Can Community-Based NRM Work at the Scale of Large Regions? Exploring the Roles of Nesting and Subsidiarity

A government-sponsored experiment in community-based natural resource management (NRM) has been underway in rural Australia since the 1980s. Its focus has been on delivery of federal, state and territory government funds to motivate landholders to adopt the kinds of behaviours needed to address the nation's environmental problems. Over this period, the 'community' referred to has grown from local groups to populations of up to hundreds of thousands of people. The most recent phase of this experiment, announced in 2000 and continuing from 2008 under the 'Caring for our Country' program, is referred to as the 'regional delivery model'. Besides the pressures imposed by this scaling up of the community-based approach, another challenge derives from the pressures on regional bodies to assume responsibilities (e.g. maintaining upward accountability to government investors) that risk them becoming perceived by their constituents as extensions of government. A further challenge follows from increased governmental pressures on regional bodies to invest their funds more strategically, and less on the basis of equity considerations, and the consequent risk that community ownership of regional decisions may be weakened by perceptions of bias or political opportunism.