Organisational innovation : some emerging environmental governance models in South Africa
Date
2007
Authors
Muller, Kobus
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Unisa Press
Abstract
In South Africa, like elsewhere in the world, the complexities of natural re-
source management and the postmodern reality of a fragmented institutional landscape complicate efforts to develop effective institutions for environmental governance. The transformation of South African society in general and, specifically, the transformation of processes and the institutional landscape following the transition to democracy opened a window
of opportunity and a willingness on the part of the various role players to
experiment with novel and innovative organisational forms and arrangements. In line with the 1992 Rio Earth Summit thinking, the idea that a decentralised set of networks and partnerships holds the most promising institutional prospect for the future qualified with the argument that the
transformation imperatives might sometimes necessitate central guidance is generally accepted as a point of departure.
The emergence of regional and community-based natural resource management is new in the South African context. Working for Water (WfW),
one of the government's flagship programmes, was the first to be initiated
in 1995. The establishment of the first biosphere reserve dates back to
1998, while the first of the water catchment management agencies was
created seven years after it was legislatively mandated in 1998. Some other
initiatives, such as Cape Action for People and the Environment (CAPE)
and Working on Fire Programme were initiated in 2000 and 2003 respectively. Because these structures are still evolving, they offer a unique opportunity to study and compare the evolution of these systems for the
purposes of both organisational and social learning. Although it is perhaps
too early to draw definitive conclusions on the success of these models,
some pointers to guide future research may be derived from the initial observations of the emerging features of the selected models and processes.
Description
The original version is available from http://www.unisa.ac.za/Default.asp?Cmd=ViewContent&ContentID=941
Keywords
Organizational innovation, Environmental governance, Natural resource management, Community-based conservation
Citation
Muller, Kobus. 2007. Organisational innovation: Some emerging environmental governance models in South Africa. Politeia, 26(1), 45-59.