KEYNOTE ADDRESS
SOME CONSIDERATIONS FOR SYSTEMATIC RESOURCE MANAGEMENT OF CAVES AND KARST
Caves and related environments are a particular challenge in natural resource management because of some quite specialised characteristics. They are vulnerable to disturbance, and yet our understanding of the complexity of functional relationships within them is very limited. The subtlety of many karst processes has acute management implications far beyond the locality of individual cave sites. In addition, usage of cave and karst environments for various purposes such as recreation involves some difficult trade-offs with other values. The central problem is one of identifying, implementing and controlling the most appropriate balance of resource uses, manipulation and preservation.
Accommodating the special resource management requirements of karst into natural resource management systems is subject to some very real constraints. This paper explores some of the issues involved in making a realistic commitment of management resources to the particular problems of karst environments, within the context of natural resource management generally. It is essential that we avoid preoccupation with immediate short-term realities and maintain a perspective on long-term objectives.
Perception of management requirements
Karst is undeniably a relatively scarce resource in Australia (Jennings, 1975). It is a specialised resource, offering many exciting opportunities for recreation and tourism, conservation, and scientific research. The continued provision of those opportunities is jeopardised by physical destruction of cave and karst environments by incompatible land uses, and an explicit and rational procedure for reconciling conflict between alternative uses of the same resources is essential. Beyond that, we need similarly systematic procedures for resolving the contradictions inherent in simultaneous use of cave and karst environments for conservation and also for tourism and recreation, or for research and so on.
Managers must recognise that there is a conflict between long-term conservation of an essentially non-renewable resource and recreation or other uses based upon it. I refer to gradual deterioration and modification of caves as ultimately a far more serious and insidious problem than vandalism. It is a serious problem not only in our tourist caves and heavily visited caves, but in remote caves visited only by relatively responsible speleologists on an infrequent basis (e.g. Stitt, 1977). What matters is that we admit that this is happening, and recognise that it is one of the most serious problems in cave and karst management. Our decisions taken in recognition of short-term realities must nevertheless make explicit provision for reconciling this situation with responsible long-term resource management.
Part of the problem is that we often know so little of the precise nature and extent of disturbance of cave systems by any particular action. Research is not necessarily the answer, unless very carefully designed and controlled, for we are about as ignorant of the implications of research perturbations as of others. We must be careful that scientists are just as responsive to the need to protect other values of karst systems as should be recreationists.
We should be very wary of the justification for further exploration of caves. There are many good reasons for a deliberate postponement of further exploration until we are capable of managing our existing stock on a more systematic long-term basis. Perhaps we also have a responsibility to conserve for future generations the experiential potential of cave exploration and discovery.
Karst is essentially an ecological concept. There needs to be a greater concentration on the system nature of cave areas than on individual cave sites. This has significant implications for the kind of information we should be collecting to base management decisions upon. Just as the functional system is the key unit for management purposes, so habitat should be a more important consideration than protection of the individuals of any particular species. The legislation which permits and promotes natural resource management is frequently inadequate in this regard.
Faced with the inescapably incremental nature of planning and management - one's options are limited by the legacy of historic decisions and inadequacies - perhaps there should be far greater emphasis on a carefully structured planning component to the entire management process. Reactive management may be the reality most of us face, but the greater the commitment now to prescriptive management as an ultimate necessity, the more likely it can be achieved.
Even within a fairly narrow range of uses accommodated in management of karst areas, there is in fact a very wide spectrum of specific activities and impacts. Explicit planning procedures are necessary to provide a basis for protecting the many different values of the resource and the expectations of particular users. In common with most other natural areas, karst management needs to be resource-based, with an emphasis on provision of opportunities rather than a detailed prescription of acceptable and unacceptable uses. The more positive management is, the better - by rational provision of no more than those facilities appropriate to any particular component of the system and active management rather than reliance on statutory constraints and controls.
Responsibility for resource management
The ownership of karst resources is a key issue. This goes far beyond land tenure, for we need to know who is in control of which resources, and how that control is disposed. There is a great need in Australia for a reconciliation of the existing legislation relating to land resource management with that relating to minerals, water and other particular commodities. This kind of issue - ownership of space and materials, as well as land - is probably as acute for caves as for any other kind of natural feature.
Legislative protection of natural environments is not sufficient. There is too frequently a substantial gap between power and performance. The responsibility does need to be clearly stated, but the system for implementing it is just as important.
I am making the assumption here that there is general acceptance that responsibility for resource management of cave environments lies with the public sector. There is now a substantial body of economic analysis which demonstrates fairly clearly the difficulties, inefficiencies and imperfections of attempting to use private sector mechanisms for the provision of environmental services. I don't propose to discuss this interesting field further, except to say that public sector managers still have a responsibility to utilise all available tools of economic analysis as an input to their decision-making processes about optimal resource use. Even if the values associated with intangible aspects of resources are very difficult or impossible to make explicit, there is no justification for abandoning economic analysis altogether.
Management of cave and karst resources is only one component of natural resource management. The relationship between management of karst resources and other components of the natural estate needs to be made quite explicit. Too often the managing agency fails to adequately explain the implications of the statutory functions given it, or to explain the responsibilities, capacities and limitations which flow from this legislative basis for existence. Perhaps there should be much more emphasis on stressing the system nature of public resource management. Whilst acknowledging the special significance of karst resources, there still needs to be recognition of the limitations which are due to other legislative functions and the management requirements of other environments. Most management agencies fail to get these realities across to the community.
The ultimate status of karst resources
We should acknowledge the incremental nature of planning and management. We should also acknowledge that we cannot make a precise prescription of conditions in the future. There is a legitimate need for flexibility. At the same time, there is a need to safeguard the durability of expectations relating to the status of valuable resources - a need for security of tenure.
We need both permanency and flexibility in our land utilisation decisions. In reality, there can be no initiative more durable than an Act of Parliament, so the only rational means in a democracy of reconciling the conflicting objectives of permanency and flexibility is realistic public involvement in decision-making.
Our ultimate aim should be the commitment of our karst resources to a socially optimal combination of uses by rational procedures. In the Australian context, the implications are that:
the resources should be reserved by Act of Parliament, or equivalent, with explicit public procedures for dedication, amendment or revocation; and that they should be actively managed by a responsible public agency in accordance with clearly stated statutory powers, and in accordance with a regularly revised management plan which is the result of explicit public planning procedures.
This objective is implicit in many of our resource management programmes, but is not often actually stated. Resource managers have a responsibility to work towards a wider understanding of it, as well as of the relationship between legislation protection, land tenure, and management operations.
Decision-making
It seems to me that there should be a greater commitment by management agencies to public involvement in decision-making processes, just as there is a strong case for the maximum possible degree of decentralisation within the agency. At the same time, there should probably be a very careful analysis of the extent to which public involvement is actually useful. There is no question that public involvement brings with it all kinds of difficulties - it takes time, costs money, and requires a substantial professional input in design execution and analysis. The result, however, may be a better plan. That will always justify the cost. But even if a carefully structured programme of public involvement brings as much frustration as satisfaction, it may still be a very valuable exercise. Simply demonstrating that consensus on a complex resource management issue is difficult or impossible is in itself an achievement.
There are many trade-offs in resource management between values which are very difficult to make explicit. The public has a right to express its opinions on the accuracy, or otherwise, of the value judgements made on their behalf. The difficulty of accommodating implicit value judgements visibly into decision-making procedures is just another challenge of resource management, not an excuse to exclude the people from the process.
Compromise is ultimately inescapable, and perhaps more of our resources should go into explaining this reality to the various interest groups in the community. The greater the skill at the art of compromise exhibited by all parties to a resource allocation decision, the more optimal the outcome. It is in a manager's interest to help the public appreciate this.
Well before the final stage of choice between alternatives, managers could well commit use of their resources to utilising expertise and opinion available in the community. Too often there is a reluctance on the part of managers to communicate with interest groups for ideas and criticism, as well as for data and information. For specialised resources like karst, the expertise of individuals outside the management agency can be a very significant contribution indeed (major recent examples include Davey (1978), Davey and others (1978), Hamilton-Smith and others (1974) and Wilson (1977), but there are numerous other local examples as well).
There are at least two particular aspects of this consultative process which need discussion. The first is the reality that not all individuals or groups have the capacity to respond in a way which is useful to the manager. The professionalism with which a manager can most readily communicate is not always present in the individual or group which has information or ideas essential to better resource management. Managers should understand this, and make allowance for it. On those occasions when this kind of consultative process is not productive, it is my belief that the problem still lies mainly with the manager. It is a problem of failure to structure the consultative process such that persons unaccustomed to bureaucratic procedures are able to communicate effectively. Despite these difficulties, managers should concede that individuals and groups in the community usually have ideas, opinions and criticisms which are essential to making decisions about natural resource use. It is the responsibility of the manager to include such consultations as an important component in the decision-making process.
The second issue is a quite different aspect. To what extent should a manager exploit the time and expertise of individuals in the community without committing some resources to a recognition of the contribution being made? I would suggest that management agencies have a moral obligation to make a realistic contribution towards services which significantly contribute to carrying out their functions. I recognise that there are all sorts of other difficulties involved, but suggest that as a matter of principle we should take this issue seriously.
Defining Objectives
An often-overlooked step in the resource management operation is a realistic assessment of what is desirable with respect to what is possible.
In addition to a basic legislative definition of objectives, I think that it is essential to define explicit management objectives for each individual karst management unit. Such objectives need to be expressed within the context of other related functions of the management agency, and should provide a clearly stated rationale for resolving the contradictions so often inherent in the legislative charter of the manager.
A first step in this process is to look very carefully at the reasons for regarding particular features of systems as significant. A systematic approach to the various quite different criteria which might be used in the evaluation and classification of natural environments is very important. Under a grant from the Australian Heritage Commission, the Australian Speleological Federation has recently completed a study relating to this very question, among others. The study report (ASF, in press) will be a very useful starting point in defining evaluation criteria and management objectives for karst resources in Australia or any other kind of natural features, for that matter. I have summarised, in somewhat modified form, some of the conclusions of the study relating to criteria of significance in Table 1. The important thing to appreciate is that this sort of approach provides a visible framework for a systematic definition of management objectives, rather than a rigid prescription of the situation at any place. Any strategy for exposing the underlying assumptions and objectives of resource management is going to be useful for better management.
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TABLE 1 Specific environments or places might be regarded as significant for resource management of karst areas on the basis of one or more of the following criteria:
(Modified from: Australian Speleological Federation, in press, Report of the National Heritage Assessment study, Helictite, 15(2)) |
With this sort of approach, exposing as it does the various quite different purposes for managing specific natural resources, it is much easier to identify the potential for conflict between different objectives. Having done this, I feel that it is rather important to provide a clearly stated rationale for resolving the contradictions which are inherent in any attempt to meet several even slightly conflicting objectives from the same resources. What we need to do is ask ourselves why we are managing with particular emphasis; is the emphasis justified by the resource base, and the mix of functions we expect to meet from those resources?
I need not spend much time on the need for a careful assessment of the constraints on management. These are all too often the most visible component of the management operation anyway. Objective analysis of them is crucial to a proper definition of actual conditions. However, a systematic attempt at stating one's objectives clearly is one of the best ways of putting the constraints and day-to-day realities into perspective. Their nature will have a strong influence on the precise formulation of short-term objectives and strategy, but without long-term objectives which look beyond immediate practicalities we might just as well not have resource management at all.
Perhaps another aspect which we gloss over a little too often is an understanding of the reasons for utilisation itself. How do we justify utilisation of resources when we have such scant knowledge of the long term effects? We should be constantly reminding ourselves of the anthropocentric assumptions which underlie our entire outlook on pragmatic resource management.
Management Implementation
It is worth taking a critical look at the process of reconciling objectives with actual conditions - at the relationship of planning with implementation. I will confine myself to brief consideration of just a few of the issues.
There is often a gap between protection and implementation. By what means do we assess its dimensions? I suggest that we need to develop a much more careful approach to monitoring the condition of the environment. Very few of our resources currently go into systematic documentation of conditions so that we will be in a position to make a realistic comparison in the future, particularly in a sensitive environment like karst, baseline monitoring should be a higher priority.
It seems to me that there is a tendency to opt for physical modification of the resource as a protective strategy. Thus we end up with gates, signs, marked paths and so on. May I suggest that this is really no substitute for a positive involvement by management personnel in supervising use activities. Perhaps there should be much more real interaction between managers and users than we have been accustomed to in the past. Physical controls should, if possible, be the last line of defence, not the first component in a programme for the education of users. Recreationists are already doing their best to tighten up the ethical basis of their activities - to agree on an even more careful basis for resource use (for example, the ASF has recently revised its Code of Ethics with respect to activities in caves) - but managers should probably establish a much better dialogue with users (all kinds of users) than they have to date.
The manipulation of cave and karst environments by developments of any kind (or, for that matter, by scientific research) should be subject to the most stringent assessment and supervision. However, it is essential that the initiatives of the manager be subject to the same procedures. Management developments can sometimes be a more serious problem than the conflicts they may have been intended to overcome.
There are numerous other issues which deserve more serious discussion than time permits here. To my mind, education and interpretation programmes are among the most important. So is the need to better explain the legislative, political and administrative realities of the actual management operation to users and the public generally. Another is the task of data management - compilation and analysis of information relating to resources and uses in a way that allows proper feedback of research into day-to-day operations and strategy planning .
REFERENCES
AUSTRALIAN SPELEOLOGICAL FEDERATION (in press) Report of the National Heritage Assessment Study. Helictite, 15(2).
DAVEY, Adrian, ed. (1978) Resource Management of the Nullarbor Region, W.A. Report to the Environment Protection Authority Perth; Aust. Speleol. Fedn, Sydney; 115pp., illus.
DAVEY, Adrian, HAMILTON-SMITH, Elery, PIERCE, Miles and WILLIAMSON, Kerry (1978) Yallingup Cave Park - a management plan. Report to the Department of Conservation and Environment, Perth; Aust. Speleol. Fedn, Sydney; l20pp., illus.
HAMILTON-SMITH, Elery, CHAMPION, C. Randell, and ROBINSON, Lloyd N. (1974) Cave Reserves of the Katherine Area, Report to the Northern Territory Reserves Board; Aust. Speleol. Fedn, Sydney; 68pp. illus.
JENNINGS, J.N. (1975) How well off is Australia for caves and karst? A brief geomorphic estimate. Proc. 10th Biennial Conf. Aust. Speleol. Fedn, 1974: 82-90.
STITT, Robert R. (1977) Human impact on caves, Nat. Cave Management Symp. (U.S.) Proc. 1976: 36-43
WILSON, Paul (1977) Managing the limestone caves at Chillagoe and Mungana, Report to the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Qld; 65pp, illus.