Science hubris and insufficient legal safeguards

Abstract

In the pursuit of efficient natural resource governance, market instruments offer many benefits, so too science-informed regulation. However, there are unrecognised fundamental risks with power invested in property owners or technical experts to determine how best natural resources are to be governed. In this article the authors discuss some recent developments in science and property based resource governance in water management in Australia as an illustration of more pervasive developments around the world. The authors suggest that while it is important to take advantage of innovations that can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of natural resource governance, it is no less important to create mechanisms to guard against the hubris that can be tacitly embedded. Such hubris has implications for the human rights of users and stewards of the environment, particularly Indigenous and rural communities, whose economic and educational disadvantages can be compounded by institutionalisation of particular forms of privilege.