Landscape Sociology

Socio-ecological Systems and Complex Theory: Building Adaptive Management in Rural and Regional Communities

Associate Professor Ruth Beilin leads a research area that builds on twenty years of field experience in natural resource management and landscape policy and planning. The research is constantly evolving with an active postgraduate program.

• Beilin, R. and M.E. Wedderburn (2005) A socio-ecological system approach to incorporating biodiversity in landscape change. A paper presented to the BioDiversitas Open Science Conference in Oaxacao, Mexico. November 2005.
• Wedderburn. M.E. and R. Beilin (2006) Revisiting a socio-ecological system approach to incorporating biodiversity in landscape change. A paper to the Australia New Zealand Ecology Symposium. Wellington, NZ. August 2006.

Water in the Landscape

The Social Context of Land Management Practice and Decision Making in the Moorabool Basin: A case study of potato farming and water management

This research uses landscape and ideas from complex theory as the underlying context to explore these issues. Landscape provides a framework for understanding not just the physical aspects of environment, but also how it is understood as a whole: the history, the patterns of land use, and the values and beliefs of those constructing the landscape. In this way we use the metaphor of landscape to connect the ecosystem with the daily activities associated with land management to examine participation of potato farmers and land managers in agency NRM programs associated with water management;

This research investigated the priorities and concerns significant to landholders and compared these with assets and threats identified within the Catchment Management Authority at a strategic level. The key finding here was that the CMA focus tended to isolate the landscape elements (the river, soil issues, revegetation, etc.) from the wider context in which they were managed by landholders. This exacerbated the opportunity for miscommunication of ideas about water and land management practices.

The study developed a triple bottom line matrix for landscape management from the social, economic and environmental values identified by stakeholders (agency and land managers). This can be used by all stakeholders to show the complexity of issues—their interconnections and their limitations. This encourages transparency in declaring what the limiting factors are, for example, in changing practice.

The study made recommendations to contribute to future land management activities and the integration of community and CMA strategic directions; and to facilitate an integrated approach to the landscape and potato farming community by the multiple stakeholders—agencies and local inhabitants involved in this region.

• Beilin, R., Pike, L., Carr, B. and C. Kabore (2006) The Social Context of Land Management Practice and Decision Making in the Moorabool Basin: A case study of potato farming and water management in the landscape.
• Pike, L. and R. Beilin (2006) Withdrawing, Resisting, Maintaining and Adapting: Potato Farming in a Landscape of Political and Ecological Uncertainty. Paper for the Agri Food Network Conference. Dunedin, NZ. November 2006.

Changing Water Management Practices in a Drought Affected Catchment

In 2004 and 2005, the Corangamite CMA supported an initial study on water management in the landscape. The project was Lucy Pike’s Honours thesis. It was completed in July 2005. The project used participatory photo-elicitation to understand the water and landscape management practices of graziers in the Meredith area of the Moorabool River. The project found that land managers had a diverse and complex understanding of their water needs that was based on 'reading the landscape indicators'. They did not view the river as implicated in their immediate production goals and did not associate the management of shallow dams on their landscapes with the overall hydrogeological system of the wider catchment. They did identify weeds, native vegetation management and stocking rates with decisions affecting water in their landscapes.

• Pike, L. and R. Beilin, (2006) Landholder water management practices in a water stressed catchment. Poster paper presented to The International Landcare Conference in Melbourne, October 2006.

Water Use Efficiency and Stakeholder Learning

Maria Rose is a PhD candidate with Dr. Mark Paine and Ruth Beilin. Her research study is based in the Maffra area where she is a long term extension agent. Her project has involved a longitudinal study of the learning cycles involved in Target 10 programs such as the Continuous Business Improvement project. Her extension group formed around water use efficiency and this is the underlying issue in the research project.

• Rose, M., Beilin, R. and M. Paine (2006) What it means to ‘go with the flow’ in learning approaches: a case study of irrigation change management in the MacAlister Irrigation District. A paper presented to The International Landcare Conference in Melbourne, October 2006.

Water Trading

Sriyani Jayawickrama is a commencing PhD student in 2006, supervised by Dr. Ruth Beilin and Dr. Lee Godden (Faculty of Law). Her project considers the social justice issues associated with water trading. Her case studies include regions where there has been trading in, and areas where there is trading out of water rights.

Water Management and Landscape Futures

Commencing in 2005, Ruth Beilin assisted the Northern Irrigation Futures group with their social science surveys of participants in the Ecological Risk Analysis workshops that were sponsored across the country. In this process, the way that stakeholders were being identified and the stakeholder understanding of how they could participate was investigated. This research became part of the socio-ecological systems and adaptive management program after the initial field work was completed in 2005.

Bart Kellet, working from CSIRO Townsville as a PhD candidate at Melbourne University is co-supervised by Dr. Graham Moore (Engineering) and Ruth Beilin. His thesis, titled: A framework for modeling and improving irrigation processes for irrigation builds on case studies in the Katherine-Daly area and the Burdekin delta.

• Kellett, B., Beilin, R ,Bristow, K., Moore, G, and F. Chiew, (in press) Reflecting on stakeholders’ perceptions in an ecological risk assessment workshop: lessons for practitioners Paper accepted September 2006 for publication in The Environmentalist.
• Kellett, B., Beilin, R., Bristow, K., Camkin, J. and G. Moore (n/d) Adapting water and irrigation planning and management: opportunities for frontier communities in Northern Australia (Paper currently under review.)

Risk Communication and Stakeholder Engagement

As part of the Australian Centre of Excellence for Risk Analysis research program, Dr. Jane Gilmour and Ruth Beilin are involved in research that considers how scientists and government agencies understand ‘stakeholder engagement’. The research is intended to inform and facilitate risk communication and its integral role in communicating issues in Australian biosecurity. Protocols and guidelines for stakeholder engagement processes will be derived using both case study and literature review. This project began in May 2006.

NPSI Ecological Risk Assessment for Irrigation - Education Component

In 2005 preliminary research on stakeholder involvement was incorporated into the program of ERA Adoption Education seminars underway in irrigation districts nationally. The project report: Prospects for Adoption of Ecological Risk Assessment in the Australian Irrigation Industry by Terry Walshe, Ruth Beilin, David Fox, Chris Cocklin, Naomi Mautner, Mark Burgman and Barry Hart will be presented to the funders in August 2005.

Hazard identification, risk assessment and decision analysis for conservation and management of Australian marine parks

In 2004 the ARC Linkage with Parks Victoria for Mark Burgman, Jan Carey, Ruth Beilin, Louisa Flander, and Parks Victoria's Anthony Boxhall was funded for three years. Led by Jan Carey, researchers are developing protocols and framework guidelines for risk assessment in the Victorian marine parks systems. Ruth Beilin is involved in research around stakeholder investment in risk modeling.

• Carey, J., Boxhall, A., Burgman, M., Beilin, R. and L. Flander Risk-based Approaches to Deal with Uncertainty in a Data-poor System: Stakeholder Involvement in Hazard Identification for Marine National Parks and Marine Sanctuaries in Victoria, Australia.
• Poster presented to the International Marine Protected Areas Conference in Melbourne, 2005.

Evaluation of community involvement in the qualitative risk assessment process associated with Marine Protected Areas in Victoria, Australia.

In 2005/6 Raphael Treffny, a visiting Masters student from the University of Munich, undertook a study with Ruth Beilin and Jan Carey, investigating the stakeholder involvement process in ecological risk assessment.

Landscape and Locality in the Production of Food

Landscape is a useful metaphor for considering the meaning and importance of ‘local’, in particular associated with local food production. In this research, PhD candidate Susan Cleary (Masters of Gastronomy, Adelaide University) and Ruth Beilin consider the various ways that the local is described—by catchment, by appellation, by commodity—and analyse the various outcomes associated with these representations.

• Beilin, R. and S. Cleary (2006) Landscape and Liminality: recognizing local places and hybrid spaces in food. A paper presented to the Agriculture and Human Values Conference in Boston, Mass. July 2006.
• Cleary, S. and R. Beilin (2006) MARQUEING for time in the UK landscape: local environmental action meets global commodification. A paper for the Agri Food Network Conference. Dunedin, NZ. November 2006.

The Triple Bottom Line and Complex Systems

Reconceptualising Extension and Stakeholder Relationships

Reconceptualising Extension to Deliver Triple Bottom Line Outcomes is a research project and report funded by the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation to review current applications of the "triple bottom line" and to find a way to embed more sustainable processes in extension delivery. This research asks what kind of extension is able to improve the triple bottom line of environmental, economic and social sustainability. It considers how extension can be recognised and credited. Ultimately the pursuit of economic, social and environmental sustainability is imagined to integrate micro and macro policy, through a progressive and dynamic state. Reconceptualising Extension to Deliver Triple Bottom Line Outcomes proposes that the principle of economic, social and environmental sustainability be used to plan action, in addition to its common use a measure of performance. The triple bottom line emerges as a way to identify the economic, environmental and social factors that affect how farmers and extension providers do things (policy at the micro level) and a way for society to determine its priorities (policy at the macro level).

A theoretic framework was developed to inform the process of extension and enhance its capacity to identify and evaluate TBL outcomes. This framework was then compared to the current methods used do deliver farmer learning and change management within the Grapecheque extension program operating in the Goulburn Valley, Victoria. From this, opportunities for the greater integration of TBL sustainability into the Grapecheque extension program were highlighted. The outcomes of this research also include the identification of factors that influence the capacity of extension initiatives to affect triple bottom line outcomes.

Identification of the social, environmental and economic interactions in cashew nut production in Kenya

In 2004/5 Joyce Njoba applied the research from the RIRDC study in her field work with cashew producers in rural Kenya, as part of her Masters in Agribusiness from the University of Melbourne.

• Beilin, R., Paine, M., Njoba, J. and R. Pryor (n.d.) Reconceptualising extension: a framework for managing complex social, economic and environmental issues in practice. (This paper is currently under review.)

Selection of recent research publications

Co-authors include student and academics from other LFR social research programs.

• Lucia Boxelaar, Mark Paine and Ruth Beilin (n.d.) Change management and complexity: The case for narrative action research. Paper under review.
• Lucia Boxelaar, Mark Paine and Ruth Beilin (2006) Community engagement and public administration: Of silos, overlays and technologies of government. Australian Journal of Public Administration. Vol 65: 1 - March 2006.pp.113-126.
• Ruth Beilin (2005) Photo elicitation and the agricultural landscape: 'seeing' and 'telling' about farming, community and place in a world of changing expectations about practice. Visual Studies 20 (1): 56-69.

• Ruth Beilin, R. Pryor and M. Paine (2003) Social Cohesion and Civic Space: Underlining Social Policy Obligation in Production Landscapes Social Dimensions of the Triple Bottom Line in Rural Australia, Bureau of Rural Sciences, Canberra.

• Ruth Beilin, Lucia Boxelaar, K. Warner and H. Shaw (2003) Capacity Building, Extension Services, and the Recognition of 'Sliding Doors' 19th Annual Association for International Agricultural and Extension Education Conference, (8-12 April) Raleigh, North Carolina.
• Mark Paine and R. Beilin (2003) Landscapes of Practice: Action Research in Resource Management EGOS, (3-5 July) Copenhagen.
• Lucia Boxelaar, K. Warner, R. Beilin, and H. Shaw (2003) Through the Looking Glass: Organisational Alignment for Sustainable Communities Agriculture for the Australian Environment. Proceedings of the 2002 Australian Academy of Science Fenner Conference on the Environment, p. 141-149 Johnstone Centre, Charles Sturt University, Albury.
• Lucia Boxelaar, M. Paine and R. Beilin (2003) Identity Construction and Social Capability Association of American Geographers 99th Annual Meeting, (5-8 March) New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.
• Rebekah Pryor, R. Beilin and M. Paine (2003) Re-examining an Extension Practice Case Study Using 'Triple Bottom Line' and 'Farming Systems' as Concepts of Sustainability 1st Australian Farming Systems Conference, (4-6 September) Toowoomba.
• Maria Rose, R. Beilin and M. Paine (2003) Fostering Collective Action in Water Use Efficiency 1st Australian Farming Systems Conference, (7-11 September) Toowomba, Queensland.
• Ruth Beilin (2001) The Brave New Order: Power, Visibility and the Everyday Landscapes of Australian Farmers Environment, Society and Natural Resource Management: theoretical perspectives, Edward Elgar, U.K.
• Ruth Beilin (2001) Underlying it All: Faceless Landscapes and Commodified Views Rural Society, Vol. 11 No. 3 p. 147-162.
• Ruth Beilin and S. Andreata (2001) After the Group: extending the farmer Journal of Agricultural Extension Education, Vol. 8 No. 2 p. 43-52 (Summer 2001).