Partner or perish or perish through partnering? A workshop report

This report provides a synthesis of views that emerged from a collaborative workshop – Partnerships and priorities for Australian rangelands – held in Alice Springs in May 2008. The workshop aimed at exploring the potential for development of conservation-research partnerships, and was attended by research staff from CSIRO, the Northern Territory government, national and international non-government organizations and academics. This synthesis describes a generic partnership development process applicable to conservation-research partnerships and outline initiatives that will help support the development of conservation-research partnerships in Australia. The formation of a partnership is generally driven by a desire to achieve a shared common goal through mutual cooperation and responsibility with the expectation of a net benefit for each party involved. Partnerships between applied conservation organizations responsible for the delivery of conservation outcomes, and research organizations responsible for the development and evaluation of the theoretical and conceptual underpinnings of such interventions are increasingly common.