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Tussock Grassland Management Information System (ver. 2000)
|| About this initiative || the research approach (including ISKM) || Activities || The MIS Development Team ||

About this initiative

The Tussock Grassland Management Information System is intended to serve as

  • a 'one-stop-information shop' for land managers, policy makers, and other interest groups and,
  • as a framework that can be used by scientists, land managers and policy-makers to refine existing or add new knowledge to the system as it becomes available through ongoing research (by scientists) and montoring programmes (by land managers)

IMPORTANT

THIS IS AN EVOLVING MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM Your ideas, comments, and knowledge are required to help making this information system useful for all those involved in the management of tussock grasslands in New Zealand - Please take part in this by providing feedback on this site and its contents.

For example, if you disagree (or agree) with a management guideline, or you would like to add to the supporting ecological information on a particular page, click on the "provide feedback on this page" link. Type your message on the form provided and send. Your message will automatically go to the information manager of the particular issue you are dealing with.

The research approach (including ISKM)

In the following diagram the two main cycles operating in the resource management arena are indicated as:

  • the "research cycle" (researchers define questions, develop hypotheses, test them, publish the results,define new questions, etc.
  • the "management cycle" (land managers or policy makers implement a strategy, monitor the outcomes, adapt the strategy if required, monitor again, etc.)

In the tradional transfer of technology (ToT) paradigm research decisions are made by scientists, and technology is developed through the research cycle. Extension agents are then expected to disseminate the findings to land managers. However, this approach does not seem to work very effectively in all cases. For example, learning is only experienced by the researchers and the results of their learning are published in the scientific literature rather than in a format that can be easily understood and applied by extension and land managers. As the researchers also only learn from their own work or other researchers, they learn little or none of the experience of the land managers. Land managers are expected to apply research results in managing their land, without the benefit of the learning process and experience of the scientists.

The only way to overcome these problems, is to more closely link science with management. The following figure illustrates how the development of improved information management and collaborative learning is helping researchers and end-users of research to work more closely together in our quest for more sustainable land-use in the tussock grasslands of New Zealand.

This approach is based on the Integrated Systems for Knowledge Management .

What we've done so far

Questionnaires, and individual discussions were the main elements of the first steps of the approach, i.e. to identify management goals, to collate existing ecological and management information, and to "make sense" of this information in order to develop guidelines/principles by which these goals can be acieved. To date, various workshops with farmers in Central Otago, conservation staff at Dunedin and Christchurch, representatives from Otgao and Canterbury Regional Councils, and agents of the Commissioner of Crown Lands were held to identify and prioritise the management goals, and to discuss the management options for conservation and production from these grasslands. For those who might be interested in the nature of the agendas and outcomes of some of these workshop, click on any of the following buttons

Questionnaires were sent out to selected farmers, conservation managers and researchers, to unlock the personal knowledge on the management of tussock grasslands of as many people as possible. In adition, about 30 farmers from all over the South Island high country were also interviewed on their properties. This was followed with a literature review of scientific publications and unpublished reports.

The information from the workshops, questionaires, interviews, and literature review was structured into a Management Information System framework - the first version being this one you are about to work with. The information and manegement guidelines in this version can only be regarded as the "best knowledge" of researchers, farmers, conservation managers, etc. at this point in time. An information source of this kind can never be complete, because our knowledge on how to best manage the land is continuously improving - not only through ongoing research (by scientists), but also through implementation (by land managers) of the best knowledge available and then an evaluation of the outcomes of these actions. The MIS is therefore designed as an evolving system, which can continuously be updated with new knowledge as it becomes available over time.

. Given that the dissemination of knowledge, and the continual refinement/updating with new knowledge are particularly difficult exercises when dealing with a decentralised grouping of agencies. land managers, and other individuals within the natural resource management arena, it was decided to design the MIS for hosting on the INTERNET. The INTERNET is emerging a valuable tool in information management, which allows people to create, annotate, link together, and share information from a variety of sources and media, including text, graphics, images, audio, and video. INTERNET technology will inevitably play a role in future information systems - not least because it offers a unifying platform on which the collection of information for both internal and external use can be provided. The potential of the INTERNET to promote collaborative learning and problem solving has been pointed out by many researchers all over the world (e.g. Turoff et al 1991; Carrascal et al 1995; Allen et al 1998).

This MIS is currently interlinked with other modules on the web that are relevant to tussock grassland management (e.g. weed control (Hieracium Management), pest control (Tb vector control), and monitoring tools (condition assessment models for the Tussock Grasslands).

PLEASE NOTE: if you are working with a stand-alone version of the MIS on your PC (that is, you are not linked to the Internet), please feel free to send any comments you may have per fax to Will Allen, Landcare Research, Lincoln. Fax number: 03 325 2418


Tussock Grasslands MIS Development Team

MIS Funders and collaborators

The first version of the evolving MIS is the result of a collaborative effort funded by a variety of organisations:

  • Conservation management issues - Department of Conservation (1995 - present), Ministry for the Environment 1996-1997), Office of Crown Lands (1996-1998), FRST (1998 - present)
  • Hieracium Management: MAF Policy (1994 - 1995), FRST (1996)
  • Production issues : MAF Policy (1993 - 1995); - integrated with conservation, FRST (1998 - present)

However, the development of this first version MIS would not have been possible without the contributions of ecologists, conservation managers, policy-makers and farmers. Contribution was through involvement in various workshops, responding to questionnaires, provision of unpublished and published scientific material, and photographs.

Past work on the site

  • Programme leader (98 - 00): Dr. Ockie Bosch

  • Revised MIS structure and design (ver. 2000) Will Allen

  • Literature review, MIS structure, and compilation: (Ver. 1998/9) Kate Wardle

  • MIS design (Ver. 1998/9) Robert Gibson & Kate Wardle

  • Workshop design and facilitation Will Allen and Kate Wardle

Other credits

  • Photography: Peter Johnson kindly provided the photos denoted by "P.N.J." in the MIS. The remainder were provided by Kate Wardle.

  • Other material: Permission was given by Peter Wardle to draw heavily on his "Vegetation of New Zealand" book (1991), which was used to provide botanical information on tussock grassland communities.

  • Many other people, too many to thank individually, contributed to the formulation of this first version MIS through their scientific study. Consult the bibliography for a comprehensive list of these researchers.
 

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