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The scale and intensity of bushfire activity in Australia is likely to increase as a result of climate change. Effective bushfire management policy measures are therefore essential to minimise the interrelated social, environmental and economic impacts of fire in the landscape. This paper presents a historical review of bushfire management in the South West of Australia (SW): a bushfire prone and biodiverse region. Using a worldview framework to analyse key policy documents and literature, the paper demonstrates that the evolution of complex policy sectors such as bushfire management, is influenced not only by scientific and technical developments but also as a result of changing worldviews. Adapting the Integrative Worldview Framework (IWF), seven worldview categories that dominated particular periods of history in Australia are presented. These worldview categories are then used to examine the evolution of bushfire management practice, policy and institutional arrangements relevant to the SW. The argument presented herein is that a better understanding of worldviews and how they influence complex and contentious policy fields such as bushfire management, is useful for policy analysis, reflexive practice and research. The paper suggests an integrative worldview approach, which enables opportunities for exchanges and constructive conflict between stakeholders and agencies with diverse worldviews, could contribute to creating more sustainable bushfire management. Finally, it is argued that opportunities for Indigenous and Western worldview exchanges in the bushfire management sector, through collaborative knowledge partnerships could assist the sector in both management practice and policy formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers Australia's ecologically sustainable development (ESD) trajectory through the prism of ecological modernisation (EM). As a ‘meta policy’ ESD offered the important animating principles and wide-ranging objectives of environmental reform, with the operational specifics provided by EM theory and practice. EM proposes two key interrelated strategies for achieving sustainable development: the modernisation of production and its practices and the modernisation of the political sector and its institutions. This article focuses on the latter, particularly on the political commitment to ESD at the political elite level. In considering key moments in Australia's political modernisation story, the article finds that, despite important developments and innovations, the ESD and EM experiment in Australia has had limited success in significantly and permanently shifting the government business relations of sustainability in ways that would respect the spirit and goals of ESD. This can in part be explained by the limited capacity of a reform process such as EM to shift the political dynamics of ESD's environment–development relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecologically sustainable development (ESD) has been a meta-objective of Australian environmental policy for more than two decades. This article questions the effectiveness of ESD, asking whether it has had a material impact on Australia's environmental institutions. The argument made is that, while ESD has had some success at the margins, its overall impact has been limited. The institutions necessary to ensure policy makers impose and abide by a binding strong sustainability constraint based on the maintenance of natural capital have not been created. There have been advances in environmental protection since the early 1990s but, by and large, these have been a product of the same types of political and contextual factors that drove policy prior to the adoption of ESD. The score may have changed, but the rules have remained the same. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federations present particular challenges for environmental policy makers. They can not only provide opportunities for devolved decision-making and policy experimentation but can also act to reduce standards and inhibit coordinated action. Ecologically sustainable development presents a particular challenge because it relies on the engagement of all levels of government at both the planning and implementation stages. This paper argues that limited state engagement at the conceptualisation phases and the absence of central leadership in the intergovernmental arena in the implementation phase may help explain the failure of this bold meta-policy in changing the game at a national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural resource management (NRM) organizations are increasingly looking to resilience thinking to provide insights into how social and environmental systems interact and to identify points of intervention. Drawing on complex systems analysis, resilience thinking emphasizes that landscapes constantly change from social and ecological interactions, and focuses NRM planners’ attention on identifying key variables, feedbacks, and thresholds that can help improve intervention strategies. More deliberative approaches are being developed to use resilience thinking in ways that engage and build human capacity for action. This article documents experiences shared with NRM agencies in rural Australia as we developed new approaches to link resilience thinking with collective learning principles. We present an emerging framework through which heuristics associated with resilience thinking is being used as part of a planning-by-doing process. The framework is being tested to assess whether and how it can enable change agents to advance their capacities for adaptation and transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

‘Sustainability’ provides the dominant frame within which environmental policy debate occurs, notwithstanding its divergent meanings. However, how different discourses combine to shape understanding of the environment, the causes of environmental issues, and the responses required, is less clear cut. Drawing primarily on the approach to critical discourse analysis (CDA) developed by Fairclough, this paper explores the way in which neoliberal and ecologically modern discourses combine to shape environmental policy. Environmental scholars have made relatively little use of this approach to CDA to date, despite the significant interest in the discursive aspects of environmental issues, and its wide use in other areas of policy interest. Using the case of environmental policy-making in Victoria, Australia, this paper illustrates how neoliberalism and weak ecological modernization represented sustainability in ways that seriously limited the importance of environmental issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The largely voluntary nature of environmental reporting in Australia has given firms the option of deciding what, if any, environmental information they wish to disclose. Previous studies in the US and Canada have found mixed results on the relationship between environmental performance and environmental disclosure. This research identified the level of environmental disclosure of 53 ASX200 Australian listed companies, and tested whether better performing companies with either lower emissions or more positive Corporate Monitor environmental ratings were likely to disclose more information on their environmental performance. It found a generally low level of environmental disclosure assessed by the elements of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) 2002, and that environmental performance was not significantly associated with level of environmental disclosure. However, larger companies, those in polluting industries, and those with higher levels of capital investment disclosed more environmental information. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article uses a broad range of ecological modernisation (EM) literature to derive five core theoretical themes: technological innovation; engaging with economic imperatives; political and institutional change; transforming the role of social movements; and discursive change. These themes are then developed into an analytical framework and adapted to suit the Australian context. The underlying argument is that while key elements of weak EM can be found in most environmental and sustainability policies, stronger versions have more transformative potential. Care must be taken, however, in transplanting the theory from the European political and economic environment to the Australian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local governments (LGs) have provided a range of essential services. Initially this did not include specific consideration of the bio-physical environment, however, their role in environmental management has become more prominent since the 1980s. This article argues that LGs have an increasingly important role in environmental and sustainability implementation, and, through an international context, identifies the variety of policy responses LGs in Australia have adopted to engage with environmental and sustainability issues. The literature based review demonstrates the richness of this engagement and that while there is information about the range of engagement, there is little to indicate the effectiveness of these policies. This gap points to some key directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first significant government sponsored community-based forest management project in Australia was initiated in Central Victoria in 2002. This paper analyses the initial stage of the Wombat Community Forest Management Pilot Project. The paper develops a functional concept of `effective community' for structuring community engagement in these kinds of natural resource management projects. The effective community has characteristics in common with a community of interest, adopts a bioregional perspective, embodies the values of environmental stewardship and interacts in a fully informed way as a `discursive community' (Meppam 2000). The paper offers general advice for organising effective community engagement in such projects and 12 recommendations for governments developing similar initiatives elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]