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A.J. Underwood . M.G. Chapman
successful process, dependent on draconian regulations. Centuries ago, William the
Conqueror of England began the conservation of many species of vertebrates in woodlands and rivers. The mediaeval English "law of the Forest" was entirely directed to the
purpose of protecting wild animals - so that they would be available for the gentry to
hunt (Stenton 1967). Woodlands were closed to the common people and severe penalties (usually death) were legislated for poachers. Such measures are not generally acceptable in modern societies and would certainly not meet electoral approval in modern Australia. It would be foolhardy to pretend that conservation of any marine biological system is achieved by taking wild stocks of fish and invertebrates for food and
bait. Instead, management of fisheries and habitats for fisheries in New South Wales
hangs desperately on idealized notions of ecologically sustainable harvesting to save
it from complete illogicality. Conservation of stocks of some species for their maximal
use; by hunter-gatherers is not really what most people consider to be conservation.
The second new problem is that the Rio Convention has encouraged, quite properly, a change in Australia from dependence on representational democracy to a form
of participatory democracy. This has the effect of allowing community activists to have
an increasingly important role in environmental decision-making. Obviously, there is
nothing wrong with this and "bottom-up" or "ground-swell" approaches to environmental issues have potential to be more effective and better sustained forms of managed protection of coastal fauna and habitats.
Yet, this move to participation has not been coupled with a move to recognizing that
knowledge is more important than folk-wisdom or that local intense actions do not
necessarily build a sustainable, long-term improvement in environmental well-being.
As a result, many issues raised by community groups are about what is perceived to be
important, rather than what is important (for example, oil-spills are considered disastrous, but invisible chronic pollution rarely gets noticed). Attention is increasingly
focussed on expenditure of money by community groups to "monitor" environmental
variables, even though there is no clear purpose in the acquisition of the information,
no regard to the complexity of sampling designs appropriate to collect the information, no matching of the scale of measurement to the scale of the issue the measurement might be reflecting and no clear connection between the measurements being
made and the stated, longer-term objectives of conservation of coastal biological systems. Alternatively, community groups are funded in restoration projects, to rehabilitate damaged habitat. Such projects often suffer from lack of defined goals, lack of
understood processes for achieving the desired ecological results and lack of any measures of success (indeed any measures of accountability). How then can such activities
continue to be sustained in any country without limitless resources? How can it be
demonstrated to be an effective, let alone the most effective, way to achieve the chosen
aims of the community?
This paper is from the perspective of ecological science. This is neither the only, nor
necessarily the most important component of environmental managerial issues for our
coasts. Yet, all developments leading to environmental impacts, all attempts at management of resources and habitats, all notions of conservation through protection and
restoration are dependent for their success on scientific models about how the affected
systems work, scientific predictions about what will happen under various scenarios
and scientific methods of acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data to determine
what changes are actually happening in the daJ:?aged or managed system.
A.J. Underwood . M.G. Chapman
successful process, dependent on draconian regulations. Centuries ago, William the
Conqueror of England began the conservation of many species of vertebrates in woodlands and rivers. The mediaeval English "law of the Forest" was entirely directed to the
purpose of protecting wild animals - so that they would be available for the gentry to
hunt (Stenton 1967). Woodlands were closed to the common people and severe penalties (usually death) were legislated for poachers. Such measures are not generally acceptable in modern societies and would certainly not meet electoral approval in modern Australia. It would be foolhardy to pretend that conservation of any marine biological system is achieved by taking wild stocks of fish and invertebrates for food and
bait. Instead, management of fisheries and habitats for fisheries in New South Wales
hangs desperately on idealized notions of ecologically sustainable harvesting to save
it from complete illogicality. Conservation of stocks of some species for their maximal
use; by hunter-gatherers is not really what most people consider to be conservation.
The second new problem is that the Rio Convention has encouraged, quite properly, a change in Australia from dependence on representational democracy to a form
of participatory democracy. This has the effect of allowing community activists to have
an increasingly important role in environmental decision-making. Obviously, there is
nothing wrong with this and "bottom-up" or "ground-swell" approaches to environmental issues have potential to be more effective and better sustained forms of managed protection of coastal fauna and habitats.
Yet, this move to participation has not been coupled with a move to recognizing that
knowledge is more important than folk-wisdom or that local intense actions do not
necessarily build a sustainable, long-term improvement in environmental well-being.
As a result, many issues raised by community groups are about what is perceived to be
important, rather than what is important (for example, oil-spills are considered disastrous, but invisible chronic pollution rarely gets noticed). Attention is increasingly
focussed on expenditure of money by community groups to "monitor" environmental
variables, even though there is no clear purpose in the acquisition of the information,
no regard to the complexity of sampling designs appropriate to collect the information, no matching of the scale of measurement to the scale of the issue the measurement might be reflecting and no clear connection between the measurements being
made and the stated, longer-term objectives of conservation of coastal biological systems. Alternatively, community groups are funded in restoration projects, to rehabilitate damaged habitat. Such projects often suffer from lack of defined goals, lack of
understood processes for achieving the desired ecological results and lack of any measures of success (indeed any measures of accountability). How then can such activities
continue to be sustained in any country without limitless resources? How can it be
demonstrated to be an effective, let alone the most effective, way to achieve the chosen
aims of the community?
This paper is from the perspective of ecological science. This is neither the only, nor
necessarily the most important component of environmental managerial issues for our
coasts. Yet, all developments leading to environmental impacts, all attempts at management of resources and habitats, all notions of conservation through protection and
restoration are dependent for their success on scientific models about how the affected
systems work, scientific predictions about what will happen under various scenarios
and scientific methods of acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data to determine
what changes are actually happening in the daJ:?aged or managed system.