Volunteerism and Inclusiveness and the Future of Landcare

Abstract

I am now at the University of New England. I've been there for a decade, but 20 years prior to that I worked in natural resource management extension. For 10 of those 20 years I was working in extension before Landcare, and ten of those years after Landcare. And for me that is a very dramatic contrast. When I compare before and after Landcare as an extension officer they are like different planets. Let me just quickly distill what was different. The difference was when I was working as the extension officer before Landcare, my job was to be the "expert", to turn up to extension events, organise field days etc. and try and encourage land managers, farmers mainly, to adopt sustainable land management practices. After Landcare, Landcare groups would invite me along to address events, and ask me questions I couldn't answer. And that brings me back to the Minister's presentation this morning, where the Minister said Landcare is still at the core of what needs to be done - but the questions might change. And when I think of the more advanced Landcare groups in my region in northern New South Wales, they are always posing new questions. I've been asked to talk about volunteerism and inclusiveness, so being an academic I want to run through a definition, and talk about what the literature tells us. I want to briefly canvass what is the significance of these two concepts now, and for the future - particularly for government policy makers. I want to talk about what we should do to stimulate both volunteerism and inclusiveness, and I want to pose some questions to consider later in the forum when you are looking at your Landcare framework.