Community Engagement

The first part of a review of the literature to inform investigations on effective natural resource management (NRM) partnerships examines, inter alia, ecological theory and NRM and the scope of major NRM problems that confront Australia. Australian NRM problems are shown to be symptomatic of cultural maladaptation. Collaborative a ....

This study investigates the influences on nursing student learning who live and learn in the same rural environment. A declining health workforce has been identified both globally and in Australia, the effects of which have become significantly apparent in the rural nursing sector. In support of rural educational programs the literature portrays ....

As decentralisation advances, the question of local economic development acquires more significance. How can local governments and other local actors such as local producers and their associations, community based organisations, as well as NGOs and donors contribute to local economic development and poverty reduction? This article begin ....

This research undertook a case study of the intergovernmental Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) process administered by the Ministry of Community Development (MCD) in the province of British Columbia (BC), Canada. This study used concurrent nested mixed research methods in order to discover how best to deliver, monitor, measure, and ....

This working paper was commissioned by the Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government (ACELG) to provide a national update on what is taking place across the local government sector in relation to community engagement, and identify the ongoing challenges and questions for councils in engaging communities. In a survey of l ....

Recent widespread discussion including policy statements by government suggest that more authority should be devolved to local communities to make decisions about the rural localities in which they live. The paper evaluates existing instruments, including village appraisals and village design statements, against the criteria of subsidia ....

Since 2007, the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments have demonstrated a heightened interest in both local government and regional governance arrangements. However, previous attempts at reinforcing the legitimacy of Australian local government and engendering regionalism across the Australian polity have faltered, (see, for example, ....

This article concerns the regional city of Tamworth, New South Wales, Australia, a place that prides itself on its reputation as Australia's home of country music. We consider the ongoing memorialisation of country music in Tamworth, and how the processes associated with the project of articulating country music's past work to create and maintain ....

Guinope, Honduras was the site of a highly acclaimed people-centered development project in the 1980s. The ACORDE/Ministry of Natural Resource/World Neighbors Integrated Development Program (IDP) was unique for its time, since rather than relying on technology transfer, it promoted innovation skills for local generation of responses to ....

This paper aims to give practical meaning to 'capacity building' through (a) identifying a suite of practical measures, such as mentoring or best practice guidelines, that have been shown to or are considered to build human, social, institutional, and economic capital; (b) placing these measures within a broader systems framework; and (c) explori ....

Seasonal changes and ambiguity in property rights over land and natural resources create conflicts in rural communities in eastern Zambia. This study describes how rural households have minimized such conflicts and protect the economic interests of the poor members of the community through collective agreements on how to manage access to land and ....

Almost six million people live within 50 kilometres of the NSW coastline. They and the rest of the NSW community plus the millions of domestic and international visitors enjoy the significant natural assets of the Marine Estate and generate billions of dollars each year for NSW and the Australian community. There are many varied commercial, ....

The NGO sector has an integral role in building liveable and healthy communities, and it is widely acknowledged that the sector makes a significant contribution to the social and economic wellbeing of communities and reducing economic and social disadvantage.  RDA Pilbara and the Pilbara Development Commission are working together to suppor ....

The final report of a project to develop a method for mapping regional capacity to adopt more sustainable natural resource management presents a framework for the characterisation of regional community capacity for sustainable resource management. The framework identifies ten elements of capacity that span human capital, produced e ....