Why set up the ARRC? Siwan’s Story
I have been working in river restoration as a knowledge broker and communicator for the past twelve years. It was not a career path I ever imagined having, as I did public adminstration and sociology at University, and then a Doctorate on the creation of the Rural Research and Development Corporations. I was then fortunate enough to get a job as a Program Coordinator with the Land & Water Resources Research and Development Corporation (which became Land & Water Australia). I worked on the National Riparian Lands Program for nine years,using my social science skills to make research relevant and meaningful for people all over Australia. I have come to love working in river restoration, I like the people, the subject matter, and the enjoyment of learning from researchers and practitioners about new ways of doing things to further our efforts to protect, value and maintain our ‘natural’ and ‘cultural’ assets. I have also been given opportunities to travel internationally and learn more about how best to motivate, inspire and support people working in river restoration.
However, one of the problems in Australia is that we are not great at valuing, sharing, managing and conserving the knowledge we gain through research and experience. River restoration is something that happens over long time frames, yet we are often given very short time frames to achieve, what I believe to be, often unrealistic objectives – at both community and biophysical levels. These short time frames means that it is hard to think about how to ensure the legacy of the work you are doing is not lost.
Our legacy is held in technical information, networks and people (including ourselves), and Phil Price and I set up the ARRC a few years ago because we could see that we were going to lose the legacy of the work we had done at Land & Water Australia – there simply wasn’t a long-term plan for maintaining and updating the wealth of information that was generated – nor was there any means for keeping the networks and relationships that were developed intact. Land & Water Australia was abolished before we could transfer all of this knowledge to the ARRC, and we are now putting many volunteer hours in to re-establish connections, and to develop new ways of accessing the research that was generated so that it can continue to be used and updated.
It is a hard road setting up a not-for-profit organisation that does not seem to tick any of the ‘right’ boxes for funding. I have found it amazing at how difficult it is to find funding agencies that invest in people and knowledge management as a priority. While people I talk to agree with the concept of valuing people, there is very little scope to support an organisation like the ARRC that works with this as its main goal. I am fortunate to have a band of supporters who belive in what we are doing and who are working hard to make the ARRC a success. I hope that reading this story might make you want to join us at the ARRC, we are working on our membership options at the moment, so please, keep in touch!
21 May 2010 5:06 pm
