Dale A, Turnour J, Burns S, Bock E, and McHugh J (2024). Strengthening regional planning and development assessment in the Douglas Daly Region of the Northern Territory: Analysis Report. A joint report for the Cooperative Research Centre for Northern Australia (CRCNA), Townsville and Reef and Rainforest Research Centre (RRRC), Cairns.
Overview
Our nation’s current northern Australian development policy settings actively encourage the ecologically sustainable development (ESD) of the north. The highly contested nature of northern development, however, together with operational challenges facing the north’s regional planning and development assessment system, currently hinder economic development in rural, remote and Aboriginal communities. At the same time, these factors contribute to a failure to secure internationally significant biological and cultural values within the landscape.
These problems are deeply evident in the Douglas Daly catchment in the Top End of the Northern Territory (NT). Here, conservation, cultural and development tensions suggest that a more regionalised, cooperative, engaged and evidence-based approach is needed to support planning, development assessment and nature positive investment decisions.
The Douglas Daly region has been considered particularly worthy of new and innovative approaches to regional planning and development assessment improvements because:
- there is currently substantial allocated water available that is under-utilised, as well as potential for additional surface water allocations;
- there is substantial cleared land available for more value-rich development (some 32,000 ha), including a potential shift from plantation forestry to higher value crops (potentially up to an additional 10,000 ha);
- the region has outstanding terrestrial, aquatic biodiversity and cultural values; and
- the region presents significant opportunities for Aboriginal-led development of water and land resources.
This Analysis Report explores opportunities for improving the prevailing system of regional planning and development assessment across the NT, and more particularly within the Douglas Daly catchment. Findings from this work will lead to a series of recommended next steps focused on the design of potential solutions for strengthening the current governance system (the Solutions Report). This report has been developed closely with the NT Department of Industry, Tourism and Trade (DITT), the Commonwealth Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), the National Environmental Sciences Program (NESP) Marine and Coastal Hub and the Collaborative Research Centre for Developing Northern Australia (CRCNA).
Our analysis of the current regional planning and development assessment system of the Douglas Daly involves a preliminary governance systems analysis of the key decision-making activities that influence catchment-based outcomes important to sustainable development within the catchment and community. This is based on a literature analysis of ten important governance system sub-domains. The work is further supported by the consideration of detailed interviews with eight important government stakeholders and less formalised, preliminary dialogue with other critical stakeholders with strong interests in the catchment. From this governance systems analysis, several key pre-conditions of success for new approaches to integrated planning and development assessment within the Douglas Daly catchment have been identified to underpin the design of new approaches.
