The Final IEM Hurdle
Hurdlers - Source: The New York Times.
For the final hurdle of my learning on this IEM course, the hill country farm conversions to forestry group of five prepared a presentation to bestow upon the course leaders via an online Teams meeting. As expected, due my slow internet speed, when my turn to present came the Teams system failed and another group member needed cover for me. Slow internet is a barrier it seems to effective IEM processes. To overcome this issue when working as a group and meeting online, we did not use video, and instead used voice calls. This worked well, for a few reasons, firstly, the coms system didn't crash, secondly, more attention could be focused on the item being addressed rather than someone’s hair-do, thirdly, it felt more relaxed not having to present a certain way, or worry about what was going on in the background when meetings took place.
The final IEM course scenario (not so relaxed) was to present our analysis material and recommendations to the Natural Resources Cluster Ministers. This cluster is made up of the Minister for the Environment, the Minister for Conservation and (possibly two) Minister's for Primary Industries (MPI). These core environmental government institutes seek to manage natural resources, national parks, marine areas and the industries that function within New Zealand’s socioeconomic structure. The cluster's goal is to manage these areas in ways that support the environment, te ao Maori, and the economy that interconnect with social wellbeing in a sustainable manner. There are eight priorities for the Natural Resource Cluster Ministers over the next three years, and these are shown below.
Our groups IEM scenario topic intersected with all of the eight areas above in different ways, yet some more so than others. Communicating our work in this scenario was important and I found the Writing for Ministers and Cabinet guide produced by NZ Government quite useful. The guide suggests that when writing or presenting advice that story telling is effective. The guide suggests to start by identifying the primary question that the analysis will answer. The ‘CTQ’ (Context, Trigger, Question) method provides a clear framework when writing policy or delivering a presentation and recommendations.
1. Context – start by describing the topic
(e.g. a health outbreak is causing harm in the community).
2. Trigger – explain why you’re talking about the topic
(e.g. people are ill as a result of a lack of services to manage the
outbreak, and a review has recommended changes).
3. Question – the question answered by the document
(e.g. how can the government best enable the service to reach
more people? – to which the answer is an operational response and
increased funding (NZ Government, n.d. p.7).
Additionally, when ministers are faced with making a decision that you recommend, make sure to check ‘’that the analysis and options support the recommendations – and ultimately offer an answer to the question" (NZ Government, n.d.p.7). For my segment of the presentation, I developed two slides (see below). Keeping it simple stupid was the essence here and the slides are quite simple indeed. Having too much information on a slide can confuse the message and distract from the words being spoken. Also, as suggested within the Writing for Ministers and Cabinet guide, using sensual colours helps. For example, using cool colours are less attractive compared to warmer tones. The image below explains itself, yet the material for this slide took around two minutes to deliver.
The image below depicts the five spheres our scenario sought to address for the IEM task. The discourse on this slide also took around two minutes to explain. The IEM processes that take place between each sphere are complex and ever changing, therefore, it's critical to gain an in-depth understanding of important factors that could improve or worsen if addressed in certain ways.
As part of our group analysis for the scenario, I developed an environmental-sociocultural bottom lines assessment measure. The idea behind this is that incorporating socio-ecological limits assists to mitigate adverse impacts of land use change policies. Below - the criteria for hill country farm conversion to exotic forestry outlines limits regarding seven topics (shown vertically). The colour coding represents the degree of priority within each topic, green is low, yellow moderate and orange high. This table sought to demonstrate the need for national provisions on setting limits to the amount of hill country farmland that can be converted to forestry.
Environmental and sociocultural limits criteria. Source: Modified from Cawthron Institute, 2020
The criterion was an attempt to determine socioecological bottoms, however, the assignment task given for our newly formed group may have been too complex given that group members had no background in solving complex policy issues of small or large scale. Another factor is that group members did not seem to even want to work as a team (self interest) and had narrow focused views to solve complex problems. Yet another, some group members preferred to leave things until the last week (more like the last three days) before the assignment was due, which made the whole process ridiculously hectic, panicked and left no time to cross analyse the work and strengthen where needed. another barrier was the communications systems which for myself were limited by slow internet speed.
Information Communication Technology (ICT) systems used for communications such as blogging and website design are useful for engaging with an audience. The challenge for me on this final blog, has been to format the font and page alignment to make it neat and tidy. Sometimes websites and blog pages don't seem to operate as intended. The formatting process took along time, so this brings another component of IEM process into sight. Timeframes can be tight at times, and uncooperative blog pages can exacerbate this factor. Using ICT to network with IEM partners and team members is crucial to effective integrated management. Heeks, (2005) explains a way to think about effective information sharing and technological systems to enhance collaborative outcomes. Heeks describes the hard (technology) and soft (human) factors hybrid model for e-government and ICT. The hard and soft factors show up within the ITPOSMO framework. This framework acronym stands for ‘’Information, Technology, Processes, Objectives and values, Staffing and skills, Management systems and structures, Other resources: money and time’’ (Heeks, 2005, p.170). Another ‘O’ can be added to make ITPOSMOO, the extra O stands for ‘’Outside world: The political, economic, socio-cultural, technological and legal factors that impinge on the relevant e-government stakeholders’’(Heeks. 2005, p.17). In the following YouTube discussion, Nate Hagens chats with Marty Kearns about 'Building Networks' to collaboratively manage social and environmental issues.
To finish off this blog, I’d like to share my latest findings (found yesterday). Two useful IEM resources (see below) that might just help others that are in need of theories, models, examples and ways forward. Thanks for taking time to read through these blogs and I wish you all the best with your IEM endeavors.
The End
An Integrated Approach to Environmental Management. By Dibyendu Sarkar , Rupali Datta, Avinandan Mukherjee, Robyn Hannigan. ISBN: 978-1-118-74435-2 November 2015, 624 Pages.https://www.wiley.com/enus/An+Integrated+Approach+to+Environmental+Management-p-9781118744352
Integrated Environmental Management. A Transdisciplinary Approach. By Sven Erik Jørgensen, Joao Carlos Marques, Søren Nors Nielsen. Copyright Year 2016.https://www.routledge.com/Integrated-Environmental-Management-A-Transdisciplinary-Approach/Jorgensen-Marques-Nielsen/p/book/9780367871680
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