Prospects for Co-Management in Australia

Abstract

"Co-operative management (known as co-management) offers flexible possibilities for combining indigenous common property rights and responsibilities with private property and resource rights of other stakeholders in environmental management. It can work where the resources in question are primarily common property, as in fisheries (Pinkerton 1989), or in situations where combinations of common, private and public (government managed) property rights apply. The essence of co-management arrangements is that they are negotiated among the stakeholders - hopefully to mutual satisfaction - so that arrangements can be customized to each circumstance.

"Co-management has evolved in different ways in North America and Australia...

"Indigenous Australians hold at least two distinct interpretations of the concept 'co-management', which affects their interest in it. Since Australians have become accustomed to the term 'joint management' for twenty years now, 'co-management' is interpreted by some indigenous people as a weaker form of shared administration, far less acceptable than 'joint management' which is construed to imply equality (cf the discussion of co-management versus consultative management in McCay and Jentoft 1996). Kowanyama community, on the other hand, which brought the term to Australia construes the term in the same way as North America. Most indigenous Australians' first preference is to hold primary responsibility for resource management, in association with recognised title to their customary lands. Joint management and co-management are seen as secondary options, where the first is not available."