Modern government depends on citizens as well as rulers
Modern governments have many responsibilities. These responsibilities include administration of security, employment, energy, health, housing, transport and education. The responsibilities interact with the natural environment, because citizens also require many services from natural systems: citizens need food security, clean air and water, stability of land and minimal floods, wild-fires, pests and diseases. Moreover, even if few people work on the land, many seek mental diversion and physical recreation there. This creates another set of interests.
Skilful governance is needed to balance the different interests of the citizens. Regulations, taxes and subsidies affect processes but do not always give desirable results. Governments have funded much research on natural systems, but this has not given a holistic view of how to administer both citizens and environment.
The organisations in Naturalliance are based in research on ecology and governance. Much expertise has been gained, for example to show that conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity succeed best where there is most knowledge-leadership and adaptive management. We now want to build a system that can bring all the knowledge together, in order to give guidance on adaptive management at local level and adaptive governance by administrations.
BEST PRACTICE. Charters from the Bern Convention provide extensive advice on governance to conserve wild resources through hunting and through recreational fishing, with a third in preparation for gathering products of nature. These documents were drafted by members of organisations in Naturalliance.
DECISION SUPPORT. Support to policy at regional, national and international level can come from a variety of sources. Support from Naturalliance will involve tools for working with the GIS coverage of local data. Please contact one of the organisations in Naturalliance if you would like to help develop and trial such tools for policy support.