Lake Eyre Basin Rivers Assessment Implementation Plan Project: Milestone 3 Report Governance arrangements for the lebra

Interim recommendations

1. 
   The purpose of the LEBRA should be to gain an understanding of the LEB’s condition in order to:
   

1. 
   underpin responses to condition, including a range of on-ground management, government and industry policy, enterprise and personal decision making and local and regional resource planning responses
   
2. 
   form consistent messages appropriate to, and encourage constructive dialogue between, specific target audiences about condition, outlook and appropriate responses
   
3. 
   guide ongoing research, investigation and monitoring efforts so that they can form a reliable basis for evidence-based responses.
   

2. 
   The revised LEBRA methods outlined in Section 4 should be adopted as the basis for an Assessment to be undertaken in 2010-2011.
   
3. 
   Five options for the management and governance of the LEBRA are presented. These options are based around potential foci for the LEBRA and are couched as:
   

1. 
   Government leadership
   
2. 
   Community leadership
   
3. 
   Technical leadership
   
4. 
   Collaborative assessment
   
5. 
   External assessment
   

The consultants recommend the adoption of the collaborative assessment model. This model seeks the establishment of a LEBRA Oversight Group comprising SOG and CAC members, with the SAP providing advice on the terms of reference for the LEBRA and draft assessment reports. The SAP should remain independent of the conduct of the LEBRA.

4. 
   The conduct of the LEBRA, in line with recommendation 3, should be collaborative and utilise the expertise of participating organisations, including the regional NRM groups, to the greatest extent possible. However, terms of reference to coordinate the synthesis of the findings and their implications for appropriate responses should be tendered to a single group accountable to the LEBRA Oversight Group.
   
5. 
   The terms of reference for the coordination activity outlined in recommendation 4 should include the conduct of interpretation workshops that act to define the required responses to the LEBRA, as well as the vision, objectives, thresholds of potential concern and ongoing monitoring processes required to place future LEBRA activities within a richer adaptive management framework.
   

Further and more specific recommendations will be formulated following consideration of the technical and governance options outlined in this report at a workshop of the SAP on 11-12 August.

1. Background

Purpose of the report

The Australian Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA) requires the development of a Lake Eyre Basin Rivers Assessment Implementation Plan to identify how regular on-going monitoring of key indicators will be implemented within the Lake Eyre Basin Agreement Area. To meet this aim DEWHA has engaged the services of Kiri-ganai Research Pty Ltd to undertake a consultancy for this purpose.

The main objectives of this consultancy are to:

• 
  review the achievements to-date under the Lake Eyre Basin Rivers Assessment (Step 1);
  
• 
  review the Lake Eyre Basin Rivers Assessment methodology and recommend an approach and key indicators to be monitored, their scale and frequency (including rationale for decisions) (Step 2); and
  
• 
  support development and documentation of governance arrangements; development of a business model (including the cost of monitoring, managing data and report; funding for future monitoring and possible funding arrangements) (Step 3).
  

This report is submitted in accordance with the terms of reference for this consultancy and addresses Step 3. It builds on the previous steps by outlining the governance and business arrangements considered necessary for the successful implementation of future resource assessments in the LEB.

Scope of the report

As its highest priority, the draft Five Year Action Plan for the Lake Eyre Basin Intergovernmental Agreement (LEBIA) called for the governing partners of the LEBIA to re-assess the governance and support arrangements to implement the LEBIA (Price and Lovett). The draft Action Plan stated that LEB stakeholders gave particularly strong support for this re-assessment (Action 1) to be undertaken as a priority on which all other actions rely. The Action Plan approved by the Ministerial Forum in May 2009 provides for the reorganisation of the Senior Officers Group to better drive implementation of LEBMF decisions and engage stakeholders in the process.

This report relates to Action 5 of the Action Plan (Implement the LEB Rivers Assessment – LEBRA – through the preparation of an Implementation Plan). The Implementation Plan consultancy project is limited by its terms of reference to assessing and making recommendations on the governance arrangements appropriate to successfully implementing the LEBRA. Yet in doing this, Kiri-ganai Research has been given some latitude to comment on the wider LEBIA governance arrangements. This is inevitable as the purpose of any formalised assessment activity in the LEB should:

• 
  align to the vision and mandate of the overarching governance system (the LEBIA);
  
• 
  inform the range of LEB stakeholders and partners about the condition of the LEB and engage them in caring for its future; and
  
• 
  intrinsically link with stakeholders’ and partners’ capacity to respond to assessment findings.
  

Any limitations or flaws in the wider governance arrangements that act to reduce the value of assessing the condition of the LEB or hinder the efficient conduct of condition assessments must therefore be considered. Above all else, assessment activities are not ends in themselves and must serve clearly specified goals owned and advocated by those to whom responsibility for the future care of the LEB is vested.

That said, this report concentrates on the practical and cost-effective arrangements required to enable the LEBRA to be carried out to meet both current and potential future expectations, while drawing attention to other structural and governance issues.