Tilbuster Commons: Synergies of theory and action in new agricultural commons on private land

Abstract

Natural resource degradation in agricultural regions of Australia is one of the most severe environmental problems facing governments today. Many natural resource systems in agricultural landscapes of Australia are in decline (Australian State of the Environment Committee 2001). Faltering ecological function across landscapes and whole regions should be a critical priority, not only because of the direct impacts on biodiversity and the processes it sustains but also the social consequences arising in communities whose very existence is dependent on this natural capital. The Australian Prime Minister's National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (Commonwealth of Australia 2000) estimates that land and water degradation costs Australia at least $35 billion annually, Ecological and social resilience in Australian rural landscapes is yet to be secured within contemporary policy frameworks (Reeve 1997; Devers 2000). Human communities associated with agricultural regions are also diminishing. Despite increasing efforts towards reducing these environmental costs by encouraging structural adjustment in agriculture, there remain substantial obstacles to adjustment, including existing institutions, social values and cultural norms relating to land use (Reeve 1998). Conventional attempts to address these issues are hampered through narrowly focused programmes, entrenched property rights, institutional impediments, economic incentives and inappropriate spatial and temporal scales (Reeve 1997;Brunckhorst 2000). We suggest that solutions to such environmental and social barriers might be found in various applications of collective management of rural lands and resources. Part A of this paper, therefore, provides an in-depth discussion of the history of traditional commons to set the context for a discussion, in Part B, of a 'contemporary commons' mode l, illustrated by the innovative example of 'Tilbuster Commons' ,