CERF Key Messages

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CERF Key Messages Propositions Andrew
Campbell

• Canberra 16 September 2008
• www.triplehelix.com.au

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Overarching Observations

• A laudable attempt to engage policy and science
• More than 90 officials on the attendance list
• High commitment from Senior Executives
• Commendable, especially in a sitting week
• Strong overlap between CERF investments and major
  issues for the Department and the Government
• 100m is a relatively large investment for this
  portfolio in environmental research
• CERF has attracted many leading environmental
  researchers, and some great work is underway
• Top talent, rich content, generally high level of
  relevance

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Quotable Quotes

• Not to decide to win, is to decide to lose
• We need to start understanding each others
  language better  your resilience is not my
  resilience
• These are very beautiful places that were
  trying to protect, so weve got to have beautiful
  questions
• Fishers should be paying for the establishment
  of MPAs
• Biodiversity monitoring is hard, expensive and
  terribly spotty
• We are knee-deep in decision support tools that
  arent used
• EPBC only has strength when it is too late
• Lower levels of government are vulnerable to
  special pleading

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New technology

• For environmental sensing and monitoring
• E.g. Bowerbird open source software and hardware
  for user-trainable acoustic biodiversity
  monitoring
• will cope with any vocal animal - e.g.
  extra-marital larks
• For managing large datasets
• For presenting complex information
• e.g. Google Earth front ends
• For interactive, web-based communication
• e.g. Wikis
• None of these reduce the need for having
  appropriately trained and skilled people
  throughout the research process

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The Minister

• One of the hallmarks of this government is
  evidence-based policy
• Research is one of the most powerful tools
• But it must be accessible, understandable and
  useful for policy
• Collaborative
• Synthesising existing knowledge and new data
• Australia as the worlds leading green economy
• Driven by new ideas
• Underpinned by the best research

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Peter Garrett take home messages

• The Government recognises the value of good
  science and depends on good two-way
  communications with policy
• Are the communication channels working?
• We need to be able to demonstrate the value of
  the research were funding
• Adoption measures
• Impact measures

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The Secretary

• Our track record on environment programs over
  last twenty years a mixed one at best
• It is not inadequate research or lack of
  knowledge that has led to resource depletion and
  degradation
• Rather, planning failures to deal with long-term
  balance, incremental impacts and ad hoc decisions
• too long have research and policy been in
  different cars we need them in the same car,
  one reading the map, one driving
• There is a good match between CERF and the Depts
  priorities
• The subsidiarity principle nostrum does not hold
  for many environmental issues
• Anticipates push back during 2010 EPBC review
• Would like to see the CERF conference broadened
  in future

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The senior policy executive

• The Zammit orderly policy cycle
• c.f. The Hollowmen, The Games or Yes Minister
• Biodiversity as a wicked policy problem
• 3 lenses of knowledge and evidence

B Head AJPM 2008, 67(1)
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Key Themes

• Get the questions right
• Knowledge fit for purpose
• Improving environmental decision-making
• The return on information
• Valuing the environment
• Measuring impact and progress
• Learning through time

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Tackle the Right Questions

• This is an applied research domain.
• The key questions revolve around What should we
  do?
• What management actions or policy settings etc
  will have what impact?
• Set them up as experiments and monitor them
  properly
• Set up the problem and see if the tools work,
  dont just assume

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Knowledge fit for purpose

• Understand the knowledge need, in the application
  context
• What type of info is needed, by whom, when and in
  what form?
• Do you need to put a dollar figure on everything
  to make a better decision?
• How good does the information have to be?
• ANSWER GOOD ENOUGH!
• This includes the process used to generate the
  numbers - expert/stakeholder interaction etc
• Having the science wont necessarily win the
  argument
• Understand the politics and the economics

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Improving environmental decision-making

• AEDA, Landscape Logic and INFFER are generating
  useful insights, tools and methods that are
  highly relevant to Caring for our Country (and
  other programs like Reef Rescue)
• If adopted, they could potentially avoid yet
  another adverse ANAO report
• Help in working out where to invest, how to
  invest (which instruments to use)
• Help in taking a systems perspective
• Define Measurable and Feasible Outcomes
• Evaluation and Prioritisation are a continuum
• Drop the word aspirational from targets

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Valuing the environment

• The environment as just another user (Chris
  Schweizer re water) vs the primacy of the
  environment and ecological functions and
  processes
• If we are to use economics to prioritise
  activity, then we need to value ecosystem
  services (functional biodiversity) properly
  (Peter Davies)
• The value of attempting to assign a monetary
  value to environmental assets and services
• Some natural assets (e.g. lungfish) cant be
  valued economically
• Need alternative methods for endangered species
  (Angela Arthington)
• Versus the decision tools used to optimise the
  allocation of a given quantum of resources
• E.g. AEDA, Landcape Logic, INFFER

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The return on information

• Understand the response curve for new information
• There can be diminishing marginal returns from
  additional investment in information
• For socio-economic information, we are often in
  the early part of the curve - good returns from
  modest investment
• Warning Flag if you find yourself saying why
  are they not taking up our beautiful research?
• You are in the wrong place!
• Either your research outputs are not adoptable
• They have been poorly communicated
• /or you have not understood the knowledge need

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Measuring impact and progress

• Building memory into the system
• Designing systems that assume high levels of
  staff turnover, especially at the policy end
• Mandate durable, data-literate institutions (e.g.
  BoM)
• (Ian Cresswell, Neil McKenzie)
• Information systems must be (Malcolm Thompson)
• Time and scale sensitive (allow sufficient time
  to measure responses)
• Fit into the policy decision making cycle
• Able to be organised by the agency
• Able to be used, and useful
• Capable of evolving
• Cutting edge research can take 20 yrs to
  penetrate policy
• E.g. in Oz context, environmental flows RD 1970,
  COAG 1994
• The need for indicators reporting wont go away

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Gene LikensHUMAN-ACCELERATED ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE
Likens 2004, Water, Air Soil Pollution
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Gene Likens
1950 2050
Population 2 billion 9 billion
CO2 310 ppm gt450ppm
Energy Use 80EJ/yr gt550EJ/yr
Sea Levels 0.2-1.5m higher

• A quietly compelling story underlining the value
  of long-term ecological research, experimentation
  and monitoring at a landscape scale Speak out,
  when you have something to say
• Results can take a long time to penetrate policy
• Especially when opposed by powerful vested
  interests
• Durable funding is critical for long-term work
• But the research questions have to stack up on
  merit
• mindless monitoring wont cut it

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Propositions about the future

• Australia can lead by example
• The penalties of procrastination (Greg Bourne)
• We will suffer if we do not allocate water to
  aquatic ecosystems (Angela)
• Articulating potential tipping points
• Be upfront about the timeframe in which decisions
  need to be made and the implications of delay
• But, forecasting capability is limited by time
  series aggregation and data reliability problems
  (Malcolm Thompson)
• Forward-looking visualisation tools (e.g. Steve
  Williams in Wet Tropics) can be very useful for
  media and politicians

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• The next two slides owe a great deal to many
  insights, tips and advice offered sagely,
  generously and sometimes provocatively over many
  years by Peter Cullen a champion in maximising
  the influence of research and telling truth to
  power.

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Lessons from the interfacebetween science and
policy

• Contested, crowded, contextual
• Stakes high, decisions urgent, facts uncertain or
  disputed
• Science thrives on a contest of ideas
• This can be problematic in public debate
• Public officials just one of many sources of
  advice
• Ministers/governments prefer wins, credit,
  initiatives
• over problems, conflict, confusion
• Durable relationships are critical
• based on mutual respect and trust

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The knowledge-seeking behaviour of policy makers
(after Cullen et al 2000)

• Senior policy makers are time-poor,
  information-overloaded people, most of whom dont
  read much unless they have to
• Only know what they need to know when they need
  to know it
• Have a very short-term, reactive perspective
• Rarely stay long in the same job deep content
  knowledge is rare
• Want to summarise info in less than 1 page for
  Minister/top brass
• Averse to anything too complicated
• Default to trusted sources, often in-house, even
  when they suspect those sources may be out of
  date or incomplete
• May have a jaundiced opinion of science,
  believing it is
• too slow and too expensive
• answering questions that no-one has asked,
  accompanied by requests for more funding

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Emerging questions for Policy Strategic
(thanks Charlie)

• What can research tell us about resilience?
• Explain it in system-wide terms
• Design principles for resilience planning
• Can it be operationalised?
• Assets/threats frameworks vs ecosystem management
  approaches
• Can/should they be linked, and if so, how?
• Governance arrangements for adaptive management
• Socio-cultural and behavioural drivers of/for
  biodiversity conservation and landscape
  management
• To what extent are players rational optimisers?

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Emerging questions for Policy technical
(thanks Charlie)

• How do we measure condition and change in
  condition?
• What are the opportunities/limits for building
  and using metrics to help calibrate investments?
• For priority setting, resource allocation etc
• How can we grow volunteer-based monitoring of
  environmental condition and capture information
  consistently?
• Spatial allocation issues across scales continue
  to plague decision-making
• The need for spatial info on existing land
  uses/condition seems critical - is it?

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Taking up the Ministers challenge are we
making a difference?

• The CERF program will ultimately be judged on
  three things
• What knowledge assets have we created?
• To what extent is this knowledge being used
  how? Adoption curve?
• What can we predict about the environmental
  benefit of the application of CERF findings?
• This means that it will stand or fall (in the
  eyes of government especially) on the success of
  its communication effort
• The next two years are critical, not just for
  this phase of CERF, but for the long term shape
  of Environment Portfolio investment in research,
  knowledge and information

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Taking up the Ministers challenge (2) the
bones of a communication strategy

• Maximise synergies across the program
• acknowledging great work happening in hubs,
  projects, MTSRF
• minimise risks of tripping over each other
• clarify emergent messages
• dont bombard or confuse shared target audiences
• DEWHA other agency engagement plans
  (individual, face to face where possible)
• Teasing out key information needs
• In the context of application
• Ensuring that we capture the quality across CERF
• In useful forms
• In useful timeframes
• Developing higher-level synthesis products,
  events and activities

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Potential Synthesis Products

• Fenner Conference, Shine Dome 10-12 March 2009
• AEDA and Landscape Logic
• Dedicated editions of Refereed Journals
• Radio/TV series of stories
• (e.g. Catalyst, Bush Telegraph, Landline, Science
  Show?)
• Or specific project like Catchment Detox
• Synthesis publications around key policy
  questions
• International Conference(s)
• Grand Finale event in the Great Hall 2010,
  presenting key lessons to Ministers, and setting
  the scene for CERF Mark II.

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Ideas for next time?

• What is the mechanism to continue the
  conversation?
• I was hoping more departmental staff would pose
  their research problems (Hugh)

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• For more infowww.triplehelix.com.au