THE MYTH OF THE WATER MANAGER

The Victorian Government, in its current term, has attempted to get runs on the board on water management in a time of drought and climate variability.  What a pity neither Brumby nor Holding learned  lessons from the past.  This would have been possible had they read J.M. Powell’s seminal work, Watering the Garden State: water, land and community in Victoria 1834-1988.

Joe Powell adapts the 1985 work of Sewell, Smith and Handmer to provide a table comprising five major Australian ‘water myths’.  The fifth and last of these myths is as follows:

5.  ‘Water Management is Mainly for Technical Experts’

a)      Domination of water agencies by engineeers/water scientists; search for a ‘technical fix’ is increasing, minimal provision for public involvement.

b)      Multi-faceted nature of problems ignored; less expensive, environmentally benign solutions overlooked or downgraded; forgets that ‘public’ contains some equally well-qualified experts; does not harness public concern; misses opportunities for monitoring changing values.

 Domination of water agencies by engineeers/water scientists

 A tour of Victoria’s government owned water corporations’ websites is enlightening.  Particularly,  that of Coliban Water.  On the Board of Coliban Water sits an engineer who is the Group General Manager for Veolia Environmental Services.  Veolia is a French multi-national with a corporate history second only to Suez whose subsidiary, Degremont, is part of the AquaSure consortium building the desalination plant at Wonthaggi.  The presence of Veolia management on the Coliban Board raises questions of probity and conflicts of interest as well as future intentions and presence in the decision-making of a government entity.

Search for a ‘technical fix’ is increasing

This statement was made in 1985 and is still true to-day.  Surely, the search for the ‘technical fix’ has reached its zenith with the construction of a desalination plant and the completion of a huge-pipeline to supposedly bring water ‘savings’ to Melbourne.  Any water coming to Melbourne currently is subtracted from environmental flows.  Other ‘fixes’ have not been seriously contemplated: mandatory tanks; stricter behaviour modification; compulsory retro-fitting of water meters to premises lacking them; wide-scale storm-water harvesting; and extension of recycled water past the northern suburbs of Melbourne. 

Minimal provision for public involvement

The Brumby Government does little or no social benchmarking to monitor impact of major infrastructure decisions on human communities.  Long struggles for environmental impact statements succeeded.  It’s time there were human community impact statements required as well.  Community engagement as it may sketchily exist in  the Victorian Government certainly is not best practice.  A glance at the construction of the Community Liaison Committee established  with the construction of the Wonthaggi Desalination Plant shows that it will have no impact, it will have no strong community voice, and is not answerable to the community at all. 

The Brumby Government ignores and endeavours to cut out any opposition or compaints of poor management.  The North-South Pipeline has divided communities and has absorbed community energies and resources over a considerable period of time.  Mediation does not seem to have occurred to Brumby.  It appears that water down a pipe to Melbourne equals votes in 2010 and that is all that matters.  Surely, the government can do better than this.  As we move into periods of great climate variability, there will be many policy issues to be decided in relation to natural resource management.  Are the current actions of the Brumby Government in relation to community engagement and problem solving  to be the model for the future?  Or are communities destined to fight battles for their environment to the point of exhaustion and resource depletion?

As if cutting off community voices is not bad enough, 2010 has seen the Brumby Government is prepared to abridge the civil liberties of Victorian citizens with a contract allowing AquaSure to provide ‘spy-type’ information on protesters to the police and the spying on and collation of information in relation to Jan Beer, a Plug the Pipe leader.  Does the Brumby Government consider this a way to gain broad community confidence for its water plans?  Do Melbourne Water and AquaSure consider this community engagement?

Forgets that ‘public’ contains some equally well-qualified experts

Miranda Fricker, the British Philosopher, writes on epistimic injustice - when some people are deemed “to know” and others are deemed not to have a clue. 

There are many educated people within the wider community who understand water science and engineering and have views which are worth listening to.  Similarly, there are those who have gained experience and knowledge through life and work experience – like farmers, bush residents.  Then there are those with expertise in the social sciences who can speak of the sociology involved, the spiritual impact of decisions and so on.  These are ignored.  The only social sciences that seem too be considered are economics and politics.  Other social sciences aren’t in the race. 

Monitoring changing values

This seems to be beyond the understanding of the Brumby Government and those advising it.  Joe Powell points out how developkment went hand in hand with water in the Victoria’s early days.  This mindset continues.  However, there is widespread interest in environmental values and impacts that did not exist when Deakin and the Chaffey brothers were dominant in water affairs.  In the construction of the North-South Pipeline and the Wonthaggi Desalination Plant, there is no evidence of recognition of dominant environmental values.   A trip along-the Pipeline shows forest devastation.  Yet to be faced is the reality of ocean degradition. 

In short, a strong case can be made that current water managers and the Brumby Government are incapable of responding to changing environmental and social values in management of Victoria’s water resources.  There are hints that questions will be raised in the election on whether the Brumby Government really has a plan for Victoria’s water resources.  There may well be a plan of sorts. Is it of environmental and community benefit?  Will communities exercise a voice in water resource management? Or will the plan merely satisfy private and public water corporations and politicians who may be seeking  to underwrite a post-political career?

PRIVILEGED INFORMATION

PRIVILEGED INFORMATION

by

Brigid Walsh

How some of us are deemed “to know”

and the rest of us don’t have a clue

Unless we change we’ll get where we’re going. ... Anon.

On July 15, 2008, Future Leaders along with Melbourne Conversations hosted speakers under the topic The Power of Ideas: how ideas serve to assist in understanding, forming & renewing Australia. One of the speakers was Executive Director of The Australia Institute, Richard Denniss who began by saying:
So you think you have an idea. Well, I’m here to tell you there are a lot of people out there who don’t like your idea, don’t want your idea and they have the resources to fight against your idea.

This dose of realism is borne out in management of natural resources – in particular, water management. In this area, it is not just about ideas – alternative ways of doing things or looking at things. It is also about novelty in the field of knowledge. Politicians, bureaucrats, water corporates and a covey of “water experts” dictate acceptable knowledge and knowers.

The philosopher, Miranda Fricker, outlines the justice issues involved when some people are deemed to know and others are not in her seminal work Epistemic injustice: power and the ethics of knowing. Her publishers, Oxford University Press, in promoting her book say:

Miranda Fricker argues that there is a distinctively epistemic type of injustice, in which someone is wronged specifically in their capacity as a knower. Justice is one of the oldest and most central themes in philosophy, but in order to reveal the ethical dimension of our epistemic practices the focus must shift to injustice. Fricker adjusts the philosophical lens so that we see through to the negative space that is epistemic injustice. (emphasis is mine)

Political parties of both the right and the left have been dominated for decades by economic rationalism which has manifested in various gradations of neoconservative governance across the political spectrum. There are now in place political apparatchiks whose plans rely upon outsourcing, Public Private Partnerships, and the minimisation of social expenditure in government budgets.

There are supposed financial benefits in such arrangements while retaining and increasing the power of governments and individuals; and increasing corporate contractual relationships which benefit the post-political careers of the political apparatchiks.

Social dysfunction, smouldering dissatisfaction, social exclusion and destabilisation of communal life are not measured, nor are these costs accounted for in the national and state balance sheets.

Water is emerging as a pivotal factor in measuring everything from political performance, environmental status, and economic well-being, to communal life and food security. A good starting point for Victorians to immerse themselves in the foundational issues of the water debate is J.M. (Joe) Powell’s book Watering the Garden State: water, land and community in Victoria 1834-1988. This work covers the underlying issues of some of our contemporary hydrological problems in Victoria. One fact becomes plain: there are always vested interests around water.

So what is a water expert? What goes into the making of a water expert?

A university education is the beginning - if you want the basic qualification to be deemed a knower. Universities are funded by governments – and by corporations and, in addition, have their own commercial interests.

On graduation from university, the future “water expert” goes to work where? Either for government or water corporations. The future WE joins his/her industry and professional association. The people who join industry and professional associations come from both government and water corporates. If friendships have not already formed at university, the industry and professional associations afford this opportunity.

There are opportunities to go on study tours – many of which have some form of sponsorship from water corporations. Conversations occur, opinions are formed and sooner rather than later a common “wisdom” forms which comes to dominate submissions to government; research; university teaching; corporate research, lobbying and government/industry relationships. This is the dominant model.

There are heretics. These are the men and women who have been trained as above but have formed other opinions. Perhaps someone has been a diligent researcher and found a major university sponsor has feet of clay. One way to find you r PhD has become a document of suspicion! Another way to become a heretic is to join forces with community organisations whose wisdom comes from practical experience, knowledge hard won from the land – uniting the wisdom of learned science with the practical wisdom worked out in winning a livelihood.

The great Australian ecologist, Charles Birch, who recently departed this world, said in his 1993 book Regaining compassion for humanity and nature

Just as you need a lot of information to build a house, so you need a lot of information to build a society that functions properly. ... The world’s problems have to do with management on a huge scale. To begin to see what the problems are we need a lot of information on ecology, science, technology, economics and politics. If we do not have this information, people with the best will and determination in the world will not be able to rectify mistakes. We need wisdom as well as righteousness.

In contemplating the revolution needed to move toward an ecologically sustainable society, global modellers speak of information as the key to the transformation. It will be information that flows in new ways and to new recipients. Secondly they recognize that major obstacles to any such transformation are the structures of society that resist changes in flows of information such, for example, as government bureaucracies

Much as I admire Charles Birch, he too has excluded, just as government bureaucracies frequently do, disciplines such as Community Studies. I am also conscious of the words of Lindsay Falvey, formerly Chair of Agriculture, Dean of Land and Food Resources, and Dean of Agriculture at the University of Melbourne, “Too much Scientia, not enough Sapientia!”. Too much science and not enough wisdom.

However, apart from my criticism, Birch foresaw the need for wide-ranging information flows coming from new pathways and travelling to new recipients. We are now living in the “will be” described by Birch. Government bureaucracies have not caught up. They are dragging and lagging behind communities. They are not providing good advice to their political masters.

Conversely, politicians have abdicated their responsibility to the community in relation to water as a common resource and a public good. The question the electorate must ask politicians of to-day and of yesteryear is: “Didn’t you see the water crisis coming?” If they didn’t see it coming, they don’t deserve their position. They are inattentive. If they did see it coming, then the electorate must ask: “Then what did you do to benefit the community and sustain our common water resource?”

My view is that politicians of the major parties who have been in government in recent times have abdicated their responsibilities. As memorial to this abdication we have desalination plants; water commodification and trading; escalating water removal from communities; declining water resources for food production; the dismantling of communities.

Herbert W. Schroeder in his article Ecology of the heart: understanding how people experience natural environments highlights the contribution of the individual’s experience of natural environments. If we are searching for sapientia, wisdom, in the management of natural resources we must add the wisdom of experience to science and technology; the wisdom of human interaction with each other and the environment; the wisdom of diversity in the application of knowledge.

Schroeder’s comments are not the only bright spot in relation to the inclusion of human and social dimensions in resource management. The Northern Agricultural Catchments Council in Western Australia (NACC) has begun work. NACC uses NRM (natural resource management)

to describe the degree to which individuals possess the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic NRM information and services needed to make appropriate NRM decisions.

The NACC says:

There is growing concern that many of the key messages regarding natural resource management being delivered at federal, state and local levels are not being transmitted in ways that are easily contextualised by resource managers. Earlier investigations by NACC suggested the concepts ‘natural resource management’, ‘sustainability’ ‘biodiversity’ ‘biosecurity’ were not well understood by our target groups. Nevertheless, government and agency messages remain littered with this jargon and NACC has been guilty of its inclusion in some of our messages. More worrying is the observation that other than those resource managers directly engaged with NACC (studies in progress) there appears to be little comprehension of NRM in the wider community. But we are not alone. Those agencies and other regional bodies tasked with delivering NRM programs face similar lack of recognition regarding their functions and they too struggle to articulate these messages on the ground.

NACC’s moves into the area of social science in developing NRM literacy and encouraging better management of natural resources is a work in progress. Their story so far illustrates a growing wisdom and bears out Lindsay Falvey’s words. Scientia alone is insufficient. Wisdom comes from experience. Just as science progresses in knowledge and techniques, so does experiential wisdom.

As the NACC has demonstrated, epistemic discrimination follows closely exclusive language. Messages that don’t communicate come from people who don’t want to disseminate knowledge except to the powerful.

Such people appear to communicate but their communication is meaningless.

Is it too far-fetched to say that, at times, this can be quite deliberate? Is it too far-fetched to ask that plain jargon-free English becomes the well-regarded norm?

This would be a simple but good beginning so that knowing and the recognition of who knows become more inclusive and the implementation of that knowledge more holistic.

~~~~

[1] In A.W. Ewert (ed.), 1996.  Natural Resource Management: The human dimension.  Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

[2] Howard, Peter NRM Literacy Study: Dowerin Field Day, 2007

Brigid Walsh is a North Australian (North Qld and the NT) now living in Melbourne.  She is a researcher with strong interests in water, food security, and community advocacy, particularly for remote communities..

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribuition Non-Commercial No Derivatives License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

To contact the author, please email misseaglesnetwork@gmail.com