It's almost the end of another year, and timely to look both backwards and forwards as we spiral into that odd time of fake snow, Santa and watermelon at the beach. Given the current global situation - with the threat of war, increasing terrorism and the impacts of global warming, we are reminded of the future challenges of communication.  This month we ask a few of our fellow communicators for their thoughts on these challenges in communicating about sustainability.

Wishing you a safe and rewarding time over the coming season,

The team at Econnect Communication

(Lin Martin, Jenni Metcalfe about to go an assignment to South Africa, Louise Ralph, Michelle Riedlinger on assignment in South Africa)

 

THIS EDITION (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER, 2002):

Thoughts on future challenges of communicating sustainability

 

1.      A HEART SHIFT NEEDED

2.      AGENTS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE

3.      COMMUNICATION NEEDS A SOLID FOUNDATION

4.      COMMUNITY FUTURES

5.      SHARED UNDERSTANDING, KNOWLEDGE AND RECONCILIATION OF VALUES

6.      THE NEED FOR NRM TO BECOME MAINSTREAM

7.      BOOK REVIEW

8.      SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER

9.      CONTACT US

 

A HEART SHIFT NEEDED

By John Fien, Environmental Education, Griffith University

We need much more in communication these days than to just determine what messages we want to deliver. We have to move from the head to the heart in communication. Many aspects of our social life are not at all conducive to good communication. We may even cover over what we hear because it is not socially acceptable to consider our individual or collective environmental responsibilities. What makes people listen? What are their mental and social states? What is it deep in their hearts and souls that they want to find out?

I don't really have any answers but I know environmental communication has to be more engaged, much more participatory to be effective. That I see is the challenge - to know more about the internal communication that goes on inside people. Because how can we have equitable relationships with people if we don't know who they are?

AGENTS FOR CULTURAL CHANGE

By Liana Christensen, Murdoch University lecturer and freelance communicator

Good communicators are agents of cultural change, rather than producers of rhetoric. We need to develop, modify and sustain effective systems to interrogate our own practices and adapt communication strategies accordingly.

International forces, specifically the threats of war and terrorism, will continue to escalate both the production of rhetoric, and real shifts in political and budgetary priorities. Communicators committed to natural resource issues will need to be both selective and persistent about the agendas they are advocating.

The major issues offering the most possibility of real change towards sustainability, within an international context, include air quality, energy, oceans (climate) and water.

 Meeting client needs nationally and internationally will require an increasingly sophisticated use of delivery of service via the web, and the development of a 'third wave' of web etiquette.

 

COMMUNICATION NEEDS A SOLID FOUNDATION

A personal opinion from Lawrie Kirk, Communication Manager, Murray-Darling Basin Commission

 

With the onset of "improved communication" from the Internet we are in danger that communication is now only seen as printed material in hard copy of pdf: "if it is on the web it is fine".  This is the dangerous electronic slipstream that we can fall into, forgetting the real strategic purpose of the communication work we want to do. 

 

Too much communication is being undertaken without a solid foundation; a foundation based on the analysis of the desired relationship you want to have with a communication partner (not stakeholder!), the agreed key messages about your communication effort and what will successful communication look like when you are finished.  This does not mean we spend forever developing strategy; it can be a simple two hour investment by a board or management committee.  Unless this solid foundation is prepared, much time and energy will be lost when things go wrong from inconsistent messages and poorly defined, ad-hoc, reactive activities.

 

The challenge is to treat communication as a profession and also to ensure there is a solid foundation created prior to any action.  Break out of the fact sheet and field day paradigm! Treat communication planning as the first step in effective strategic planning and team building.

 

COMMUNITY FUTURES

By Tony Stevenson, communicator specialising in futures

 

The way we communicate may determine the kind of community we live in tomorrow. How do we understand each other - make meaning together - white and black, oldtimer and newcomer? Living long and happy lives together, in a supportive and cohesive community, demands that we learn to negotiate understanding among people with different backgrounds, beliefs and skills.

 

It is fashionable to accept that computerised networks make communities smart. Such technologies simply provide very helpful (and smart) pipelines for exchanging information among people, inside and outside a community. Information alone does not guarantee communication. Surely our community's future relies on how well and imaginatively we can craft and hold meaningful, workable relationships among a variety of people, with different capacities, whether over the Internet or not.

 

Do we want a return to the exclusive white-picket-fence community? Or a proliferation of gated compounds? Do we want to drop out into a feral community? Or nurture a truly viable community, respectful of nature, traditional wisdoms and a rich variety of people, networked locally and globally, learning from each other? (Tony is currently researching and writing about Communities of Tomorrow).

 

SHARED UNDERSTANDING, KNOWLEDGE AND A RECONCILIATION OF VALUES

By Professor Gary Jones, CEO, CRC Freshwater Ecology

 

I see three main challenges in communicating about environmental, economic and social sustainability:

1. A lack of shared understanding in what it means or what we are trying to achieve. In many, perhaps most, Murray-Darling Basin rivers we are on a downward spiral - and because of the timeframes involved, adjustments are needed now to even maintain the current status.

2. Lack of quantitative knowledge on adjustments needed and resulting gains. There is a common view that if we just do a bit of tinkering we can achieve sustainability. But the magnitude of the tradeoffs required (particularly in the Murray Darling Basin) may be very significant. We urgently need the quantitative knowledge to support sustainability investment decisions.

3. Differing views on the values of systems. Even though we all aspire to healthy economies, healthy environment and healthy lives, I sometimes feel that trying to put dollar figures on environmental values may not be what the broad community needs - even though it may work for the economic rationalists. Because people have many different views on how they individually value systems, the challenge is how we reconcile those very personal and even spiritual values to direct sustainable management.

THE NEED FOR NRM TO BECOME MAINSTREAM

By Jenni Metcalfe

 

When I read the weekend newspapers, it occurred to me that natural resource management issues need to become part of our mainstream thinking in Australia, and that such issues can't ignore the social, political and economic forces at work.

 

Every week we work with natural resource management and research agencies across the country, and they all seem to be doing good things. The big challenge that many are trying to tackle is to integrate their work across scientific disciplines, across agencies and across state boundaries - no mean feat! Some are also trying to integrate the biophysical with the social and the economic. But it seems to me that this later attempt is done largely from the perspective of the environment/natural resource issues that are being confronted rather than starting from the social and environmental forces being generated.

 

The big challenge for those communicating about such issues is step back from the pressing biophysical issues and look first at what forces are currently driving our society and how natural resource management fits and can influence this context. This could mean looking at today's big issues of immigration and terrorism and thinking about how natural resource management is influenced within and can influence these political and social contexts.

 

MINI-REVIEW OF 'WORDS FOR COUNTRY - LANDSCAPE AND LANGUAGE IN AUSTRALIA'

By Lin Martin

 

This series of environmental essays may not be the escapist fare you might traditionally like to dip into over the holidays. But if you want something a little more thought provoking over the silly season, these fifteen multi-layered essays examine different ways of looking, speaking and writing about landscape. Some are lyrical, others more scholarly works but all are linked by a common thread of challenging assumptions about how present and past Australians viewed the land they live on or near. I particularly found some of the ideas about the power of language and meaning new to me and what that might mean in evoking a sense of place and corresponding custodial ethics/actions.

 

The editors of this book are Tim Bonyhardy & Tom Griffiths, and it is printed by UNSW Press.

 

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CONTACT US

Econnect is committed to planning and delivering innovative and effective communication in the natural resource and environmental fields to ensure a sustainable future. We work with clients and their partners in an open, respectful and cooperative manner, fulfilling our commitment to conservation and social justice.

Contact us: phone +61 7 3846 7111; email admin@econnect.com.au;

Website: http://www.econnect.com.au.

 

C Econnect Communication Pty Ltd, 2002

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