The Australian Landcare Movement – A Success or a Failure?

Duxbury L¹*

1. Green Skills Incorporated, Denmark, Western Australia, Australia

The public face of the Australian landcare movement is the impressive network of over 4.500 voluntary landcare groups found across the nation. The community has been engaged. The Landcare movement has been seen as an international model which has been taken up in New Zealand, the Philippines, South Africa and elsewhere. While awareness of land degradation across the whole population in Australia has significantly increased, this has not led to a reduction in the growing level of natural resource degradation. The level of community engagement to date has not led to significant behavioural changes in resource management – a key objective of the National Landcare Program. It is argued that realistic goals must be set for engagement programs such as the Australian landcare movement. The context for community engagement must be clear. This includes articulation of why change is necessary, by whom and by when, a clear vision of the desired future, identification of who will be involved in deciding on that future vision and who the likely winners and losers might be. It then requires allocation of sufficient resources through a framework of incentives and disincentives to support the implementation of concrete research and actions to implement the vision. Successful community engagement such as the Australian landcare movement can lead to frustration and disillusion if the overall framework and capacity to change are not developed to meet the expectations raised through the community engagement process. A review of the strengths and weakness of the Australian landcare movement will be outlined with special reference to the whole catchment river restoration national demonstration project of Watershed Torbay, located on the south coast of Western Australia. Watershed Torbay set out to link community engagement to behaviour change through a clear framework of decision making underpinned by practical research. It shows promising signs of being successful!