Vernacular knowledge and environmental law: cause and cure for regulatory failure

Title
Vernacular knowledge and environmental law: cause and cure for regulatory failure
Publication Date
2014
Author(s)
Bartel, Robyn
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Routledge
Place of publication
United Kingdom
DOI
10.1080/13549839.2013.798636
UNE publication id
une:15705
Abstract
The Australian environment and agriculture is suffering from land degradation and declining biodiversity. Laws protecting native vegetation are aimed at addressing these problems but have been resisted by farmers, compromising the social agreement necessary for regulatory success. A case study drawing on farmer interviews in central northern New South Wales reveals that the laws are considered to be underachieving environmental outcomes since they are ill-suited to local conditions. The low feasibility of the rules is also undermining rule and state legitimacy. Regulatory resistance is due to the lack of recognition of place-specifics by government and laws that impose universal requirements. There is an epistemic distance between the bureaucratic knowledge held by government and the vernacular knowledge (place-based knowledge) of heterogeneous environments held by farmers. Incorporating vernacular knowledge so that laws are more geographically sympathetic may close vernacular disjunctures and cure regulatory failure.
Link
Citation
Local Environment, 19(8), p. 891-914
ISSN
1469-6711
1354-9839
Start page
891
End page
914

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