McGinnis et al, 1999). Catchment basins and subbasins are regional approaches to integrating water and land-use planning in the United Kingdom.…”