Using Community Deliberation Forums for Public Participation Process: Examples from Missouri USA and New South Wales, Australia

Hodge SS¹*, Bone Z²*

1. University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri USA
2. University of Sydney, Orange, NS W, Australia

Community participation in resource management (NRM) planning must address social, economic, and environmental concerns. Yet efforts to do so often deteriorate into contentious, polarized proceedings leaving people angry, frustrated and feeling like they have little power to influence important decisions affecting their lives.

Public deliberation is people coming together face-to-face to talk about a problem that is important by exploring their options and considering the costs and consequences of their decisions in the context of the views of others. Communities cannot act together until they decide together. Yet many who are responsible for convening and moderating public decision-making processes are not familiar with the potential of deliberation or skilled in its use.

Examples are presented which discuss capacity-building for using deliberative process with two groups—the agency/extension professionals who may be charged with convening and moderating meetings and community participants who are engaged in the decision-making. In the U.S., the University of Missouri is involved in a regional initiative with extension staff and agency personnel to increase their awareness of, and skills in, using deliberation and conflict resolution to address contentious issues in community-based NRM planning In Australia, the deliberative approach is being piloted at the community level by The University of Sydney, Orange with a local Catchment Management Authority (CMA) whose charter aims to involve communities in decision-making, seeking to make best use of catchment knowledge and expertise. This paper discusses the value of public deliberation in both cases—at the agency/extension –professional level and community level—as a framework which supports communities talking through an issue and not just talking about an issue.

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