Much of the emphasis in Landcare and literature about land degradation has focussed on the land and the physical processes that result in degradation or alternatively, that are needed to address degradation issues. In this paper I explore some of the social issues involved in addressing land degradation issues. This paper is designed as a companion to David Pannell’s paper which focuses more specifically on economic issues. It is our belief that these economic and social issues are intrinsically interwoven. In this paper I discuss social issues related to Landcare and land degradation under the following headings: i) social impacts of land degradation and its management; ii) social issues affecting the uptake of new management practices; iii) social issues related to supporting communities to manage and protect assets at risk; and iv) social issues related to achieving community input to planning and decision-making. Taking account of the human dimension of Landcare means that we cannot expect people to respond to situations in the same or even similar ways. They will respond in a diversity of ways, dependent on their individual situation. Although in many areas sustainable land use systems are yet to be developed and arguments for further research and development well-founded, transition to new land use systems is as likely to falter on sociological and political grounds as for want of technical expertise. It is essential to address the social dimensions of natural resource management policy.

In the preceding paper, David Pannell (2001a) put forward the idea that economics is primarily about making decisions about the use of limited resources. Landcare, he said, "is entirely concerned with issues and decisions which require trade-offs because resources are in limited supply". He spoke briefly about the techniques used by economics to assess trade-offs. In this paper I want to extend this argument, and discuss the social consequences of making choices or accepting trade-offs. Of course, economics doesn’t make decisions: economics just exposes the economic consequences of choices. Decisions are made by government and individuals, although various people would argue that economics has either too much or too little influence on decisions, depending in which camp they sit. Pannell (2001a) has argued that economic considerations have had too little influence on both Government policy to address land degradation issues and the Landcare movement, and this has been to their detriment. Perhaps I should state at this point that I also sit in this camp.

Different choices have different short and long-term social implications, and it is the social dimensions of land degradation, and the social implications of policy choices, that I wish to discuss in this paper. Although Pannell (2001a) has argued that science and technology has been under-valued in Government policy addressing land degradation, social scientists involved (or not involved!) in the replanning and rewriting of the State’s Salinity Action Plan would testify to the lack of input and consideration given to social issues, at least initially. Much of the emphasis in Landcare and literature about land degradation has focussed on the land and the physical processes that result in degradation or alternatively, that are needed to address degradation issues. In this paper I want to talk about people, and how they are and might be affected by Landcare and land degradation. The aim in doing this is to put these issues into public discussion, so they might be adequately recognised and addressed in the formulation of policy to address land degradation.

Much of what this paper discusses relates more specifically to salinity than other forms of land degradation. Addressing land degradation associated with salinity will require both huge changes to the landscape and farming as we know it, as well as acceptance of widespread loss of agricultural land, rural landscapes and biodiversity. For a range of reasons it is more difficult to address than other degradation issues such as soil acidity and soil erosion (Pannell, 1999).

In the preceding paper, Pannell (2001a) considers four distinct sets of social issues related to Landcare and land degradation. In the interests of consistency, I’ve followed this breakdown, and considered social issues under the following broad categories.

1. Social impacts of land degradation and its management.
2. Social issues affecting the uptake of new management practices.
3. Social issues related to supporting communities to manage and protect assets at risk.
4. Social issues related to achieving community input to planning and decision-making.

When potential social issues related to land degradation are raised, the social impacts of land degradation and its managements are what immediately spring to mind. I’m going to discuss them under four headings:

• social impacts on farms and rural communities;
• social issues related to ‘living’ with government policy and working with government institutions and ‘experts’;
• social issues related to people working directly in the "Landcare Industry"; and
• social issues related to conflicting values and expectations of rural and urban populations.

Many farms and regions face considerable loss of productive land to salinity with consequent effects on individuals and communities. Livelihoods and property will be lost, and this will be accompanied by emotions common to situations where people experience loss – denial, anger, despair, resignation, and finally acceptance. Legacy (i.e. the ability to hand on the farming property in good order to the next generation) features strongly as a motivation for farmers (Frost, 1998), and loss of legacy will be felt keenly by both individuals and communities (Frost, 2000). Less profitable farms and loss of farmers will affect rural communities already fighting to maintain population and services. As Pannell (2001a) points out, salinity (and other forms of land degradation) is only one of many things placing pressure on farms and rural communities.

It is likely that there will be fundamental changes in the agriculture of the state, either to try to abate salinity or to farm in a saline environment. As a consequence of the loss of productive land to salinity, changes in the nature of agricultural practices by farmers and the effects of salinity on rural infrastructure and natural resources, there is likely to be comprehensive changes in the structure of rural communities. Population, prosperity, the price of land, tourism potential and recreational resources may all be affected. Farming as a sustainable industry in Australia may decline, and transition out of agriculture may be accelerated, although many other factors that put economic pressures on individual farmers are likely to affect this more. Potential decline in the agricultural industry and changes in rural population have political as well as social ramifications.

The effects of changes in farming practices are already evident in the high rainfall areas of south-west WA where extensive plantings of bluegum and pine plantations have been made on land previously used for farming. In some districts, many farmers have sold out to tree production companies. Many of the remaining farmers in these districts resent the changes that are occurring and are fearful of the way the change in landuse is affecting their communities (Pannell, 2001b; Rose et al., 1996).

Farmers and people living in rural communities face many issues on a continual basis. A growing awareness of the problem and an inability to see a solution puts people in a vulnerable position, both to despair and to persuasion to invest in technically unsound measures. Discussions with farmers in the Jerramungup region of south-west WA indicated that, for some, continual demands made of farmers to monitor rising groundwater levels for regional hydrology purposes resulted in feelings of powerlessness (Marsh et al., 2000). There is a limit to how much ‘continual bad news’ people can take, especially if they feel disempowered and unable to act to solve the problem.

In the immediate and short-term future there is likely to be a loss of work (effort and money) on projects aimed at either preventing or "treating" salinity, as many projects will be affected by hydrological processes already in progress and impossible to reverse in the short term. For example, water tables will continue to rise until they reach a new ‘equilibrium’ level, and tree plantings made in some areas will succumb to these rising water tables. Failure, after effort and commitment, will result in both disillusionment and anger, and possibly the loss of "good will" and enthusiasm by communities who have previously made considerable effort.

In rural areas affected by severe degradation problems there can be disquiet in communities over diversity of effort to address land degradation by individuals, and perceived inequity or unfairness over funds received through the National Heritage Trust. Additionally there can be conflict over the desired direction to take to address land degradation, or even the extent to which degradation should be assessed as a ‘problem’.

For example, Burton et al. (2000) investigated attitudes of farmers and three rural town populations to water management in the Moore Catchment in WA using a choice modelling technique. The outcomes of various hypothetical water management options were described in terms of the area of farm land affected by salt in the catchment, the area of farm land planted to trees in the catchment, the ecological impact on off-farm wetlands in the catchment, the risk of a major flood event and changes in farmers’ incomes. The results are complex, but the authors conclude that there is a quite significant range of values for different aspects of the environment held by different individuals, even within a relatively homogeneous population such as the Moore Catchment, and despite their having shared substantial hardships as a result, in part, of previous land and water management practices.

Many catchment groups have recognised the multiple problems posed by land degradation and attempted to integrate management of the catchment by bringing together resources from the various agencies involved and the local community. Inevitably, views on management differ within the catchments between farmers, rural town communities and government agencies. One of the great benefits of Landcare is that it has enabled considerable knowledge and experience to be gained about the social processes involved with both successful and unsuccessful community organisations.

Government policies to address land degradation have social consequences. Loss of land to salinity will not be spread evenly through the landscape and will affect some individuals and districts more than others. Governments (and indeed economic theories) are not good at addressing inequities, and it is not difficult to think of issues related to perceived inequities that are currently under debate, such as bans on further land clearing, issues related to compensation, and drainage of saline water. People, however, are very interested in perceived fairness and equity, and research has shown that the desire for principles of justice, fairness and equity extends into natural resource management issues (Nancarrow and Syme, 1999).

The rural community is currently dealing with the consequences of a government policy that has put emphasis on gentle information rather than hard facts – the "softly, softly" approach. These policies have failed to recognise the urgency and extent of the problem, promoted uneconomic changes in management practices, and devolved enormous responsibility to rural communities and farmers. It’s a bit like not telling the patient he/she is seriously ill as it might worry them too much – just tell them to keep on with various ad hoc treatments and if they keep thinking positively it will probably be all right. What policies like these do is fail to allow people to take the necessary steps to adjust to reality.

There are, of course, consequences of a change in Government policy. Hydrologists in WA are currently arguing the validity of the "new hydrology" (Bartle, 1999; George et al. 1999) and government is being urged to respond to this through a changed policy to address salinity (e.g. Pannell, 2000a). It is suggested that appropriate policy would be more focussed on targeted spending to address major losses that may be able to be prevented or ameliorated, rather than spreading money thinly and more evenly – the "vegemite" approach (Pannell, 2000a). Targeted spending might be economically attractive, and Pannell argues it is an ethical use of limited resources (Pannell, 2000b), but it presents social and political difficulties. Governments often choose not to invest in a way that maximises the economic return to investments, usually for social and political reasons. It is likely that targeted spending will contribute to regional inequalities in rural areas, and will be contested by various people and interest groups. Regional inequity in spending may or may not be acceptable, but the social consequences of targeted policy to address salinity needs to be recognised and assessed using social impact techniques. Indeed, WA as a whole may well be the loser in a targeted expenditure approach nationally, as more resources are likely to be used to address land degradation in the Murray-Darling river system. However, to the extent that the ‘vegemite’ approach tricks people into fruitless and ineffective sacrifices of their own time and money and leads to disillusionment, a targeted approach might actually have net social benefits.

Linked to issues arising from a targeted approach is the trend for increasing amounts of sensitive information on land degradation to be made publicly available. In some instances detailed, site-specific information is available. Examples of this are outputs from the National Land and Water Resource Audit and outputs from the Land Monitor project in Western Australia. As regional monitoring and assessment processes proceed, farmers and communities face the prospect of having more and more information freely available that could affect the value of their farm or district. Furthermore, land might be identified as being located in an area at risk, but may not end up being significantly affected. If information is not made available, this raises other issues about withholding information that may affect the true value of property, and disadvantaging potential purchasers of the land.

Results from a survey of farmers in the Jerramungup region (Marsh et al., 2000) showed that over 50 percent of respondents said that regional data from groundwater monitoring done by farmers should be publicly available "only in certain circumstances". Regional hydrological information has potential to be both commercially and socially sensitive. Ownership of data and conditions for its release have already been raised as issues in catchments in WA for a number of years. Kenny (1998) suggests that permission should be sought for data to be disclosed, and our survey data indicates that over 50 percent of respondents would agree with this. Although these issues are being continually raised and discussed, there remains no clear strategic approach to the ownership and release of sensitive regional data from land degradation assessment and monitoring.

Further policy development that will affect farmers is currently under consideration at national and state levels in proposed duty of care legislation. The Productivity Commission has proposed that a duty of care be defined in legislation and that it would:

Furthermore, the Productivity Commission proposes that what is ‘reasonable and practical’ should be defined by regional and industry standards, and should exclude consideration of the economic circumstances of the individual landholder (Crosthwaite, 2001). However, research already indicates that insufficient financial resources are a major impediment to the uptake of practices for better natural resource management on farms (Curtis et al., 2000; Crosthwaite and Malcolm, 2001). Developments such as this reflect changing community expectations about the nature and extent of property rights. It is important that landholders are exposed to and involved in this debate. Issues of fairness and compensation are likely to be key areas that rural people will want considered. In the final analysis, duty of care, like legislation to restrict land clearing and drainage will depend on compliance. If the laws are perceived to be too extreme or unfair or unenforceable, then the likelihood of non-compliance will be high, and the value of the legislation seriously compromised.

Finally in this section I want to briefly mention issues associated with ‘coping with science’, particularly scientific predictions of the extent of salinity and the effect of treatments. Knowledge in this area is changing and characterised by uncertainty. Some predictions have been made through the use of modelling. Models are useful tools, and indeed often the only way that complicated systems can be analysed, but they are, by definition, only an approximation of the real world. Scientists are well aware of this, and should be careful to communicate their results within a framework that includes the notions of risk, uncertainty and probability. These notions are, however, often surprisingly difficult to communicate and modelling results can be easily misinterpreted. It is not straightforward to extrapolate modelling results from broad scale to farm scale, or from percentage of ‘flow tube’ to percentage of catchment. Not all areas identified as being "at risk" will actually go saline.

Farmers have learnt over many years to accept the advice of scientists with considerable reservation, as it is often not useful to their particular situation (Pannell, 1999). Work in the Jerramungup region (Marsh et al., 2001) suggested that some farmers were sceptical about government information about salinity. There was evidence of some hostility towards professionals working on land conservation, and anger at the official predictions of saline area. An earlier report for a particular site was mentioned as having predicted dire consequences that failed to fully eventuate.

In this section I want to briefly raise three issues related to what I have called the "Landcare Industry" - or the business of working in Landcare. The first relates to the challenging circumstances in which many Landcare workers work; the second to criticism of Landcare; and the third to the understandable desire for Landcare to defend the status quo.

Landcare workers are scattered and many are isolated both geographically and professionally, and employed by a variety of organisations, ranging from individual farmer groups, through to Shire Councils and various State Departments. The business of Landcare now employs hundreds of facilitators and coordinators, many of whom are working to achieve "top down" policy goals, that may or may not coincide with the goals of the farmers and rural communities with whom they work. This in itself means that many of them work with inherent conflict between what they are supposed to achieve and what they actually can achieve. As Pannell (2001a) pointed out, many have limited scientific training and are ill equipped to assess the usefulness and viability of land degradation treatments being promoted. Others have little experience in extension techniques or training in facilitation skills, and find them themselves working with diverse communities facing serious land degradation problems. They are generally young, relatively inexperienced (at least initially), and work on relatively short term contracts. Their enthusiasm and commitment is unquestioned. Frost and Marsh (2000) cite reports indicating that Community Landcare Coordinators living and working in local communities are a resource that is highly regarded and valued by community groups across the agricultural area of Western Australia.

The premise underlying Landcare, namely that awareness raising, education and catchment planning involving groups of farmers could solve land degradation in agriculture, has been critiqued for a number of years (e.g. Lockie and Vanclay, 1997). It is now apparent that Landcare will not achieve desired outcomes despite a large investment of government funds, and it is possible that it may be perceived as having been a waste of time and money. It is said that "farmers are disillusioned with Landcare". The value and effectiveness of what farmers, Landcare groups and Landcare workers are doing and have done is being challenged. Pannell (2000b) goes a step further and asks what are the ethical implications of Landcare promoting practices which are neither scientifically proven nor economically viable?

These developments put serious pressure on people already working in difficult, unsupported circumstances. It is important to critically evaluate Landcare, but it is also important not to devalue effort that has been expended in good faith, or lose human capacity at the individual and community level that has built by the Landcare movement. It is also essential for Landcare to move on, in the light of a new understanding of the problem and what is required to address it. This is often more difficult than it seems.

Landcare has a life of its own – there is a business of "working in Landcare". For example, Landcare Conferences are supported and attended mainly by people employed to work in the "Landcare Industry". Their employers, who rightly see value in professional people meeting to discuss and debate the issues facing their industry, support their attendance. Every 2 years it grows in strength, despite increased debate that disputes the effectiveness of Landcare. Pannell (2000a), in his critique of salinity policy writes, "… we have spent large amounts of money for little impact relative to the scale needed to address the salinity problem". But many Landcare workers have invested a great deal of their time and effort into Landcare, and understandably now have an interest in defending the value of their work, not to mention their job. Pannell (2001c) writes: "After a decade of exhorting farmers to action on the basis that ‘every little bit helps’, it will be difficult indeed for those deeply wedded to the Landcare program to accept that it may not".

Agricultural extension workers know well the difficulties of challenging people’s beliefs, especially when people have worked hard to put their beliefs into action. Criticism can be perceived as a personal attack and encourage people to defend their position even more staunchly. This will be challenge for Landcare in the coming decade.

It is possible there will be anger from urban communities about the damage to the environment that has been caused by agriculture. As more information becomes available on the extent and potential spread of salinity through the landscape, the value and effectiveness of what farmers and Landcare groups have done will be questioned. The community may perceive the investment of Government funds as misused. Given the effort that has been expended by rural communities, criticism from urban communities will be hard to take, and could contribute to the rural:urban gap.

Rural and urban values and expectations are likely to differ. It is likely there will be more urban concern for environmental issues than for maintaining traditional agriculture or viable rural communities. For example, research reported by Burton et al. (2001) compared attitudes to water management issues of residents in Perth, and farmers and rural town populations in the Moore River Catchment using a choice modelling technique. They concluded that although all groups supported a balance between agricultural and environmental objectives in land use, farmers and those in the rural towns are more pro-agriculture that Perth residents. Support for conservation tended to be highest in the city population, declining for the rural town and farmer groups. City and rural town residents placed a high value on environmental attributes within the catchment, including tree cover, wetland health and land affected by salt. City and town residents also valued reductions in the risk of flooding in the catchment. Farmers, on the other hand, were concerned about wetland health, but not the area of salt affected land nor the risk of flooding. Farmers valued tree cover up to 20 percent of the landscape, but did not value an increase in tree cover to 50 percent. However, notwithstanding these overall findings, there was a diversity of values identified for each attribute within the groups of farmers, city and townspeople. A lack of concern by farmers about the impacts of salinity on their property, but concern for the wider environmental impacts of salinity, was also reported by Curtis et al. (2000) in work done in the Goulburn Broken Catchment.

However, research suggests that there is a great deal of community agreement about environmental issues. Nancarrow and Syme (1999) say that "Despite the media’s tendency to polarise environmental debates, it seems a strong majority of people concur about the main points, even when they differ strongly about the details". The results reported by Burton et al. (2001) support this to the extent that all the surveyed groups supported a balance between agricultural and environmental objectives in land use. Their research also indicated that there is a strong community acceptance of community responsibility for catchment management, and that both city and town groups indicated strong concern about potential negative impacts of changes in management in the catchment on farmers’ incomes. Findings such as this suggest that there are good reasons to be positive about working partnerships between rural and urban communities to address natural resource management.

The possibility, or need for, fundamental change in the nature of the state’s agriculture raises many economic and social challenges. There is currently a lack of profitable perennial options for much of the agriculture area (Bartle, 1999; Pannell, 2000a). But even if profitable alternative farming strategies existed, there are difficulties associated with achieving, and time needed to achieve, radical change in farming practice at an individual and landscape level (Pannell, 1999; Frost, 1998; Marsh 1998). There is stress, learning and risk associated with changing farm practices.

Although the economic profitability of practices is the most decisive influence on whether or not a practice is adopted by farmers, social factors also influence the adoption of new management practices and technologies, and their speed of uptake (Lindner, 1987; Rogers, 1995). There is a wealth of empirical evidence about the factors that influence uptake of new technologies and sustainable management practices.

Basically it comes down to the fact that no two farms are identical and no two people are the same. People tend to act in their "best interest", but this is determined both by objective factors and by perceptions. When a producer considers a new innovation or management system they take into account:

1. the objective profitability of the change that is dependent on the quality and quantity of resources at their disposable (e.g. land, labour, machinery, credit), the land use elsewhere on the farm, and the level of skills/expertise they possess;
2. a subjective perception of profitability, which may be affected by the farmer’s age, experience, education, future plans, proximity to relevant information, circumstances, etc.; and
3. their attitude to profit, risk, leisure, the environment, land acquisition, etc. due to age, life stage, ethnicity, gender, wealth, experience, education, family size and composition, health, psychological make-up, etc.

The above factors relate mainly to the worth of the change to the individual and the capacity of the individual to change – both from an objective and subjective point of view – not to the actual worth of the change itself.

Furthermore, social factors at a regional level can affect management changes. There can be differences in rates and levels of change between different groups or regions because of differences in the nature of information channels, the credibility of information sources, and regional or group cohesiveness.

It is not helpful or appropriate to expect people to respond to a situation in the same or even similar ways. They will respond in a diversity of ways, dependent on their individual situation.

Where particular individuals or groups are responsible for protection of assets of high public value (e.g. an important nature reserve, or a river used for potable water supplies), they must be provided with appropriate support to enable them to do so. This could include information and management training or support, as well as financial resources. There are real issues associated with the devolution of responsibility to local levels. Frost and Marsh (2000), commenting on initiatives undertaken through the National Landcare Program, note that:

The ability of groups or communities to address issues effectively is limited by their knowledge, perceptions, capacities and the financial positions of their members. Community "burn-out" can become an issue when there are too few people available with the time and resources to manage the project. The whole question of the appropriateness of relying on volunteer effort needs to be seriously addressed. Additionally, these groups are often asked to meet unrealistic targets, and have been given little opportunity to comment on or set these targets.

These social issues need to be addressed if communities are going to be adequately supported to protect and manage assets at risk. It is critical to ensure that only appropriate issues and decision-making are devolved to community level (i.e. issues that can be dealt with most effectively by local communities) (Challen, 2001), and that sufficient resources are allocated by government and the wider community to allow the community to do the job properly.

Stated policy to address land degradation issues and management of resources now always acknowledges that the community should play a strong role in both setting the objectives of policy and policy management. Working with people who will be affected by policy forces policy makers (and researchers and extension workers) to recognise that their goals may be different from the people they desire to influence, to recognise this as a constraint, and to adapt their policy/research/extension accordingly. Additionally, as Pannell (2001a) notes, "Members of the farming community, in particular, also provide important site-specific and community-specific information (including economic information) about land degradation problems and their management in different situations".

The challenge is in making this proposed "strong role" a reality. Firstly, there is a great deal of ambiguity associated with the word "participation". Participation means different things to different people. Levels of participation have been well defined (e.g. Pretty et al., 1995), and they range from token consultation, to being involved with planning and management under a "top down" framework, through to genuine involvement in policy direction and objective setting. Work by McCreddin et al. (1997) has shown that perceptions of ‘how much’ involvement people have in a process varies depending on whether they are doing the consulting or being consulted. Their data shows that those being consulted (i.e. asked to participate), perceived a lower level of involvement than those who were doing the consulting (i.e. inviting others to participate). Interestingly, both parties desired a similar level of participation.

Secondly, it is fair to say that different degrees of involvement can be appropriate in different circumstances. For example, Nancarrow and Syme (1999) report that for the management of environmental water flows in the Namoi Valley, there was general agreement that "while community consultation was essential, complete community self-regulation would be too open to abuse." Part of achieving effective community input into planning and decision-making is ensuring that the level of involvement (or decision-making power) of individuals or communities is appropriate for the effective management of the resource.

It is evident that the community has been successful in some instances in obtaining a voice in debate and policy formation with regard to land degradation issues. The renewed interest in drainage is to a large extent the result of producer insistence that this option be considered as part of the policy approach. The revised State Salinity Plan is another example. Frost and Marsh (2000) note that:

Frost and Marsh (2000) note that "salinity is becoming the basis for unprecedented pressure on policy and policy process", especially the need to acknowledge the ‘social dimension’, including the needs of individuals and their farm business as well as rural communities and towns in general.

Finally, to achieve effective community input into planning and decision-making requires a commitment by government. It requires transparency in policy and processes, both of which are not the inherent modus operandi of governments. It also requires time, and governments typically have too little of this, especially in election year. Ultimately it comes down to us. Society can put pressure on government for a greater input into planning and decision-making.

Agriculture has been responsible for much of the land degradation problems in Australia. There are challenges in both addressing degradation that has occurred and developing new sustainable land use systems. There are social dimension to both these challenges. Although in many areas sustainable land use systems are yet to be developed and arguments for further research and development well-founded, transition to new land use systems is as likely to falter on sociological and political grounds as for want of technical expertise.

Challenges in addressing land degradation can also be thought of as opportunities. There is the potential for new land use systems to be developed, and a chance to engage the community and think laterally about the application of research and development that will be needed. The on-going participation of farmers and the wider rural community will be essential. Research and development systems could provide greater scope and opportunity for farmer involvement, with ‘applied’ or procedural farm management research questions being asked alongside the fundamental research questions that aim to ‘understand the system’ (Frost and Marsh, 2000). Effective partnerships are an integral part of this involvement.

Landcare has taught us a great deal about building community capacity, developing social processes that incorporate multiple stakeholders, and the consequences of working with unrealistic expectations in situations of incomplete knowledge. The social processes that Landcare has been successful in developing now need to be built on a firmer foundation of science and economics.

With regard to the social consequences of policy, there is a continuing need for the ‘social dimension’ to be not only considered, but also seriously assessed through appropriate social impact studies. This requires a commitment to funding, and inclusion of social scientists in the policy debate about natural resource management.