Time for a review of Australia’s #resources and their #governance? Time to renovate Australia's #civilsociety?

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Seems to me things are getting out of hand with Australian resources.  Let's start with the most vital of those resources:

• Air: fresh clean available air is what we need most.  Breathing is the thing we do most often.  If our air is polluted we get sick, in some cases we die.
• Water: fresh clean available water is the second most needful thing. Even if we have no food, water can keep us going for some considerable time. Water has been captured - and I don't mean in tanks nor do I mean storm-water harvesting. Our water has been captured by vested interest: irrigators; foreign corporations; corrupt political practice. This is affecting gravely equitable public policy and decision-making in regard to this precious resource. Such practices have been detrimental to many people: causing some to receive less water than previous generations did; causing some to be inundated while others make themselves flood free (or try to).
• Soil: fresh clean nutrient rich available soil for food production together with security and sustainability of our food production.
• Landholding: history has shown us what happens when the few grab hold of large quantities of land to their own benefit. It is to the detriment of the many and the cause of civil unrest, even war.
• Reserves: we need to reserve some of our land and sea resources for breeding, restocking, preservation of species.  Without such reserves our planet runs out of puff and creativity.
• Resources: who owns the resources of the nation - minerals, oils, gas, etc?  To whose benefit and whose detriment are these resources being explored and exploited?
• Civil society: a creative, resourceful, intelligent, and equitable civil society is a most powerful asset.  Such a society is our greatest protection against war and strife and it is a place of nurture which, properly established, is capable of nourishing us all physically, mentally, spiritually.  

The beginning of 2011 is a good time to think:

• Time to think about how generous or miserly we Australians might be.
• Time to think about how daring, intelligent and brave we can be in facing the major decisions surrounding natural disaster and the personal and national rebuilding that is to be done.
• Time to think about making smart and clever decisions for the future - even if it does cost us.  It is our own and our children's future in which we are investing.
• Time to think about respect for each other as individuals as well as the offices held in civil society - lest we become a most uncivil society.  
• Time to think about our own self-sufficiency and our own inter-connectedness in forming communities and understanding humanity's own place in relation to planet, peoples, and other species.
• Time to consider whether some people and entities are nett extractors rather than nett contributors to Australia and its civil society and whether the wider Australian population should seek ways to restore equity and equilibrium and regulate the greed within.

Related articles

• Soil science: Healing our planet's ills from the ground up (scienceblog.com)
• AgForce demands talks on coal seam gas (news.theage.com.au)
• Civil Societies Cannot be Built - They Must Emerge (cafehayek.com)
• Climate-smart agriculture is needed (nature.com)
• Floods steal precious topsoil - and future goes down drain. (smh.com.au)
• Carbon offsets poor value: Garnaut (news.theage.com.au)
• Water depletion and economic collapse (nowpublic.com)

#Govts hate the prefix Public...but this library is loved. #publicinstitutions

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Picture from here

Two disclaimers:

1. I love the people of Stony Stratford, the Jewel of Milton Keynes, and their efforts to keep their library doors open and the books borrowed.
2.   I am a former Public Librarian and I am an almost lifelong information junkie.

I am of the firm belief that modern liberal democratic governments hate, loath, detest anything which has a budget line and whose title begins with the word Public i.e. Public School, Public Hospital, Public Transport, Public Housing, AND Public Libraries.

Dear borrowers of Stony Stratford, please keep up the good borrowing.  This project has to be sustainable you know. There must be no slacking off.  You may not be able to clear the entire library of its material as you have now done, but you will need to continue to rotate those books regularly - say a minimum of 40% off the shelves.  

As well, you will need to ensure that your library keeps up to date technologically - so ensure that up to date IT stuff is installed and, please, don't forget to use it.  And don't forget the storytelling sessions for the kids.  Libraries have to have a family flavour.  And where is the local Toy Library situated? It would be great if it could be on your premises but if this is not considered the way to go, please ensure that Public Library and Toy Library have a close relationship.

It also pays to have on your local council, elected representatives who are keen borrowers.  You can check this out and focus on the antis and the not-so-literate.  

This article says that 400 libraries from the Isle of Wight to South Wales and Yorkshire are for the chop.  Britain is in a bad way economically and high priority for chop is a significant part of the nation's knowledge base.  Mmmm....that seems to make a great deal of sense. Sounds to me like digging your grave deeper. And not only is the government interfering with the distribution of knowledge. It is interfering with a key recreational hub.  So we really want an up and coming generation which is dumbing down and one thing less for them to do in their spare time?  

Related articles

• Threatened library gets its patrons to clear the shelves (boingboing.net)
• Library services (cruciality.wordpress.com)
• Library clears its shelves in protest at closure threat | Books | The Guardian (guardian.co.uk)
• Library emptied in closure fight " Express & Star (expressandstar.com)
• Library emptied in bid to fight closure (independent.co.uk)
• People power empties threatened library (abc.net.au)
• Libraries are just for the privileged white middle class... says white middle-class Quango chief (dailymail.co.uk)
• Library closures: Labour's fury as users are labelled white and middle class (guardian.co.uk)

Let's hear it for a heroine - the great commoner, Elinor Ostrom

It is many years since I first discovered Elinor Ostrom.  I discovered her as I began to trawl the internet on the topic of The Commons.  Trawling the internet on this topic can bring up all sorts of things.  Academically, The Commons (and I do love the old English term - so much of our culture, our history, our economic trading capacity is tied up in that term) is now referred to as Common Pool Resources. I discovered Elinor through this wonderful resource which has gone from strength to strength since I first discovered it - The Digital Library of the Commons which reposes at Indiana University which also gives house-room to Elinor Ostrom

I have found Elinor Ostrom's work - often done in collaboration with her husband and with others - to be enlightening and pace-setting.  Little did I dream, though, that her work would be seriously considered for the Nobel Prize.  It seems to me that her work does not fit or sit comfortably with dominant economic paradigms.  I feel she is far from being a text-book economist.  But in 2009 the Royal Swedish Academy of Science in its wisdom awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics to Elinor Ostrom.  In the history of the prize only forty women have been awarded the Nobel and Elinor Ostrom is the only woman to receive the prize for Economics. 

Economics is frequently referred to with Thomas Carlyle's derogatory term,  "the dismal science".  Ostrom's work, it seems to me, is filled with fairness, practicality, and hope for ordinary human beings.  

Her work explores contradictions.  I take a strong interest in water issues and I am a strong proponent of Australia rebundling land and water and making it a part of The Commons and a human right.  For support for this view, I looked to Ostrom.  I discovered that water trading (albeit small scale and localised when compared to Australia in the 21st century) has a long and successful tradition.  So, in that sense, I have to qualify/modify my views - and remember that, in the human condition, there is little new under the sun.

So, Networkers, if you have got this far please go here for an interview with Ostrom - which is what set this post off in the first place.  And could I ask your assistance?  I am collecting Australian material relating to The Commons - in any shape or form, ancient (Aboriginal), old, and modern.  Please go here to have a look at the collection so far.  I am particularly interested in commonly held land (places like Town Commons and Stock Routes) or resources which were once part of The Commons but have been alienated to become private property.

Related reading:

 

Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)

Understanding Institutional Diversity

Working Together: Collective Action, the Commons, and Multiple Methods in Practice

Rules, Games, and Common-Pool Resources (Ann Arbor Books)

Trust And Reciprocity: Interdisciplinary Lessons For Experimental Research (Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust (Numbered))

Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice

Foundations of Social Capital (Critical Studies in Economic Institutions Series)

Further reading:

The Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Harding (Science Magazine -  13 Dec 1968)

The real tragedy of the commons

Elinor Ostrom - Bibliography

Elinor  Ostrom, Nobel Laureate,  on design principles for common pool resource institutions

Irrigation systems as common pool resources

Related articles

• Lin Ostrom's Life After Winning A Nobel Prize (rs.resalliance.org)
• Ostrom: Polycentricity and Climate Change (peopleandplace.net)

The Commons: communal management of public resources - an untapped way of doing things

See here for more information on this book

Miss Eagle has long had a strong interest in The Commons.  

The latest edition of Guernica carries a significant article 

on the subject by David Bollier 

which was original published in On The Commons.

The Commons is an ancient concept

but it can be made new again - in many different ways.

Some quotes from Bollier:

A commons arises whenever a given community decides that it wishes to manage a resource in a collective manner, with special regard for equitable access, use and sustainability. 

It is a social form that has long lived in the shadows of our market culture, and now is on the rise.

In the end, any commons movement will depend upon how badly people really want to 

• reclaim our common wealth, 
• re-connect with each other as human beings, and 
• devise new political and legal structures for achieving this vision. 

My guess? The energy and desire are there, but diffuse. 

The vision is gaining currency. 

An inventory of commons-based solutions to problems 

ranging from global warming to social alienation is growing. 

Diverse types of commoners are starting to discover each other. 

What’s needed is a surge of new leadership and resources 

to take the commons to its next, more interesting stage of development.

COAL & COAL SEAM GAS INFORMATION MEETING @ GUNNEDAH, NSW

Denis from over at The Nature of Robertson advises as follows:

I have been advised (no names, deliberately) that the Gas companies are swarming all around the Coonamble and Narrabri area.

But the Council is not even advising (warning) the local residents.

"We were all so stunned when Santos suddenly announced they were testing here -

and when we asked them why they'd not given us notice of this, they told us that they'd advised our Councils back in April!!   

The Councils hadn't told us.   And a friend of mine who is over near Narrabri and has had terrible trouble with Eastern Star Gas (they blew up his bore) - said Narrabri Council are just terrible.  

He said they LOVE ESG and keep saying how wonderful they are for the district."

Those comments were prompted by a comment of mine about another Shire Council Mayor having been given some $30,000 by another mining company for access rights to his property, whereas "regular landholders" have been offered figures between $300 and $1000 for the same access rights. Needless to say, the Council voiced no opposition to gas exploration in that Shire. There, and I didn't even mention the word "bribe" did I, simply reported "differential payments"?

and Judy Sheedy advises:

Dear All

Meeting information for Wed next week.  Please forward onto all of your networks, encouraging people to attend and to rsvp (as we need numbers for catering).

FYI – We are having a legal lunch from 12:30 – 1:30pm as well with Peter Shannon, so if you know of any lawyers who may be interested let them know.  I will have that flyer available in the morning.

Cheers

Judi Sheedy

NSW Farmers Association Mining Taskforce

T:   02 6743 7248

F:  02 8089 1040

M: 0407 804 809

E:   longlea.north@bigpond.com

Six degrees coal and climate campaign and the organisations lining up with it.

I wonder if Anna Bligh and the Queensland Government are taking notice - but there are an awful lot of people who don't like what coal is doing to their country.  Take a look at the organisations springing up - and I don't believe that these will be the only ones.  Come on let's pull the whiskers of the resource buccaneers instead of them taking us for a ride!

ELINOR OSTROM, 2009 NOBEL PRIZE WINNER FOR ECONOMICS FOR HER WORK ON THE COMMONS

From here

Occasionally, the universe surprises me - really surprises me.  This blog is about issues of justice, social justice.  There is a lot of complaining, some angst, and lots of frustration.  It can be very difficult to find people who share my interests....particularly ones such as The Commons.  Fortunately, there is The Net and I can Google my interests and rarely, if ever, am I disappointed.

So it was a few years ago that I discovered the people at the University of Indiana and the work of Elinor Ostrom. Ostrom does not even call herself an economist but she has just become the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Economics.  Ostrom describes herself as a political scientist - to me she is someone who seeks out information on the political economy of the common good.

Economic rationalists regularly quote Garrett Hardin's seminal article, The Tragedy of the Commons. Ostrom - from where I sit - is not cited so often.  Her research is deep and broad - water, fisheries, management of communally held resources.  She writes individually and with others.  The conversation that Ostrom conducts is not the usual language of Wall Street or the financial pages.  She goes deeper than that.

The jury which chose Dr Ostrom as a recipient of the prestigious award justified its choice with the following statement:

If we want to halt the degradation of our natural environment and prevent a repetition of the many collapses of natural-resource stocks experienced in the past, we should learn from the successes and failures of common-property regimes.

Ostrom's work teaches us novel lessons about the deep mechanisms that sustain cooperation in human societies

To read more about the commons, please go to the Digital Library of The Commons at Professor Ostrom's university, the University of Indiana. To see Professor Ostrom's Press Conference at the University, please go here.

Further reading:
Elinor Ostrom's Curriculum Vitae

FLOW (for love of water) AT FRANKSTON 30 SEPT

Wednesday 30 September, 7.30 pm: Film Screening: For the Love of Water (Flow). Is water a human right? Maud Barlow and Dr Vendana Shiva will discuss the global impacts of water privatisation. Uniting Church, 16 High St, Frankston. Organised by Friends of Frankston. For more info ph 8774 8170 or email richardlaverack@hotmail.com  


Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis.

Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world's dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.

Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question 'CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER?'

Beyond identifying the problem, FLOW also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround. 

End of the line: come and see the movie about oceans and a world without fish

Premiere screening 

"The end of the line"

Hunted almost to extinction in the 19th century, the endangered Australian Sea Lion is still being caught today as by-catch in shark fishing nets. This iconic marine mammal along with many other species will benefit from a network of large marine sanctuaries in South Australian and adjacent commonwealth waters. 

Photo: Valerie Taylor.

Join us 

at this special film screening

The ultimate power of ‘The End of the Line’ is that it moves beyond doomsday rhetoric to proffer real solutions. Chillingly topical, ‘The End of the Line’ drives home the message: theclock is ticking, and the time to act is now.

Premiered at Sundance Film Festival this year, the powerful new film The End of the Line uses brilliant underwater footage, sweeping cinematography and interviews with world leading scientists, activists and fishermen to tell the story of the devastating impacts of overfishing on our oceans and the simple solutions to the problem.

Where: Capitol Theatre - 113 Swanston Street, Melbourne.

When: Friday 2 October - Doors open 6:30pm, Film @ 7pm

Bookings essential:  bookings@green-pictures.com

Entry: $10 Adult, $6 Concession & students, Under 16 free.

This promotional screening is brought to you by The Wilderness Society and Save our Marine life

Visit the official website of the film The End of the Line to find out more.

For more information, please contact:

Campaign Coordinator

The Wilderness Society Victoria Inc

288 Brunswick St

Fitzroy, Vic, 3065

Phone: 03 9038 0888

Carol, Commons, Community and the Castlemaine Forest

Picture from here

Brisbane Dateline

Networker Carol McDonough of Castlemaine in Victoria drew this site to my attention. Carol and I, along with Mikael Smith and Elyse Rider are, on behalf of GreenFaith Australia, doing a panel presentation at the Oceania Conference of the International Association of Community Development in Brisbane.

Our presentation is titled Taking Down The Fences. We will be discussing communally held resources and their protection by bringing to them modern economic, community, and resource management techniques.

Carol was doing some local research about the Lodden River when she came across the Forestwatch site and Hancock's role in destroying our forest and making its own unique contribution to climate change.

<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Brisbane Dateline</span> <div style="text-align: justify;">Networker Carol McDonough of Castlemaine in Victoria drew <a href="http://www.hancock.forests.org.au/index.htm#content_top">this site</a> to my attention. Carol and I, along with Mikael Smith and Elyse Rider are, on behalf of GreenFaith Australia, doing a panel presentation at the Oceania Conference of the <a href="http://www.iacdglobal.org/">International Association of Community Development in Brisbane.</a> Our presentation is titled <span style="font-style: italic;">Taking Down The Fences</span>. We will be discussing communally held resources and their protection by bring to them modern economic, community, and resource management techniques. Carol was doing some local research about the Lodden River when she came across the Forestwatch site and Hancock's role in destroying our forest and making its own unique contribution to climate change. </div> <a href="http://antar.org.au/no_to_racism_online"><img src="http://antar.org.au/sites/default/files/images/150x150-circle.jpg" alt="racism-free" width="90" height="90" /></a>
Common Pool Resources (CPRs), to give The Commons a more up-to-date nomenclature, are land, water, air, roads and routes, oceans, fisheries, wildlife, beaches and coastlines, forests and - some people would add - mainframe computers and the internet. All can be easily lost if we, as communities, do not value them and manage them well for our communal benefit. Lost? Yes, lost to people like Hancock's: lost for privatised, corporate profit, lost from community enjoyment and benefit, lost from communal regulation.

It is the destruction of the forest which is at the heart of global warming and carbon emissions which we struggle to control without forests. Major de-forestation has taken place across the world - and particularly in the tropical rainfoests of the Amazon, Indonesia, Melanesia which are to the Earth as lungs and kidneys are to our bodies.

Re-afforestation and forest restoration are not high on humanity's agenda - and they need to be.
More on this later.

And if you want to to meet the GreenFaith Australia crew and hear about The Commons and Common Pool Resources, please be at the IACD Conference next Saturday afternoon 20 June at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.