The purpose of the Murrumbidgee CMA Communications and Community Engagement Strategy is to:

* Effectively communicate the role of the Murrumbidgee Catchment Management Authority (CMA) and its role in sustainable natural resource management practices.

* Target community engagement activities to key partners in sustainable natural resource management.

Meeting State-wide Targets

Communication activities and community engagement endeavours are designed to achieve State and regional targets. 

The NSW State Plan includes the Community State-wide Targets 12 and 13 under Priority E4: Better outcomes for native vegetation, biodiversity, land, rivers, and coastal waterways of the Environment for Living Area of Activity (for more information, see the Natural Resources Commission and the NSW State Plan).

The Community State-wide Targets are: 

12.  Natural resource decisions contribute to improving or maintaining economic sustainability and social well-being.

13.  There is an increase in the capacity of natural resource managers to contribute to regionally relevant natural resource management.

Meeting Community Resource Condition Targets

In consultation with the community, the Murrumbidgee CMA has set regional targets to meet the state-wide targets.  These can be viewed in the in the Murrumbidgee Catchment Action Plan.  Applying directly to communication are the following Community Resource Condition Targets (CRCT):

CRCT1 By 2016 the effectiveness of the Murrumbidgee CMA’s engagement and collaboration with identified key stakeholders is increased.

CRCT2: By 2016 increase the engagement of Traditional Owners and Aboriginal people in natural resource management and increase the wider communities’ understanding of Indigenous values in natural resource management.

CRCT3: By 2016 Catchment Action Plan targets are integrated in the planning frameworks and operations of all levels of government and other key stakeholders.

CRCT4: By 2016 an improvement in community capacity to deliver natural resource management outcomes is achieved by increasing skills and knowledge in, and adoption of, natural resource management activities.

The relationship between these targets is shown in the Murrumbidgee Catchment Action Plan - Community Asset.

 For more information on how the Murrumbidgee CMA is working towards the State-wide Resource Condition and Community Resource Condition Targets, please refer to the Murrumbidgee Catchment Action Plan

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The Murrumbidgee CMA takes a logical approach to identifying relevant partners that would benefit from involvement in its activities. 

Targeting Partners
Project activities include on-ground works and training.  The Murrumbidgee CMA targets these partners at two levels:

1. A strategic, whole of catchment scale where partner groups or types are identified.
2. The individual project or activity scale where, for example, property owners in a particular part of the landscape are targeted.

At the strategic, whole of catchment scale a logical, targeted approach to identifying where the Murrumbidgee CMA can best expend its resources to implement natural resource management across the catchment is taken. 

This approach has led to the development of the table Partners in Natural Resource Management in the document below, a short list of key Murrumbidgee CMA partners, the CMA’s targeted key messages to them and the communication and community engagement activities the CMA is undertaking.

Some important potential partners of the Murrumbidgee CMA have no history of involvement with the Murrumbidgee CMA or natural resource management.  The Murrumbidgee CMA identifies who these potential partners are influenced by, who they trust or where they go for advice.  The Murrumbidgee CMA then undertakes communication actions with these ‘key influencers’ in order to engage the target partners.

CASE STUDY:

The Murrumbidgee CMA identified that endangered ‘Grassy White-Box Woodland’ areas at both Marrar and North Berry Jerry Cemeteries near Coolamon would benefit from being connected by way of a vegetation corridor along local roadsides. 

For this project to be a success, involvement of private land managers along these roadsides was important.  Some of the targeted woodlands were on council land and Coolamon Shire Council has a good relationship with local land managers. 

As a result, the CMA first approached the Shire Council regarding incentives for protecting and improving the woodlands on public land.  The CMA also worked with Council to involve land managers along the proposed corridor.  The CMA and the Council held a field day that attracted 10 local land managers.