Dr Don Thomson
Waterwatch Australia
Waterwatch: a practical example of a culturally-oriented strategy contributing to sustainability of catchments and water
Waterwatch is a community engagement and capacity building tool that has been operating across Australia since the early 1990’s. Waterwatch has two entwined themes: 1) Participatory learning for sustainability, built around catchment health and water quality; and, 2) Community-based monitoring of water quality and aquatic habitats, providing valid community data of a known quality to assist natural resource managers in targeting their investments and monitoring the impacts of works on resource condition.
Waterwatch works with adults and students around local places of meaning to empower people with the capacity to assess and monitor the condition of their local waterways, equipping them with the ability to change their own practices and behaviour, and influence the practices of others.
This paper draws on case studies from around Australia to demonstrate how Waterwatch works in partnership with communities, governments, industries and NGOs to influence cultural perceptions and behaviours towards water and catchments. The paper outlines the ‘program logic’ of Waterwatch, and illustrates its impact through case studies.
Waterwatch is currently developing a monitoring and evaluation framework and is keen to develop partnerships with the social science community to improve our mutual understanding of how interventions such as Waterwatch impact on cultures.
Biography
Dr Don Thomson’s interests in the social dimensions of natural resource management (NRM) have been evolving through his experiences in agriculture, landscape architecture and NRM over the past 17 years. Don completed his PhD in rural sociology in 2001, identifying different ‘styles’ of farmer, their social construction and their participation in catchment management initiatives. Don established his own consulting firm in 2002 and has led a number of projects focusing on community engagement and capacity building for a range of federal and state government agencies, R&D corporations and catchment management authorities. He developed a ‘Capacity Assessment Tool’ for Land & Water Australia’s Riparian Lands Program in 2003. Don commenced a 2-year contract as National Waterwatch Facilitator in June 2006.
Email: don.thomson@mac.com