Exploring the Role of Networks on Strategic Decisions Making of Pastoralist in Central Australia

1. Exploring the Role of Networks on Strategic Decisions Making of Pastoralist in Central Australia • Agsitment – Report • Adoption - Proposal • Collaborators: • Nick Abel, Art Langston • Ryan McAllister, Ian Gordon • Yiheyis Maru, Paul Box • 2. Yiheyis Maru, Paul Box, • Pip Pattison and Pascal Perez

2. Role of Networks on … • Purpose • Influence of social networks on strategic decisions of pastoralists • Agistment of cattle • Adoption of innovation

3. 1. Role of networks on Agistment … • Approach • Empirical data collection • Social network analysis & multi-agent based modelling • Data Collection • 84 pastoral stations; 68 pastoralists • Interviewed 19 pastoralists • Discussed with five key informants • Collected individual attributes, relational data and pastoral records

4. Statistical Network Modelling • QAP (Quadratic Assignment Procedure) model in UCINET (Borgatti et. al. 2002) • Exponential Random Graph (or p*) models in Pnet (Pattison et. al. 2005) Family ties Agistment ties Friendship ties

5. Results TABLE 1. QAP-CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS At α=0.05 ‘p<0.05’, both family and friendship ties are significantly correlated with agistment network.

6. Results … TABLE 2. REGRESSION COEFFICIENTS TABLE 3. MODEL FIT • The R-square is significant but small.

7. Preliminary finding Social network especially friendship ties play a significant role in mediating agistment practice. However, a lot of other factors are needed to explain the variability in agistment ties. Further work Parametric social network modelling (P* approaches) Dynamic multi-agent and network modelling

8. Agent-Based Modelling Can a model of land attributes and individual behavior reproduce the global picture? Build from the bottom up … the landscape... • 1 km2 square of land • Receives rain • Grows forage • Gets grazed • Property = collection of paddocks • Owner moves stock • Owner sells • Owner agists in or out • Paddock = collection of landscape pieces • Gets stocked

9. At what point does a pastoralist agist? Different kinds of relationships between pastoralists create different weights of connections, affecting likelihood of agisting (or other practice) • Agisting is function of • Land condition • Available alternatives • Ability to agist • “basic philosophy” • Level of trust

10. 2. Role of networks on Adoption … Why • Pastoralism is and will continue to be a dominant land use in Australia • The success of pastoralism will significantly depend on adoption of innovative ideas, technologies and sustainable management practices by pastoralists.

11. Most studies are on: • attributes of innovations • characteristics of individual pastoralists . Farm households Sustainable practices Networks? Little on the role of pastoral networks on adoption

12. The role of Network and Adoption… Indications of social costs • Pastoralists that have ‘gone green’ do so facing the disapproval of their peers (Richard et al. 2003) • Similar observation in our study General proposition • Networks among pastoralists may play a significant role in filtering and reinforcing shared decisions with regard to adoption of innovative ideas, technologies and practices for sustainability

13. Develop a proposal Approach • Workshop • COSNet +CSS • Combine multi-agent and network modelling • to investigate the role of the interactionsof characteristics of new practices, and attributes of pastoralists and their networks • Collaborative • CSIRO, ANU, Uni Melb • Applied • involving stakeholders – Desert Knowledge CRC