Got to talking , as you do occasionally in the tea room, with some exerienced old dinasaurs like myself about professionalism and why many scientists on the coal face feel more like works assistants than scientists with a brain. Is the decisionmaking being done elsewhere, or is it our imagination?. More importantly - are the decisions and actions in the field better?
Computers in some ways haven't helped . HQ always wanted to know what was going on out here; now they have computers to tell them what's happening and seem not to need us as much.
30yrs ago we were their only lifeline, but now they have their own desktop; their own GIS . HQ never really liked to have to rely on the bush telegraph. After all, us blokes in the bush would talk and talk and end up complainin in ways not "unlike the cockies whom they appeared too close to" . Objectivity, it is said , comes with modelling and GIS. True, but how do we keep the balance so the decisions are infact better?
With GIS, HQ give the impression they don't need us quite so much any more, when the opposite is now true . Computer screens have become just another distraction from real decisonmaking, for some . Something that only at best helps-- not solves.It just loks like it does? The kind of final solution that helps farmers recognise risk and manage it to produce more with less loss - this is what is increasingly at risk. We are no longer client orientated, so are we also no longer problem solving orientated ?
Unless we are problem solving group problems today, our efficiency is seen to be down to billy oh - no more nice cosey cups of tea and biscuits with a local - must at least be a few locals . No more welfare to an individual -those who need help and come to the door on their own . They can't compete,so they come concerned to the counter . "no more clients" - sounds like the version of Yes minister and The hospital - no clients "yes it is a very efficient health care institution Minister - particulary because we have no clients, no patients."
So, is it true that computers can do what chatter could never do? No, of course not. Its both and. Computer chat. Computers have been a great boon to onground extension agents who know that most real world issues require integration of both the physics and chemical imperatives at a site . Noone who studied physics and chemistry would want to be without a computer, to help model the questions his clients ASK .But they wouldn't want to go back to universities computers either where sometimes the "never the twain shall meet".
No, the problem seems one of imbalance . The rush to "higher level" and data and "moreinfo" sources ( ye olde computers ) is not helping. More information can be more snow , more cloud and less clarity . Locals aren't supposed to know much, but they often know just that!
The reality is that disintegration is now more common than integration in problem solving on environment . Instead of locals busily modelling real life in the sticks, the big screen in the big smoke is big enough to take over . big enough now for even Canberra to think they know what's wrong with austailas environment-- all without stepping outside in the breeze and getting things in perspective. they've got the info but Discipines are often more divorced than ever .The maps are supposed to tell all, but do they? Tell me i am wrong about the problem, and the solution.
Risk management is a skill , not one neccesarily best developed by refering to disciplines in isolation and apart from the complex forces in a particular ecosystem. Experienced locals are leaving and snow and smoke is a growing problem . Tell me i am wrong about the problem and the solution.
