Australia faces many environmental problems of considerable scale and complexity. These include high greenhouse gas emissions, pressures on coral reefs, continuing net loss of tree cover and native vegetation, soil erosion, soil salinity, declining water quality and quantity, continuing threats to biodiversity, increasing pressures from urban areas due to population increases and increased per capita consumption, and climate change. Many factors contribute to the environmental behaviour of individuals, and through their combined actions, to society's. Australia faces many environmental problems of considerable scale and complexity. These include high greenhouse gas emissions, pressures on coral reefs, continuing net loss of tree cover and native vegetation, soil erosion, soil salinity, declining water quality and quantity, continuing threats to biodiversity, increasing pressures from urban areas due to population increases and increased per capita consumption, and climate change. Many factors contribute to the environmental behaviour of individuals, and through their combined actions, to society's.

This study investigated the effects that visual and performing arts can have on the environmental behaviour of individuals, communities and broader society, with a view to providing recommendations on how to more effectively harness the arts in order to promote ecological sustainability. The research aims were to: This study investigated the effects that visual and performing arts can have on the environmental behaviour of individuals, communities and broader society, with a view to providing recommendations on how to more effectively harness the arts in order to promote ecological sustainability. The research aims were to:

• investigate how the visual and performing arts are both deliberately and unconsciously used in shaping perceptions towards the environment in Australia and internationally;

• describe how people and organisations working towards environmental repair and conservation have used arts-based modes of communication;

• integrate theory of how environmental behaviour is determined and the impact that the arts have on that process;

• use a series of events that incorporate the arts and environmental repair, to evaluate the role of the arts in changing people's behaviour towards the environment;

• determine if art events can aid participation by a broad cross section of the community, can strengthen a community's abilities to promote inclusion, and can be powerful vehicles for community mobilisation, empowerment, and information transfer;

• determine what role the arts might have in shaping ecological sustainability at a societal level; and

• develop policy recommendations for extension and environmental education programs.

The selection of research methods was guided by methodological pragmatism, drawing from a range of social science paradigms according to circumstance. A quasi-grounded theory approach was used in some stages of the project. This interlaced data collection and analysis so that emerging concepts and theoretical constructs were grounded in the life experience of the research participants. In other stages, social constructivist methods such as focus groups and in-depth semi-structured interviews were employed. Through data collection prior to and after arts events, the project approach used logical positivist methods to provide evidence of the impact of arts events and the causes underlying these impacts. The purposeful methodological diversity added cross-disciplinary force to the thesis, and enabled triangulation between the different types of data, to afford greater confidence in the conclusions.

I found that the work of individual artists can influence the behaviour of citizens through 'internally derived I found that the work of individual artists can influence the behaviour of citizens through 'internally derived' interventions, which impinge on a person's values, beliefs, knowledge, attitudes, self-identity and habits, and through these, on social norms. However, desire by individuals to adopt pro-environmental behaviour can be hampered by situational or infrastructure constraints. I also found that the arts have a role in reducing some of these constraints, through 'externalist interventions' where the arts are embedded into ecologically sustainable development. This might be where community and public art are incorporated into urban planning as a means of making active transport modes more attractive, or where the arts provide alternative forms of consumption which are lower in embodied energy and higher in embodied labour.The degree to which a person responds to the arts will depend on personal characteristics (e.g. gender, class, etc.), situation, institutional factors, as well as the type of art. The accumulated result of individual behaviours leads to macro-level impacts on the environment. A knowledge of these impacts in turn influences individual artists, and affects their practice.

I found that the arts could foster pro-environmental behaviour through one of three 'pathways'. The first pathway is where the visual and performing arts are used to synthesise complex ideas and to communicate them to non-specialist audiences in an engaging form. This makes the arts valuable in enhancing the teaching of scientific or environmental material and raising awareness about environmental issues in a wide range of contexts. The arts have been used because of these qualities by practitioners, both in Australia and overseas. The arts are also a medium for articulating a dissenting or critical voice which prompts people to look at issues in new ways. Some artists are at the forefront in challenging dominant social paradigms and are active participants in attempts to improve the environmental behaviour of individuals and of society. I found that the arts could foster pro-environmental behaviour through one of three 'pathways'. The first pathway is where the visual and performing arts are used to synthesise complex ideas and to communicate them to non-specialist audiences in an engaging form. This makes the arts valuable in enhancing the teaching of scientific or environmental material and raising awareness about environmental issues in a wide range of contexts. The arts have been used because of these qualities by practitioners, both in Australia and overseas. The arts are also a medium for articulating a dissenting or critical voice which prompts people to look at issues in new ways. Some artists are at the forefront in challenging dominant social paradigms and are active participants in attempts to improve the environmental behaviour of individuals and of society.

A second pathway is where the arts and particular artists connect their audience to the natural environment through thoughtful or evocative representations of the environment or by being in the natural environment itself. Similarly, the celebratory aspects of the performing arts make them useful in affirming ecological restoration and environmental repair activities in a non-didactic way. Modem life in Western society has disconnected most people from the natural environment, and the arts provide a way of re-establishing this link. The art described under this pathway exemplifies the important role of artists in aiding understanding of the Australian natural environment and its native flora and fauna, complementing the role of ecologists. Through experiencing artistic explorations a community can develop empathy toward the natural environment, and this is vital in developing a caring relationship for it. A second pathway is where the arts and particular artists connect their audience to the natural environment through thoughtful or evocative representations of the environment or by being in the natural environment itself. Similarly, the celebratory aspects of the performing arts make them useful in affirming ecological restoration and environmental repair activities in a non-didactic way. Modem life in Western society has disconnected most people from the natural environment, and the arts provide a way of re-establishing this link. The art described under this pathway exemplifies the important role of artists in aiding understanding of the Australian natural environment and its native flora and fauna, complementing the role of ecologists. Through experiencing artistic explorations a community can develop empathy toward the natural environment, and this is vital in developing a caring relationship for it.

Several case studies were studied that had elements of both the first and second pathways. The case studies demonstrated that celebrations and festivals can be successfully linked with conservation of the environment, and can allow conservation and care of the environment to penetrate many social networks. An event involving music, theatre, dance and spectacle can have many effects on participants and audiences. Such events can encourage people to reflect on their and others' relationship with the environment, and can affect people emotionally and engender positive feelings for the environment. They also have a strong capacity for engendering appreciation and pride in community and can act to strengthen those bonds. They can involve a large number of people, and therefore expand the audience or awareness-rasing about the environment I hey alow partcpants to develop the for awareness-raising about the environment. They allow participants to develop their ideas, to learn about issues and to express their feelings for those issues. They also have an effect in affirming beliefs, reminding, and reinforcing existing knowledge and values, and in prompting changes in people who have not been exposed to those ideas. The case studies showed that large art events with an environmental theme can influence both those whose environmental behaviour is poorly developed as well as those whose behaviour is already good. The process of engagement is particularly important, especially if the message of the work can be carried through in the ways the work is realised. The actual process of being involved is important in learning and consolidating one's ideas and knowledge. The impact of the message is enhanced through repetition and added exposure, and the effects can endure long after the event 1s over.

The third pathway is where the arts are embedded in ecologically sustainable development, through the combined effects of community development, economic development, and changes in the patterns of consumption. Examples from urban contexts were examined, where public and community art were integrated into urban planning which was designed around improved active transport modes. Australia's environmental impact is driven by consumption that is high in embodied energy, water and resources. Because the arts industry is low in embodied energy and resources and high in embodied labour, it will be an important segment of the economy in a 'post-consumer' society that has lower levels of environmental impact. The arts can also be integrated with ecologically sustainable development in rural areas. Examples include the links between landscape architecture and landscape aesthetics and the farm planning and landcare movements, as well as the linking of ecological art with ecological restoration. The community and participatory arts have an important role in catalysing ecological sustainability, particularly through their ability to foster altruism. Community arts events have a strong community-building role and can be linked with celebrations of ecologically sustainable behaviours and aspirations.

Agricultural land covers 55% of the Australian landscape, with grazing the dominant agricultural land use. Climate change's current and predicted impacts are driving innovations within the livestock sector toward carbon-neutral and nature-positive outcomes. Regenerative agriculture in Australia has become a fast-developing movement that offers an alternative to industrial and conventional agriculture to mitigate the effects of climate change. The aims of this research are twofold; 1) to determine if Australian regenerative beef cattle production systems are more resilient than conventional systems in a changing climate and 2) to develop a set of guiding principles for regenerative agriculture in Australia.

The research has a multi-disciplinary approach utilising mixed methods, including a longitudinal case study of beef grazing systems in Northern New South Wales, Australia that incorporates the environmental, social, and economic indicators required for a resilience framework. Using these results, a set of principles for regenerative agriculture unique to Australian conditions was developed and tested to produce a guide for achieving resilience in a changing climate. This research is significant as it fills a gap in the theory and practice of Australian regenerative agriculture.

The overarching arching objective is to examine if regenerative beef cattle production systems are more resilient than conventional beef cattle production systems in a changing climate and whether comparing these production systems highlights the need for a set of guiding principles for regenerative agriculture in Australia. There were two themes within the research; the first addressed the resilience of regenerative and conventional farming systems, with the methodology including a literature review, case study, longitudinal survey, and thematic analysis. The second theme sought to establish a set of regenerative agricultural principles for Australia utilising a literature review and quantitative survey approach.

This thesis found the beliefs, orientations, and behaviours of Northern NSW beef farmers differ between regenerative and conventional cohorts, including differences in management action, forward planning, and strategy. It identified economic, environmental, and social indicators that align with the Stockholm Resilience Framework and affect a farmer's ability to remain resilient in a changing climate. Regenerative farmers rate higher against this resilience framework than conventional ’farmers in drought conditions and a changing climate, meaning regenerative farmers and their farms are more resilient in maintaining diversity and redundancy, managing connectivity, managing slow variables and feedbacks, encouraging learning and participation, and broadening participation. It concludes by finding that implementing regenerative practices will assist producers in being resilient in a changing climate.

The research proposes a set of principles for regenerative agriculture to guide future farming practices and management decision-making. These principles are:

1. Be ecologically literate, think holistically, and understand complex adaptive systems.

2. See your landscape as a community that you belong to and work with.

3. Remain curious; seek transformative experiences and continuous learning.

4. Acknowledge and consider diverse ways of working with landscapes.

5. Engage in ecological renewal and make place-based decisions through monitoring.

6. Engage with First Nations people.

7. Understand that human cultures are co-evolving with their environments.

These principles have the potential to act as a guide for future farming practices and management decision-making with the understanding that farming practices will continue to evolve, as will our knowledge and understanding of working with ecological systems. The principles can assist farmers in navigating climate change and the associated economic, environmental, and social disruption and uncertainty. In addition, this thesis supports farmers' ability to capitalise on the opportunities that are presenting themselves through regenerative agriculture practices, including ecosystem service markets, carbon sequestration, and enhancing landscape health and biodiversity.

Water security is a global challenge and faces significant threats from the impacts of human activities. Urban and rural demands for water are putting pressure on the quantity and quality of freshwater resources. Agriculture and land developments risk impacting the water quality of coastal floodplains and freshwater sources, particularly as much of the population in Australia resides on the coast. Attaining improved water security outcomes will require effective collaborative water governance strategies that can balance rural and urban uses, and importantly, balance those demands with maintaining healthy environments and ecosystems. A significant aspect for collaborative water governance to underpin water security outcomes will be the maintenance of appropriate levels of floodplain water quality and the quality of freshwater sources. Effective collaborative water governance outcomes in this regard will require good decisions to be made. Good decisions will require the utilisation and integration of different scientific and non-scientific knowledge types. However, collaborative water governance may exist in diverse arrangements including, top-down hierarchical, network, and as self-organised bottom-up initiatives. Each may face multiple and different challenges to achieve effective water security and quality outcomes due to diverse interconnected relationships between water and people within place-based contexts. Furthermore, there is limited understanding of the conditions and characteristics which may underpin the success of collaborative water governance in achieving effective outcomes. In response to this gap in understanding, this thesis conducted a case study into a community collaborative water governance initiative which successfully achieved improvements to water quality on a coastal floodplain in northern New South Wales, Australia. The research focus was to identify the factors, conditions and characteristics underpinning the success. It was found that successful outcomes of a community collaborative water governance initiative stem from effective collaboration, knowledge extension and utilisation, and recognition of the agency of place. Effective collaboration relies on a collaborative style of leadership which facilitates inclusive and open communication involving knowledge sharing and discussions. Knowledge extension and utilisation involved active engagement in research collaborations between landholders and researchers, and implementation of trial and error experimentation. From these processes scientific and local knowledges are shared and exchange leading to the co-production of placebased knowledge. Place-based knowledge provided a holistic understanding of the floodplain processes and a greater recognition of influence of place agency on management strategies and approaches. Lessons from this case study highlight the importance of place-based approaches to successful collaborative water governance in achieving effective water quality outcomes through a better understanding of place agency.

Compliance with agri-food safety regulations (e.g., pesticide use) is important for food security, public health management, and economic development in many developing countries. However, balancing the interests of consumers and food producers through a policy framework is complex and dynamic. Unfortunately, there is limited scholarly literature that explores farmers’ compliance with agri-food safety regulations in an African context, including Kenya. This thesis investigates farmers’ and agricultural industry insiders’ perceptions and attitudes about agri-food safety and agri-food safety regulations. It also examines farmers’ compliance with agri-food safety regulations in a major agricultural region in Kenya. These food safety regulations and laws are in response to the Kenyan Government’s aim to improve the quality and safety of agricultural products for local consumption and global trade by giving farmers increased responsibility for agri-food safety management. The study was informed by three theoretical frameworks: 1) the goal framing theory from the discipline of social psychology, 2) the rational choice theory, which is a cross-disciplinary framework, and 3) the routine activity theory, which is a criminological-based theory that focuses on understanding human deviant behaviour from a crime prevention perspective.

A sequential mixed-method design approach was adopted and involved collecting both quantitative and qualitative data and separately analysing each set of data. For the quantitative phase of the study, 160 farmers were surveyed using a semi-structured questionnaire during face-to-face interviews. Descriptive and hierarchical regression analyses were employed to analyse the quantitative data. The qualitative phase of the study involved six focus group discussions with 54 farmers and 29 key stakeholders in the agri-food chain, and the resulting data were analysed using the thematic method. The findings from the qualitative data were used to triangulate and enhance the findings from the quantitative study.

The survey results indicated that few farmers view agri-food safety as an agricultural challenge, especially among small-scale farmers. Both the survey results and focus group discussions also showed that farmers have low levels of awareness of some agri-food safety regulations. Furthermore, the two sets of data from the survey and focus group discussions revealed that farmers in the study area rarely comply with agri-food safety regulations. However, there were differences in perceptions between the farmers and the key agricultural insiders in relation to farmers’ compliance with agri-food safety regulations. The key informants tended to view farmers’ compliance levels as being higher than those indicated by the survey participants. Finally, both the farmer surveys and the key informant qualitative interviews revealed that farmers’ breaches of agrifood safety regulations are motivated by financial stress, pressure to conform to social norms, and the need to avoid feeling guilty for causing harm to another human being. Other factors found to influence farmers’ compliance with agri-food safety regulations were their lack of awareness of regulations and a lack of recognition of the legitimacy of government actions in the way regulations are designed and implemented.

The findings enhance understanding of farmers’ agri-food safety practices and their compliance with agri-food safety regulations in a developing country context. Moreover, the study extends the goal framing theory to the agricultural regulatory compliance literature. Importantly, it shows that the goal framing theory is useful for understanding farmers’ compliance with agri-food safety regulations in a developing country. In addition, the findings of this study should inform the development of effective, socially responsive, and acceptable agricultural and food policies and programs, especially for farmers in developing countries. The study forms a sound reference point for future studies on agricultural regulatory compliance.

Access to fresh, clean water is essential for the maintenance of healthy life for humans and nonhumans on Earth. As human populations have grown over time, access to clean water has become less secure across the globe. The research in this dissertation explores the possibility that deficiencies in water’s management have their roots in the way water is valued. It investigates innovative water valuation systems that may provide better solutions to the world’s water problems by identifying a greater range of water’s values.

The first category of innovative water valuation systems explored is hybrid economic approaches. Examples of these include the system of ecosystem services, which allocates value to the contributions of the natural world that generate goods or services that humans value, and Australia’s National Water Accounting system, which is based on financial accounting models. The next category examined is innovative legal approaches, including legal pluralism and legal personhood for nonhumans. This was investigated by conducting a case study of the Whanganui River in Aotearoa/New Zealand, which in 2017 was the first river in the world to be recognised as holding legal personhood. The third category scrutinised is innovative omnicentric approaches, which decentre humans in order to appreciate more fully the value of water. Common in Indigenous cultures, these include relational approaches that recognise nonhuman agency.

The methodology comprised a case study and an evaluation of different approaches to water valuation. Evaluation criteria included equity, as water is an essential good for humans and nonhumans; appropriateness, which assesses the need for a program; effectiveness, which assesses the extent of achievement of anticipated outcomes; and cultural and geographical transferability. Each approach was evaluated for its potential capacity to more fully appreciate the values of water by tallying its observed strengths and weaknesses.

The results indicate that each innovative valuation approach displays both strengths and weaknesses, suggesting a potential for creating hybrid models combining the strengths of different approaches. The strengths of innovative economic hybrids include visibilising water and encouraging transferability through globally cooperative economic systems. Their weaknesses relate to the incoherence between the profit motive upon which economic systems depend and the needs of actants, such as the environment, that are not well recognised in economic systems. Strengths observed in innovative legal approaches include the ability for plural legal systems, particularly those followed by Indigenous cultures, to meet nonhuman needs in addition to human ones. Weaknesses in effectiveness and equity exist due to the power differentials between dominant legal systems and Indigenous cultures. Strengths of the innovative omnicentric approach include its appropriateness for meeting the needs of the greatest range of human and nonhuman actants, its effectiveness in appreciating the agency of water and its potential for transferability across cultures that recognise nonhuman agency. Weaknesses in this approach include its lack of recognition in hegemonic economic systems, which may limit its transferability. As valuation methods evolve, improved solutions based on an appreciation of a wider range of values than the purely economic are more likely to be realised.