Integrated Assessment of Stakeholder Interests and Trade-offs in use of Wetland Functions: A Case Study of the Daly, Mary and Kunbarllanjnja Wetlands

O. Ypma
Wageningen University, May 2005
The wetlands in northern Australia provide people with numerous benefits, such as food and water, which support people’s quality of life. This is especially the case with wetlands in the Daly and Mary River catchments and Kunbarllanjnja. These areas differ in the scale of agricultural development and are being used by different people who want to profit from the provided benefits. This leads to different interests in wetlands. The different interests occasionally lead to competition between persons or groups over wetland functions such as water supply. To facilitate an equal distribution in using wetland functions among the persons or groups, the competing interests have to be balanced (trade-offs) in order to develop sustainable management of the wetland functions and efficient policy to protect the wetlands from quantity and quality degradation.

An integrated analysis has been conducted in this thesis with the main objective to identify the main interests of individual stakeholder and stakeholder groups along with actual and potential trade-offs regarding the use of the wetlands in Daly and Mary River catchments and Kunbarllanjnja in Northern Australia.