The realisation of capacity within rural community institutions to manage ecologically strategic landscapes, to maintain or improve their resilience and productivity, on behalf of Australian society, introduces issues of overcoming multiple barriers to its achievement, at multiple scales. It also involves identifying frequently over-looked assets within communities, such as social memory.

David Eastburn's research examines the processes and politics involved in moving decentralised governance from the agenda onto the ground, and the potential further politics involved after that has been achieved; in addition to success stories.

The empirical basis of this reflective research is four decades experience of working with rural communities in Australia and Papua New Guinea; with particular focus on the 25 year period of the original Murray-Darling Basin Initiative (1982-2007).

David Eastburn has a rural background and four decades of experience of working with rural communities in Australia and Papua New Guinea, in the areas of communication, natural resources management, and education. The Murray-Darling Basin is an important part of his cultural heritage and he has particular interest in inland water management. During his careers, he has worked in four different water/ integrated natural resources management authorities, in addition to working directly with primary producer groups, and public and community landholders, generally at landscape-scales. He has also spent more than a decade working with non-western cultures.