Conflict, Consensus and Planning: Negotiations in NSW Water and Vegetation Committees

Abstract

Environmental disputation in Australia has increased over the last decade. This phenomenon is the result of the confluence of three interdependent forces of change. Firstly, federal and state governments have become increasingly interventionist in the definition and proscription of access and use rights to natural resources such as native vegetation, water, mineral resources and fisheries. Secondly, governments had been inclined to encourage, or at least allow, increasing levels of public participation in the development and implementation of natural resource policy. Thirdly, and perhaps in response to the first two influences, there has been an increase in the number and capacity of organised, articulate and politically astute stakeholder organisations representing their groups' interests in the political decision-making process and the media. ... This research sought to learn from the experiences of 11 case study water and vegetation committees. The aim of the research was to identify and analyse those factors that either enhanced or constrained the process of consensus decision making on these committees. A potential conceptual framework, cognitive frames theory, was identified from a review of the literature, and its relevance and utility assessed as a device for analysing complex, multiple-stakeholder negotiations, through its application to the case study committees. Cognitive frames are defined as the conceptual filters or road maps that help us organise our knowledge and interpret the meaning of new information, events and experiences. Cognitive frames are considered important in negotiations because in the minds of the participants they define the 'problem' being addressed within the negotiation; they may determine the strategies adopted by negotiators; and they may determine the outcomes being sought by them.