Institutional barriers and opportunities: processes and arrangements for natural resource management in Australia

Abstract

While "institutional failure" is commonly cited as a core barrier to sustainable resource management, operational prescriptions or criteria for institutional design are rare. Institutions are crucial, and may be barriers or opportunities. This article offers some principles and design features for "adaptive" institutions, capable of balancing the core principles of persistence, purposefulness, information-richness, inclusiveness and flexibility. It then draws on emerging findings from recent Australian research to identify some major institutional barriers and opportunities for improving capacities in sustainable resource management.