Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate some of the shortcomings of resource management theory and the consequent discrepancy between theory and practice. We elucidate these shortcomings by drawing theory from planning and public administration literature. In doing so, we strive to develop theory that reduces, or at least provides a better understanding of, tensions arising during decision-making. We are confident that applying planning theory to resource management will be beneficial because significant theoretical advances have already been achieved in other disciplines when planning theory was similarly applied to the medical and atomic sciences [15] and the profession of evaluation [20]. However, because this paper relies on terminology drawn from two distinct and relatively unrelated disciplines, there is merit in digressing to clarify terminology, before proceeding further.
Natural resource management is about taking actions to produce commodities within a context of sustainability. Natural resource managers encompass all who are concerned with the supply of, or access to, the natural resources upon which societies rely for their survival and development [21]. This area of work is broad and draws together practitioners from diverse disciplines, mostly with a rational-comprehensive mindset, into what can loosely be described as the resource management profession. In contrast, planners focus on optimising location, time and place for people [42, 51], with an emphasis on managing change in land use. Over time, the focus has shifted from being centred on control, to include elements of participation [31] and foresight [37, 47]. Planning theory draws considerably from public administration literature and, as such, we refer to planning and public administration theory as ‘planning theory’. Planners form a more discrete profession than resource managers. However, the differences in cohesion and scope do not prevent cross-disciplinary learning.
Part of the distinction between planning and resource management theory is the extent to which the respective theoretical frameworks manage the ‘problems of science’ [13], namely the difficulties associated with the scale of scientific problems, the ability to test only predetermined hypotheses, and the absence of ‘perfect knowledge’. Resource managers partly acknowledge the ‘problems of science’ but mostly at a practical level, which is evident through an emphasis on the development of increasingly sophisticated tools and techniques. They describe their profession in rational-comprehensive terms, seeking to optimise outcomes primarily from the perspective of the biophysical sciences. Like resource management, planning is also hard to define, but planners have developed a deeper fundamental theoretical basis that is reflective, and which underpins and supports, rather than directs practice [59]. It is not our intent to imply that resource management is not a supportive process, rather that it does not have the support of a deep and reflective theoretical basis to the same extent as planning, leading to greater emphasis on ‘how to’ tools and techniques to support practitioners. The theoretical basis of planning encompasses a spectrum of decision-making approaches from rational-comprehensive to participatory and incremental [12, 37, 44].
We define rational-comprehensive (or synoptic) planning as striving to assess and compare all possible solutions to problems, based on science, and working towards a pre-determined optimum. There is sometimes a misconception amongst resource managers, brought about by differences in professional language, that when adoption of models other than those which are ‘rational-comprehensive’ is suggested, that this equates to suggesting an ‘irrational’ or less valid approach. Planners do not see ‘rational-comprehensive’ and ‘irrational’ as antonyms. We define incremental decision-making as being about a step-wise progression that meets the interests of those affected by a decision, without concern for a pre-determined optimum but often based on rational data. The incremental approach acknowledges ‘bounded rationality’ [44] and constraints brought about by the situational context, cognitive limits [30] and inherent inadequacies of the decision-maker ([22, 45]). Many resource managers mistakenly believe that incremental decision-making is slow, but this is often not the case, with planning literature illustrating how a rapid sequence of small changes can go unnoticed [43, 45]. This misconception about the speed of change is especially evident in recent resource management literature that espouses the benefits of ‘transformational’ change, when a theoretical framework built on a step-wise progression would more than adequately meet the desired objectives [55], and also avoid the risker elements that are involved in transformation. In fact, already well-developed planning theory that critiques ‘radical’ approaches would shed light on the nature of transformational change and the allied ‘resilience’ theory, which describes how the level of resilience determines the ease with which a system can move to a less or more preferred state. A resilient system tends to resist natural pressures to move to a less preferred state but can also resist the effects of large-scale management intervention, even those that attempt to be ‘radical’. As incremental decision-making is not based on a pre-determined optimum, the rate of change (in environmental condition or public opinion) is not a prominent consideration in planning theory. Two forms of incrementalism are evident, firstly, where decisions are based on previous decisions as new knowledge comes to light or as biophysical, economic, social or political circumstances change and, secondly, where the experience, knowledge-base and opinion of the decision-maker changes incrementally.
Participatory approaches, include democratic process and consensus, are at the incremental end of the planning spectrum [19]. Some other approaches that provide insights into the way in which resource management is sometimes conducted and which are also at this end of the spectrum include ‘advocacy’ and ‘mixed scanning’ [22]. The former involves deliberate representation in decision-making on behalf of the environment or for people less able to express their views. The latter involves iterative collection of information. However, for the purpose of this paper, it is sufficient for resource managers to understand that planning theory contains a spectrum from rational-comprehensive to incremental approaches, with a participatory incremental hybrid model [3] also acknowledged.
Now we return to the problem at hand, namely, addressing the constrained nature of resource management theory and showing what the aforementioned spectrum of approaches offers in terms of shedding light on the fundamental nature of resource management. We strongly critique resource management with the intent of improving our own profession.
Natural resource managers tend to be trained in disciplines such as ecology, agricultural science, forestry, hydrology, soil science, economics and engineering, but tensions arise because they are required to balance economic, social and environmental outcomes, often with different contextual goals and within a participatory and democratic context. Resource management policy and legislation play an important role in managing these tensions, whereas planning legislation tends to be effects-based, rather than prescriptive. This opens opportunity for ‘creativity’, such as in the design of new spaces, with many planners trained in architecture and creative design. However, because planning problems tend to occur on a ‘smaller canvas’, at a practical level planners sometimes adopt routine processes, such as for development assessment. This does not preclude them from ‘creativity’ when conducting design-related tasks. Resource management legislation, policy and regulations protect, guide and sometimes direct decision-makers, some of whom live in the communities affected by their own decisions. Although some enhancement of fundamental resource management theory has occurred [53], it remains somewhat constrained by the rational-comprehensive origins of the traditional fields on which resource management is founded and consequently provides suboptimal guidance for practitioners.
A few authors have attempted to introduce theoretical elements from planning theory to resource management. For example, implications for threatened species management legislation were analysed in the context of planning theory [12] and a step-wise progression was discussed in a water management context in The Netherlands [29]. More recently, during a critique of transformational change, myths about incrementalism were dispelled and support provided for the concept of continuous change [55]. The improved understanding about the nature of incrementalism that this critique provided was a key step forward because the false assumption that incremental change is slow has hampered the integration of incrementalism into resource management theory. Also, discussion in resource management literature about participatory techniques, such as Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) [1, 41] and semi-structured interviews [5, 6] are at the fringe of theoretical cross-fertilisation between the professions. Even though these participatory techniques are mostly applied with the intent of optimising decisions, rather than supporting incremental change, the body of literature surrounding these techniques provides a place where theory about incrementalism could be introduced, because participatory approaches are compatible with and at the incremental end of the planning spectrum.
The large scale and complexity of environmental problems is often used as an argument for the need for robust rational-comprehensive approaches. However, Chalmers [13] recognised the difficulties in addressing large-scale multifaceted issues as one of the ‘problems of science’, a difficulty which is not only faced in the biophysical sciences but also in the social sciences during democratic decision-making. On reflection, where genuine participatory approaches have been applied to complex environmental problems, this has proved beneficial. Participatory approaches often bring together views of local community members with those of different perspectives, including those of the international community through Non-Government Organisations and treaties with other countries. This was evident in social and participatory decision-making in an environmental context during the development of Land and Water Management Plans in New South Wales, Australia (e.g. [4]), where both community and government stakeholders internalised scientific knowledge and prior management experience to develop decisions that they deemed suitable and realistic at that point in time, with awareness that optimality differs depending on the perspective of individuals. Community involvement in decision-making has now become a ‘mainstream’ component to water management in Australia, particularly for the Murray-Darling Basin [2]. The merit of partly deferring to those with knowledge about the outcomes of past management actions, rather than placing exaggerated reliance on increasingly complex research such as through systems modelling, is evident. Einstein has been attributed as saying that ‘The only source of knowledge is experience’, which points towards a human dimension in decision-making and the value of incremental improvement in the knowledge-base of practitioners.
What planning theory offers resource management is a deeper understanding about the limitations of many types of decision-making frameworks. Planning theory provides debate about both ‘the problems of science’ [13] and the ‘imperfect nature’ of political and democratic decision-making [44]. Additionally, the way in which planners continue to evolve their theoretical basis in what was originally described as a reflective manner [25], provides an approach that resource managers could benefit from by adopting in their own practice. Planning theory continues to evolve, with recent debate explicitly tracking how the traditional role of the ‘planner as technician’ remained appealing, despite a waning of emphasis on a rational-comprehensive approach by theorists [58]. This retrospective analysis of decision-making by planners enables theory to be continually updated to align with practice. In contrast, resource managers tend to develop improved tools and techniques in an attempt to match practice to existing theory, rather than update theory based on analysis of the nature of past decisions [52].
We now delve into retrospective analysis and apply planning theory to resource management, to provide insights into real-world resource management theory and practice. We consider Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and subsequently discuss the application of adaptive management and its parallels with LCA guidance. LCA is a systematic approach to understanding the environmental consequences of producing units of specific commodities, through supply chain evaluation. LCA was chosen because this field of work is currently seeking theoretical guidance, with discussion by LCA practitioners about roles and guiding principles deepening over the past 4 to 5 years, to discussion about the role of market failure, the scale of environmental problems and the realities of fast incremental improvement. Even though LCA is not a mainstream area of work within Australia, its use globally is increasing and it provides a discrete example which is strongly indicative of the broader resource management profession. For example, LCA faces practical tensions associated with optimizing use of large data sets and achieving application of research to inform policy. Also, tensions are increasing at a practical level as social and economic LCAs are being merged with environmental LCAs [57].
In contrast, adaptive management is a broader framework, which has been applied by resource managers for a decade longer than LCA. This approach is underpinned by the precautionary principle, whereby a lack of certainty should not be used as an excuse to avoid action which might prevent environmental impact. Adaptive management has been chosen here because it illustrates the problems arising from the constrained theoretical base of resource management. Practitioners view adaptive management as a means of overcoming the ‘problems of science’, given problems of geographic and temporal scale and imperfect knowledge. However, on reflection, this approach is rational-comprehensive in intent, as it is about ‘experimenting on the problem’ and expanding the experiment to the system as a whole. Even though the resultant decisions are incrementally different to previous decisions, an incremental form of change is viewed as less robust and an underlying assumption remains that optimality can be predetermined. The intent of adaptive management is not consistent with, and in fact masks, the classic form of incrementalism defined and accepted by planners; and which is characteristic of resource management decisions when analysed reflectively.
About life cycle assessment
LCA is a structured, comprehensive and internationally-recognised method used to evaluate the effects of producing goods and services, and is guided by ISO standards [23, 38]. The approach was developed for the manufacturing sector and has been applied to the agricultural sector during the previous 20 years, or so [36]. LCA has been used to evaluate the environmental impact of producing a wide array of food and fibre commodities, such as wheat [7, 10], wool [9], rice [54] and cotton ([32, 34]). Whilst LCAs are intended to be ‘cradle-to-grave’ [17, 28], many agricultural studies are conducted by practitioners with expertise and an interest in determining the relative effect of on-farm management change options with some degree of certainty and, as such, comparative ‘cradle-to-farm gate’ studies are common. One advantage of LCA is that it assists to avoid ‘burden shifting’ whereby a reduction in one form of impact (such as global warming) might be offset by another form of impact (such as eutrophication), locally or globally. The profession has tended to focus on assessing global warming impacts, given the availability of many methods to assess implications for other impact categories [36]. However, integration across all biophysical impact categories is increasing.
Having described the purpose of LCA, we now summarise theoretical development surrounding LCA. Early theoretical development involved preparation of practical guidance documents, to optimise decision-making and included books (e.g. [17, 36]), journal papers about methods, governing ISO standards (14,040 and 140,044) [23], tools (e.g. SimaPro, GaBi) and databases (e.g. Ecoinvent). Subsequently, LCA practitioners have begun to discuss deeper problems, including those surrounding market failure [11], variability in the natural assets [27], the scale of environmental problems, data availability and requirements [46, 57], the multi-stakeholder nature of problems and realities about fast incremental improvement [39]. In fact, Bo Weidema (Executive Manager of the LCA Ecoinvent database and President of the International Life Cycle Academy) spoke at the AgriFood LCA conference in Dublin in October 2016 about current practice being limited because of a lack of completeness in knowledge and limited use of all impact categories; constraints affecting use of consequential analysis; reduced ability to nowcast and forecast; and low levels of transparency about data quality and spatial applicability. Discussion by practitioners has also included phrases, such as ‘people acting on the data that they have’, ‘willful ignorance’, ‘biases because practitioners often do not carry the cost of the decision’, ‘designing a winning strategy’ and the ‘role of government in establishing a level playing field’. In fact, diversification of the profession into social and economic assessment is bringing together practitioners with broader skillsets and therefore more diverse fundamental training about the role of science, creating tensions. Many of these problems are not unique to LCA and are commonly faced by resource managers.