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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Co-operative management (known as ‘co-management’) offers
flexible possibilities for combining Indigenous common property rights
and responsibilities with private property and resource rights of other
stakeholders in environmental management. The essence of co-management
arrangements is that they are negotiated among the stakeholders - hopefully
to mutual satisfaction - so that arrangements can be customised to each
circumstance. In this report and project we use the term ‘co-management’
to refer to equitable partnerships in management (McKay and Jentoft 1996),
synonymous with the Australian term ‘joint management’. The
partners should have balanced power relationships in decision-making,
though they may contribute in different ways according to their interests,
priorities and capacities.
This report is designed to inform Indigenous, government, and other parties
about the issues which would be involved should they proceed to negotiate
any form of co-operative management over the Great Barrier Reef World
Heritage Area (GBRWHA). Its purposes are to explain the concept of ‘co-operative
management’, offer a history of co-management with respect to Indigenous
people in the GBRWHA, and introduce key issues which are involved whenever
co-management arrangements are designed.
To Indigenous people, cultural heritage and natural resource management
are a single concept, in which the management and use of natural resources
are intertwined in cultural practice and the exercise of cultural responsibilities.
Many Indigenous people would see co-management as intertwined with their
resource and political rights, culture, and social and economic arrangements
– not as an independent arrangement as management agencies tend
to see it.
The report considers:
- Co-management and native title
We argue that co-management in the Great Barrier Reef area could be negotiated
separately from native title, as ‘stand-alone’ arrangements
with independent status, or become part of the settlement of individual
native title claims. This places coastal Traditional Owners in a flexible
position – to negotiate towards co-management either within or separately
from native title claims, and to include independently negotiated arrangements
in native title agreements later if they wish. It would, however, be unwise
for co-management arrangements to conflict with native title proceedings.
- History of co-management discussions concerning the Great Barrier
Reef World Heritage Area
- Advantages of co-management for the World Heritage Area.
These include informing and enhancing the management of natural resources,
and efficient and equitable management of wildlife. Co-management can
incorporate native title rights into management for mutual advantage,
by recognising Indigenous systems of tenure, management, harvesting and
use in a way that avoids costly legal proceedings. It can thus overcome
mutual mistrust and provide an ongoing mechanism for conflict resolution,
and reduce the social impacts of protected area status.
- types of co-management
The main types of co-management arrangements, worldwide, are shared management
of a species, usually migratory, on land or in sea; shared management
of an area; a combination of these (eg management of a species or its
habitat, on certain types of land or water). The most common forms of
co-management are between government agencies and other parties, but agreements
are possible between non-government parties, for instance Indigenous people
with an industry. The opportunities for solving both Indigenous and non-Indigenous
management and access desires in the Great Barrier Reef probably lie in
some combination of area, species and multi-purpose agreements. For instance
Sea Forum (1999) advocated a combination of a ‘framework’ agreement, along regional lines, for the Southern Great Barrier Reef and
finer-scale localised agreements moulded to local Traditional Owner and
other-party wishes and local circumstances.
- Parties to co-management of the GBRWHA
If co-management were formally negotiated (or designed) for the GBRWHA,
especially on a wide scale, we envisage the central parties would need
to be GBRMPA, as the inter-government agency legally charged with the
administration of the GBRWHA, and Indigenous Traditional Owners of the
sea country estates coinciding with the GBRWHA. Under Indigenous customary
law, Traditional Owners are the decision-makers and responsibility-holders
for the health and use of marine country, and the primary knowledge-holders.
These are the parties with the most direct responsibilities for management
of sea areas in the GBRWHA, under Australian and Indigenous law respectively.
Other parties have potential roles in co-management, but none have authority
specifically to manage the sea country of the GBRWHA areas. Other parties
with specific management responsibilities (fisheries, day to day management)
or responsibilities with respect to Indigenous issues can also be brought
into the arrangements if desired.
- Governance
The form of governance for co-management would need to be negotiated.
One challenge for the parties to co-management is that GBRMPA is a centralised
body with authority over a very large spatial area of sea and reefs, while
Indigenous authority (under customary law) is decentralised, with prime
authority being vested in the Traditional Owners of many clan estates.
Non-Indigenous people often expect bodies such as ATSIC, Land Councils
and Native Title Representative Bodies to be capable of making decisions
on behalf of Indigenous people, but their charter is most often to represent
or act on behalf of Indigenous interests including consulting with their
members, not to make decisions. Institutional arrangements for coping
with the cultural differences in governance include Boards of Management
and Regional Agreements. Present indications are that a reef-wide agreement
is unlikely in the foreseeable future, but a variety of different localised
arrangements are emerging.
The report also canvasses a number of suggestions for negotiating and
maintaining successful co-management. These include
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Developing relationships between and within the parties before meeting
at a negotiation table
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Designing the negotiations carefully
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Having preparation and training for both parties before negotiations
start
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Capacity and resourcing, for negotiations and for implementation
- Information management
- Maintaining the relationship.
Capacity involves more than cash. It is necessary for both parties to
co-management, and for the success of their relationship. It may be helpful
to consider ‘capacity’ in several dimensions: (i) individual
skills, (ii) social (interaction) skills, (iii) flexible world views,
(iv) supportive organizational arrangements, (v) financial and staff resources,
and (vi) time and patience.
Resourcing will be a particular challenge both for developing and for
implementing co-management in the GBRWHA, since Indigenous people have
few financial resources of their own to contribute, and GBRMPA is seriously
under-resourced for its responsibilities. Whether it proceeds at broad
or localised scales, co-management will require either additional resources
or a shifting of resources to accommodate Indigenous participation. This
may entail some creative thinking.
CONCLUSION
The concept of co-management for the GBRWHA is becoming recognised, formally
and informally, through a history of dialogue, the initiative of Sea Forum
(1999) in proposing negotiation of a framework agreement and agency discussions
towards such negotiations (Appleton 2000), current initiatives by several
Traditional Owner groups on a range of issues, and GBRMPA’s renewed
focus on the co-management of marine hunting. Whether or not government
decisions are ever made to adopt co-management formally, native title
claims and other expressions of traditional owner interest are likely
to keep it on the agenda.
Key themes for the design of co-management are:
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Spatial factors and scales
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Laws
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The parties which should participate
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Catering for different paradigms of management
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Issues
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Decision-making structures and processes
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Information management
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Operational mechanisms
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The parties’ respective capacities.
Co-management will be a more complex matter for the Great Barrier Reef
than for terrestrial national parks, because of the vast area involved,
the number of Traditional Owner groups involved, the complex relationships
among the State and Commonwealth interests, and the variety of activities
conducted in the World Heritage Area. If pursued on an estate-by-estate
level each agreement need be no more complex than the management of terrestrial
parks, but over time there is a risk of a highly complex and uncoordinated
set of arrangements growing, which could prove difficult for GBRMPA to
navigate. Co-management is not a concept to be nervous of, however. It
is well established, for over 20 years in Canada and in Australia’s
terrestrial national parks. It is a flexible strategy, well suited to
reconciling different interests in land or sea, and to bringing different
parties’ talents efficiently and effectively into an enriched management
process.
Download a complete copy of the report as pdf (Adobe Acrobat 875kb)
For a hard copy of the report contact CRC Reef on info@crcreef.com.
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