Strategic spatial governance: Deriving social-ecological frameworks for managing landscapes and regions

Around the world, an increasing number of governments face rising social and environmental costs of resource use. There is increasing understanding amongst both scientists and policy makers that many resource governance issues relate to the complex interdependencies of social and ecological systems operating at various scales. The emergent patterns and properties from social-ecological interactions across landscapes provide further evidence supporting the growing emphasis on efficient and effective community engagement and civic action at multiple scales (Beckley 1995; Berkes and Folke 1998; Brown and MacLeod 1996; Brunckhorst 2000; Slocombe 1993). Planning for resource management at multiple scales of biophysically similar landscapes or ecoregions is considered important because they reflect characteristics influencing land and other resource use (Bailey 1996; Omernik 1987, 1995). Federated or nested administrative arrangements and spatial planning units have been employed by various governments in natural resource management (Frey and Eichenberger 1999; McGinnis, 1999; Waldo 1984). However, these arrangements have not always been effective in ensuring natural resources are used sustainably (Barham 2001; Blomquist and Schlager 2005; Carpenter and Gunderson 2001; Johnson et al. 1999). The placement of boundaries to define regions for integrated resource governance warrants more careful analysis than it has been accorded in the past. What actors with an interest exist in an area, what spatial civic representation and networks, and what landscapes of ecological patterns, function and ecosystem services are included in a resource governance region? These considerations are vitally important to the success or failure of strategies, plans and actions towards more resilient and sustainable social-ecological systems. We put forward three basic principles that need to be considered in defining resource governance regions and, using the State of New South Wales in Australia, demonstrate an empirical method of deriving a nested hierarchy of such regions that are consistent with these principles.