The review of Caring for Our Country - RBMS Submission

This submission was delivered to the Commonwealth Government on May 13.

Thanks to RBMS members for their participation on putting this together

The review of Caring for Our Country
River Basin Management Society
Submission
March 2011

The River Basin Management Society

On behalf of the River Basin Management Society (RBMS) I write to you in regards to the The review of Caring for Our Country. The RBMS commend the Australian Government for their willingness to open a mid-term discussion on their major natural resource management initiative.

The RBMS is a key representative body for professionals working with land, water and natural resource management (NRM) in Australia, and as such are eager to see strategic and accountable investment into NRM through CfOC.

The following submission is based on a RBMS reading group organised to review the CfOC Discussion Paper, held in March 2011.

1. National Priorities
The RBMS support the concept of prioritised investment through an asset based approach. The adjustment in investment from previous Australian Government NRM investment approaches matches the principles of prioritisation through assets and should continue in this vein.

2. Engagement and capacity
Any agency/community/individual who receives government funds should be expected to meet the standards prescribed through that investment. However, it is unknown as to the level of standards specified with the investment. The RBMS would highly recommend that the Australian Government work alongside state and local agencies and the community to develop agreed standards for all aspects of investment. This will provide transparent requirements for delivery and help to facilitate standardisation for nation-wide reporting.

The capacity for NRM delivery exists in our community at the moment. The RBMS recommend that a number of steps are undertaken to harness this capacity:

1. Define standards for delivery: this will provide the benchmark of investment expectations from which community groups can assess their ability to comply.

2. Clarify current community capacity: utilising the standards and current links with communities and agencies/NGOs we should seek to understand what capacity the community have to delivery NRM investment. There is no point creating capacity if it is not needed.

3. Build capacity: work with community groups to increase their capacity to deliver NRM based on the known gaps in capacity

4. Collaboration and leverage: community groups may not have capacity on their own to deliver NRM, however, through partnerships and leveraging with NRM agencies and NGOs they are a powerful component of improving our natural environment.

3. MERI
The RBMS support the principle of developing MERI plans for CfOC investment and for the CfOC program in general.

In order to be accountable for investment and to learn from our experiences, appropriate record keeping and monitoring of all investment should be mandated. However, the difficulties in measuring outcomes in the short term (even 5 years) is understood and setting outcome targets are difficult given the myriad of competing impacts on work sites. CfOC should continue to develop output and outcome targets when delivering investment and utilise the lessons from the MERI framework to further understand how targets should be set and reported against.

The RBMS request that CfOC detail how lessons from the 5 years of investment will be utilised in future investment programs to improve MERI, project delivery and report on outcomes. It is unclear how learnings from investment in previous Australian Government programs has been utilised within CfOC.
Maintenance of works should be a consideration of this investment round and within future investment rounds. It is no longer acceptable to plant and tree and walk away without understanding the long-term management implications. The CfOC should demonstrate how investment will be maintained for the long-term.

4. Integration
The RBMS support integration and coordination of investment through all levels of government and community groups. This principle supports the RBMS’s aim to broaden the knowledge and experience of its member and to foster a better understanding between the many individuals and groups interested in land, water and natural resource management. We encourage CfOC to be in continual dialogue with NRM stakeholders to ensure integration where appropriate and to deliver the best outcomes for the environment.

5. Multi-year funding
The RBMS support the principle of multi-year funding. Australian NRM must be strategic and long-term, however, this can only be achieved through secure long-term investment programs. In this light we approve of the ability of NRM agencies to submit multi-year proposals.

Yours sincerely

Joanne Hand
RBMS President