7. Management Actions

“People will move here and invest here if they know we are committed to looking after the river.”

Ian Crisp, oyster grower, Manning River ECMP Reference Group

The following Management Actions were developed to respond to risks and threats, address the issues and achieve our objectives. They were derived from several consultation inputs:

• One-on-one interviews with members of the Manning River ECMP Reference group;

• A series of 13 issue analysis discussion groups with members of the Technical

Advisory Group and delivery partners;

• A series of 9 workshops with internal and external delivery partners to firm up the details of the management options, assess whether they belonged in the ECMP

Action Program, complementary programs or could be amalgamated, and convert them to S.M.A.R.T format (Smart, Measurable, Achievable, Timely).

Additional detail that will assist practitioners to understand the context and intention of the actions is provided in Annexure J: Manning River ECMP Management Actions with Practice Notes.

Evaluation of management options

A structured and transparent evaluation of management options against the three broad themes of feasibility, viability and acceptability is required by the Coastal Management Manual. MidCoast Council’s project team managed acceptability evaluation while a team of consultants led by Salients undertook the feasibility and viability evaluation.

Consultancy firm Salients (Dr. David wainwright) led the evaluation of feasibility and viability. The method and results of the evaluation process are outlined below and shown in Figure 35. The full evaluation report is provided in Annexure K: Report: Evaluation of management options for the Manning River ECMP (Salients 2021).

The feasibility evaluation considered whether the actions could be completed in technical, engineering and/or legal terms. As a first stage of the feasibility assessment every management option was subjected to a multi-criteria assessment. The purpose of an ECMP is to give effect to the objectives of the Coastal Management Act 2016. For this reason, the objects/objectives of the CM Act and, by extension, the Marine Estate Management Act 2014 were used as the criteria against which each of the management options were assessed.

Where options were identified as being suitable for direct progression (typically low cost, low regrets, high confidence of success), the multi criteria assessment was applied as a confirmatory feasibility assessment.

For other, more complex or expensive actions, the feasibility assessment also involved more detailed consideration including, at least, a qualitative evaluation of potential shortcomings and benefits.

The viability evaluation focussed on economic and financial considerations, asking:

• Is the option justifiable in terms of improving overall wellbeing (economic assessment)?

• Is it possible to fund the option?

If the answer to the first question was “Yes”, the option was included in the business

plan assuming there will be an opportunistic mechanism to carry it forward, even if there is no viable funding mechanism presently available. The funding environment changes from year to year and the ECMP should be able to take advantage of any funding opportunities that might make an action viable in future, even if a present funding pathway cannot be readily identified.

As a minimum, all short-listed options have had a cost estimate derived, based largely on the experience of study team members, assisted by staff from MCC and Hunter LLS. When this cost estimate is combined with the qualitative multi-criteria analysis feasibility assessment, it constitutes a “Simple Economic Assessment” (in the terminology of the CMM).

More detailed financial assessment has been undertaken for several management options, with a specialist report prepared by the Centre for International Economics. Where this is the case, the options examined have been subjected to assessments of varying complexity, up to an “Intermediate Level Assessment. ” The more complex options assessed by the CIE were subject to Rapid CBA assessment which follows the same framework as a detailed CBA, except that it allows the use and consideration of qualitative assessments and is more accepting of imperfect data or data gaps.

All options were found to be feasible in the sense that there is no key impediment from a legal, technical or engineering perspective. In some cases, future study to better direct actions at specific sites and/or follow up engineering design may be required as the CMP is implemented. In that case, those “on-ground” actions should be deferred until the required studies have been completed.

All options were found to be viable in that they have been assessed as being good

value for money except for one, a study on the viability to buy and retire water licenses. Importantly though, none of the options have been subjected to a full cost benefit analysis where attempts are made to quantify, in dollar terms, the full suite of benefits arising from the management option being assessed. Viability has been assessed, in part, by considering the amounts that would normally be spent on similar activities.

Acceptability evaluation considers whether there is broad acceptability among community and stakeholders, as determined through consultation. Consultation has been consistent and extensive during Council’s ECMP preparation process to ensure management actions are acceptable to community representatives and delivery partners.

Acceptability was formally assessed via:

• A meeting with the ECMP Reference group to review the “long-list” of actions prior to filtering at the management action workshops mentioned above.

• A series of workshops with delivery partners held in February-March to review the

Management Actions and set targets.

• One-on-one meetings with lead agencies and delivery partners within and external to

Council to ensure all Management Actions included in the final draft were acceptable, including the intention of the action, the wording used, S.M.A.R.T targets and budgets.

These consultations are documented in the Stakeholder report, Annexure B.

Annexures on exhibition:

Further information can be downloaded from www.midcoast.nsw.gov.au/haveyoursay

• Annexure B: The Manning River ECMP Stakeholder Consultation Report (MCC 2021)

• Annexure J: Manning River ECMP Management Actions with Practice Notes (MCC 2021)

• Annexure K: Report: Evaluation of management options for the Manning River

ECMP (Salients 2021)