A call for collaboration: linking local and non-local rangeland communities to build resilience

The people who live in Australia’s rangelands are vital for maintaining natural systems, agricultural production, infrastructure for tourism and many services and products which benefit the nation. However, the number of people living within many rangeland regions is declining, services are being withdrawn and resilience undermined. Social capital is an important concept within the resilience literature. Bonding social capital is based strong ties within relatively homogenous local groups, bridging social capital is based on ties between more diverse local groups and linking social capital is based on ties between local and external groups. Within the rangelands, there are often strong bonding and bridging social capitals based on internal social and formal connections, but gaps in linking social capital due to weak or imbalanced connections with external groups and organisations. There is evidence that all three social capitals are needed for regional resilience, and the gap in linking is thus a key issue. People who live outside the rangelands can help rebuild this resilience by linking their skills, knowledge and expertise with local groups and communities. Many city-based scientists, policy makers, influencers and other professionals work in and have empathy for the rangelands. By connecting meaningfully with local groups such as Landcare, service clubs, philanthropic groups or Indigenous Rangers, they would find many benefits to their own endeavours through improved policies, knowledge and service delivery. Central-western Queensland is provided as an example where many such mutual benefits and networks already exist, offering pathways for linking local residents with external experts. Current platforms offer opportunities for a greater range of external academic institutions and organisations to engage with locals, with everyone standing to gain.

Overcoming drought vulnerability in rangeland communities: lessons from central-western Queensland

Drought and climate variability are an increasing global problem, especially in rangelands which may lack robust socioeconomic systems. Vulnerability is being applied in drought and climate change policy theory, by describing exposure and sensitivity factors, and adaptive capacity. In this paper we examine these vulnerability factors in central-western Queensland (CWQ), Australia, as a case study to test the idea that vulnerability and resilience must be considered together to build strong and enduring rangeland communities. The region’s economy and employment are strongly coupled with rain-fed agriculture. Drought is a key risk to CWQ communities, with 13 extended droughts recorded since 1898. The region has been officially in drought since 2013 following well below-average rainfall, and remains in drought in 2019. The impact has led to reductions in town business turnover of 30–60%, loss of livelihoods and outmigration of 20%. Outmigration corresponds to the recent periods of drought. Social networks have been destabilised, highlighting that the cascading impacts of drought are complex, interrelated and affect the whole community. Regionally led responses have helped to re-build social cohesion, provide mental health support and stimulate economic activity and employment. These actions provide examples of a systemic, whole-of-community approach, that (1) captures place-based advantages; (2) enhances internal and external socioeconomic networks; (3) engages meaningfully through multi-level consultation; and (4) seeks to build sustained financial investment. A common theme of success is partnerships which provide external support for regionally-identified issues and solutions. There has been considerable investment of public, philanthropic and private funds in drought relief and infrastructure programs. This has occurred through a whole-of-community approach, and suggests a move towards policy which aims to build long-term regional resilience. CWQ has linked vulnerability and resilience by asking of both internally and externally led drought relief ‘will this action build or undermine community resilience’. This approach could also be applied to the design of drought policies and responses in other rangeland regions.

Women business owners’ start-up motivations and network structure

This research responds to calls for studies aimed at developing a more nuanced understanding of women small business owners’ networking behaviours and structures. The study examined whether business start-up motivations and phase of the business (prestart-up, start-up and established) influenced women’s networking behaviours and structures. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 28 women. Interview data were used to categorise participants into classic, forced, and work–family owners. Analysis of the interviews found no marked differences in networking behaviours and network structures of participants during prestart-up phase. During start-up and established phases differences began to emerge. Given that classic and forced owners had established their businesses for financial reasons, a diverse network was more relevant for them. However, work–family participants established the business for family/work balance, thus a small network of close ties was sufficient to achieve their business goals. Theoretical, practical and research implications of the findings are outlined.

Sustainable livelihoods approach through the lens of the State-and-Transition Model in semi-arid pastoral systems

Dealing with complex challenges worldwide regarding sustainable development and environmental management requires applied frameworks to understand and manage change in complex social-ecological systems. In this regard, frameworks that have originated from different research arenas such as the State-and-Transition Model and the sustainable livelihoods approach provide a conceptual basis for theory and operative integration. The aim of this paper was to provide a conceptual model for social-ecological research and sustainable management in semi-arid pastoral systems. We suggest integrating the state-and-transition model by including structural and functional features of social-ecological systems into the sustainable livelihoods approach. Both attributes are analysed at a household level in five types of capital that typically comprise social-ecological systems: natural, human, manufactured, social and financial. We propose to perform the structural-functional analysis for each capital as separate sub-systems in order to assess the impact of different disturbance factors. Some implications of this framework are explained by providing an example of the impact of drought in smallholder pastoral systems from semi-arid rangelands of North-West Patagonia, Argentina. This approach is encouraging as a step towards two main challenges: (i) the provision of applied frameworks for social-ecological assessment and management, and (ii) an attempt to bring closer science and decision making.

Scale mismatches, conservation planning, and the value of social-network analyses

Many of the challenges conservation professionals face can be framed as scale mismatches. The problem of scale mismatch occurs when the planning for and implementation of conservation actions is at a scale that does not reflect the scale of the conservation problem. The challenges in conservation planning related to scale mismatch include ecosystem or ecological process transcendence of governance boundaries; limited availability of fine-resolution data; lack of operational capacity for implementation; lack of understanding of social-ecological system components; threats to ecological diversity that operate at diverse spatial and temporal scales; mismatch between funding and the long-term nature of ecological processes; rate of action implementation that does not reflect the rate of change of the ecological system; lack of appropriate indicators for monitoring activities; and occurrence of ecological change at scales smaller or larger than the scale of implementation or monitoring. Not recognizing and accounting for these challenges when planning for conservation can result in actions that do not address the multiscale nature of conservation problems and that do not achieve conservation objectives. Social networks link organizations and individuals across space and time and determine the scale of conservation actions; thus, an understanding of the social networks associated with conservation planning will help determine the potential for implementing conservation actions at the required scales. Social-network analyses can be used to explore whether these networks constrain or enable key social processes and how multiple scales of action are linked. Results of network analyses can be used to mitigate scale mismatches in assessing, planning, implementing, and monitoring conservation projects.

Dealing with drought: social implications of different smallholder survival strategies in semi-arid rangelands of Northern Patagonia, Argentina

Drought is a constant part of rangeland dynamics in arid and semi-arid regions, and has enormous impacts on extensive livestock production by reducing outputs as well as by generating short-term farm decapitalisation (e.g. when livestock die). Since rural people rely on animal husbandry for their livelihood, productive losses become a social problem. Approaches to deal with drought have generally been focused on the livestock–range management linkage, with many suggestions originating from different disciplines. However, fewer efforts had been made to understand the adaptive capacity of households to cope with drought, through changing from on-farm to off-farm approaches. We assessed the implications for household gross income of different smallholder survival strategies, in the context of a severe regional drought. Three strategies were selected: (i) social networks involving partnerships, (ii) income diversification, and (iii) farm production diversification. While drought impacted homogeneously on the production indicators among the different strategies, differences were apparent in household economic performance. Better prices obtained from associated sales and off-farm income strategies registered better household gross income levels. For these cases the effect of drought on farm productivity could be decoupled from household income. Results provide new insights in understanding the social impact of drought on rangelands, challenging current ideas about how governments can support poorest and most vulnerable farmers in rural arid and semi-arid regions.

The impact of heat waves on the elderly living in Australia: how should a heat health warning system be developed to protect them?

Heat waves with extreme temperatures are increasingly being recognised as an important public health problem, together with a need to develop appropriate public health interventions. Although heat waves cannot be prevented, their harmful health consequences can be reduced by the development and implementation of early warning systems that target vulnerable regions and populations. This is particularly important for Australian society, given its ageing population structure and vulnerable characteristics of ageing people. It is crucial that a heat health warning system (HHWS) for an ageing population be based on accurate information about the location of vulnerable people, their access to communication technology, the facilities available to them and their ability to respond effectively to a HHWS. This accurate information is critical for the development and implementation of such a system. More importantly, the right stakeholders should be identified, and public’s perception and knowledge about heat waves should be evaluated.

The 'desert syndrome' - causally-linked factors that characterise outback Australia

The desert knowledge community has been motivated by the assertion that outback Australia is characterised by a set of features that are not individually unique, but which together cause it to function in ways that are fundamentally different to other physical and social environments. This paper sets out to appraise this assertion. It documents the evidence for the individual features – (i) climate variability at various scales in space and time (climate variability), (ii) widespread low and patchy primary productivity (scarce resources), (iii) sparse, mobile and patchy human population (sparse population), (iv) distant markets and decision-making (remoteness), (v) further perceived unpredictability in markets, labour and policy (social variability), (vi) limited research knowledge and persistent traditional and local knowledge (local knowledge), and (vii) particular types of people, culture and institutions (cultural differences). It then assesses whether there is evidence for the hypothesis that these features are causally linked to act as a consistent syndrome. This can only be partially confirmed as yet, but, if true, implies that management and policy for the region must recognise that the causal links are unlikely to be easily broken. The key consequence for desert people is that they should put more time into planning and managing for their apparently careless treatment by the environment and bureaucracy, and less time railing against it, because it will not go away. The key consequence for sympathetic outsiders is that there are great opportunities to create a policy context in which desert innovation can thrive in response to the ‘desert syndrome’.

The 'viability' and resilience of communities and settlements in desert Australia

There is a continuing policy debate about whether it is possible to have sustainable small settlements in outback regions of Australia, where there is low and variable primary production and a sparse and mobile population. This debate is focused largely on Aboriginal settlements, but applies equally to all desert dwellers. In this contribution, we review the sources of economic flows through settlements occupied by different communities with common livelihood sources, whether based on mining, grazing, tourism, cultural resources, welfare or services, concluding that most desert livelihoods depend directly or indirectly on temporally variable inputs. Individual remote settlements tend to be dominated by one such ‘community of livelihood’, and differ in nature according to the source of that livelihood. These create types of settlement and service aspirations which are alien to more densely settled regions. Settlement ‘viability’ is a measure of the short-term balance between aspirations for services (technical, social, but also for livelihoods and well being) and the costs of fulfilling these aspirations, and consequently is not a simple on/off switch – the community can adjust both its aspirations and the cost factors involved in meeting them. We define a resilient settlement as one that is viable in the long term in the face of its variable inputs. Thus, we determine that the concepts of settlement viability and resilience must be analysed differently according to the strategy adopted by different resident communities. In particular, Aboriginal (and pastoral) communities are particularly dependent on social and natural capital, yet these are not monitored. The whole analysis emphasises the importance of taking a demand- rather than supply-driven approach to services in desert settlements. Our conclusion is that, if top-down solutions continue to be imposed without appreciating the fundamental drivers of settlement in desert regions, then those solutions will continue to be partial, and ineffective in the long term.