Cheers, and enjoy reading.
Learning journal #1,
Week #1
The first lecture presented the aims of the subject,
assessment criteria, housekeeping issues and then followed by introduction to Community
Natural Resource Management with some examples. Overall, I felt that the
lecture was different to some extent, in a number of ways, from what I was
expected.
Firstly, teaching style, I think this is because I was still
stuck with my previous academic culture back in Mongolia where many lectures
tend to talk a lot and there is less interaction with students while lecturers
here in The University of Melbourne, generally speaking, are more interactive
and they do not teach thinking directly. Secondly, I must also note that, if I
am not wrong, reflection was not well taught or not strongly encouraged during
my study back in home. These were the two main differences in general.
Although guidance on “learning journal” was given by lecturer
I had no idea what reflective learning journal must consist of and how does it
look like. Therefore, I had to find out what reflective writing is and what style
of writing is expected from students and so on. However, to be honest, I feel
that this is a very good example of how people externally motivated. As Leeuwis
(2004) explains ‘‘Externally motivated’ voluntary behaviour originates from
material and social circumstances or financial impulses brought into being
corresponding policy instrument’. In my case, at first I think I was ‘externally
motivated’ in writing my learning journal because this is related to my marks. If
I do not write my learning journal my marks will definitely be affected. This
is how I felt when I started to search on the internet and library. So I think
my ‘external motivation’ was effects on marks.
However, after drafting my first learning journal I feel that
my voluntary behaviour has changed from ‘externally motivated’ to ‘internally
motivated’ and I perceive this activity as a ‘real’ learning activity and makes
me think a lot and questioning myself about what I learned and why I am
studying this subject. Then, I really feel that I am here for a change by
learning and now I am more ‘internally motivated’. As a result, I realized that
I learned a lot of skills and knowledge by doing this exercise without knowing
that I am learning.
This whole learning process was explained by Leeuwis (2004)
and is known as ‘experiential’ learning, developed by Kolb (1984), that how
people learn through experience, and Leeuwis (2004) further explains ‘this type
of learning is very powerful; it appears that conclusions drawn by people
themselves on the basis of their own experiences tend to have a greater impact
than insights formulated by others on the basis of experiences that learner
cannot identify with’. I think this is
like writing a learning journal where we reflect our learning, experience,
principles and then reconceptualise our knowledge. Furthermore, what I also learned
from readings and above mentioned example is that how either instrumental or
interactive communicative intervention plays important roles in change of human
behaviour, attitudes and practice, as well as in social change. I believe that these
learning would really be helpful for those who, like me, work for a change in
community or in society in general.
According to chapter 9 of Leeuwis (2004), however, ‘individual
learning does not suffice, but that simultaneous learning of interdependent
stakeholders is needed; that is, in order to arrive at coherent practices,
multiple actors need to develop complementary and/or overlapping (or even fully
shared) understanding about various ‘learning fronts’ as a basis for effective
co-ordinated action’. This reminds my
experiences in the past. Being as a community facilitator in a project I really
understood importance of communication and learning through experience when we facilitate
activities among different stakeholders which are interdependent. Especially in
negotiating, planning and setting goals they are really important. For example,
understanding of community natural resource management was different among stakeholders;
so that stakeholders had to develop and come up with overlapping understanding
about the CNRM and community. Facilitating activities like this taught me that
different people may need different support in order to come up with similar
conclusions, which was exactly explained by Leeuwis (2004, pp. 150).
With regards to introduction to CNRM and some examples
of CNRM taught in the class, CAPMFIRE case was really interesting to me and it
sounds similar to a project, has been implemented by UNDP Mongolia and Ministry
of Nature and Environment of Mongolia, in which I was involved for three months
before coming here. There was a trial to change existing wildlife management
regulation by allowing a community to receive certain percentage of money from
hunting licenses and the community was also involved in a formal agreement made
between government, hunting company and the community. Besides keeping money
from hunting license, by involving in this process the community was also able
to benefit from services they provided for hunting companies which were parts
of the terms of agreement. This is again, I think, a good example of how
top-down communicative intervention has been changed to interactive one, how learning
through experience takes and establishing community ownership of natural
resources.
References:
Leeuwis, C.
(2004) Communication for rural
innovation: Rethinking agricultural extension. Third Edition. Blackwell
Publishing. (Chapter 4 ‘The role of
communicative intervention in policy planning: instrumental and interactive
approaches’)
Leeuwis, C. (2004) Communication for rural innovation: Rethinking agricultural extension. Third
Edition. Blackwell Publishing. (Chapter
9 “Social and individual learning”).
Week #2
Despite having difficulties or challenges adjusting to a new
academic culture and environment, as a newly arrived international student I
also needed to find out a number of social, political and economical situations,
structures, cultures and histories of Australia in order to understand what
community I will be living and studying in over the next two years. What
“Community” and “Community Natural Resource Management” means in Australian
context? But reading chapter 4 of ‘Collaborative Forest Management: Review’ (Petheram,
J. et al, 2002) and lectures
presented this week gave me an overview of Participatory Management of Natural
Resources in Australia and approaches and techniques in CNRM.
The reason I selected the reading for this week is that I
believe that Australia as a developed and multicultural society, with an
enormous amount of natural resources, (including coal) has much either success
or failure stories in CNRM and can be learned by studying CNRM subject. Of
course, a broad range of techniques, approaches, tools, principles and
practices have been implemented or taken in both in developing and developed
countries around the world was expected to be learned in this subject.
As I read through the chapter, I learned that Australia is
the one of the countries in which range of CNRM approaches have been practised and
I think their experiences are valuable learning which could be beneficial for those
who have not practiced yet such a diverse approaches. Besides Australian
experiences, a good and simple example of diverse approaches here is that when
we work as a group in the class we not only learn from personal experiences but
more importantly we learn various practices and approaches have been taken
around the world. Another important lesson from student group work is that
students also learn how to facilitate activities in ‘real’ communities by using
some methods and tools. Such learning would also really be helpful for future
community facilitators.
According to Petheram, J. et
al. (2002), broad category of management in the continuum forms of NRM have
been experienced in the context of Australian natural resource management. Case
studies reviewed in this chapter include management forms of RFA, CMA, CBM,
Landcare and Joint Park Management. However, the main points I understand from
this reading and the lecture are as follows.
- Categorisation of participatory management has usually been based around typologies of participation, such as those of Arnstein, Creighon and Pretty (cited by Petheram, J. et al, 2002)
- There is no single type of participatory management which is desirable than next in collaborative processes. The process must be organic and flexible, there must be time for co-learning by all parties and participation is not a solution for all problems (Petheram, J. et al, 2002).
- Effective processes could mix the types (Butchy et al. 2000 cited by Petheram, J. et al, 2002).
- Each type of management has pros and cons. Therefore, approaches and tools have continuously been developed.
- When level of participation gets higher, complexity and diversity of whole process increases. However, general trend in Australia is towards higher participation, which is I believe a good sign and it is getting more complex.
- Truly collaborative processes have not yet been established in forest management in Australia. However, the interest in CFM for the Wombat Forest shows a significant movement from consultative to participatory mode in forest planning and management (Petheram, J. et al, 2002). A question comes to in my mind after reading this statement was that where we are? Are we moving towards higher level of participatory management? I think level of participation, in general, in Mongolian government and its agencies regarding natural resource planning and management is somewhere between information dissemination and consultation, which could be an early stage of the processes. However, Petheram, J. et al, (2002) states that this is also an important part of the participation continuum.
- Joint management may provide one of the more relevant examples for the establishment of collaborative forest management.
Reference:
Petheram, J., P. Stephen, and D. Gilmour (2002), Collaborative Forest Management: A Review, Department of Natural Resources and Environment. Report prepared for the Department of Natural Resources and Environment: Melbourne, Australia. (Chapter 4 –accessed in 01 August 2011 at: http://www.landfood.unimelb.edu.au/resman/review.html)
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