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Professor John Cary

Professorial Research Fellow

Professor John Cary has over 25 years experience in human and social behaviour related to natural resource management and water use, socio-economic and social impact analysis, policy development, public attitude measurement, community consultation, and technology transfer.

John Cary was Interim Director of the Institute for Sustainability and Innovation 2005 to 2006; and formerly Director of Key Research Area - Integrated Food Value Chain at Victoria University. He has been Principal Research Scientist at the Bureau of Rural Sciences, Canberra and Head of the Department of Agriculture and Resource Management, University of Melbourne. He was an Honorary Principal Fellow, School of Resource Management, at the University of Melbourne from 1999 to 2007 and is a FSANZ Fellow, Food Standards Australia New Zealand.

Research Interests

• Human behaviour related to natural resources and water use
• Sustainable food production
• Water policy
• Environmental history.

Current and recent research projects

Partner-investigator - Victorian state-wide river health social condition benchmark project. (with Queensland University of Technology and Department of Sustainability Victoria).

Partner-investigator – Development of a social index of stream condition (with University of Queensland and Department of Sustainability Victoria).

Partner-investigator- Socio-economic influences on water use. Smart Water Fund, Victorian Water Trust [with URS].

Partner-investigator - Understanding climate change impacts. North-East Greenhouse Alliance.

Project Leader - Exploring a sustainable mechanism for innovation in a knowledge-based rural scientific and technical initiative. United Nations Development Program and Ministry of Science and Technology, China.

Principal investigator - Green marketing and EMS: Assessing potential consumer influence on EMS development. Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation.

Partner-investigator ARC Linkage project - Social acceptability of forest harvesting systems in Tasmania.

Principal investigator, Murray Darling Basin Commission Landmark Project - The social and economic impacts of current management practices and land use in the Murray Darling Basin.

Selected Papers and Publications

Cary, J. W. & Roberts, A. M. (2009). Environmental management systems in Australian agriculture: policy dilemmas for improving land management. Land use Policy (under review).

Cary J. W. (2008). Influencing attitudes and changing consumers’ household water consumption behaviour. Water Science & Technology: Water Supply 8 (3) 325-330.

Pisarski, A., Cary, J. & Metcalfe, J. (2008). Social Index of Stream Condition: User’s Manual 2007. Victorian Government Department of Sustainability and Environment, Melbourne. 58pp

Bhaskaran, S., Polonsky, M., Cary, J. & Fernandez, S. (2006). Environmentally sustainable food production and marketing: Opportunity or hype? British Food Journal 108 (8) 677-690.

Webb, T. & Cary, J. W. (2005). Social capital and natural resource management. Rural Society 15 (2): 119-131.

Hansford, P., Cary, J. W. & Coath, E. (2003). Sustainable agribusiness: Developing local solutions to global challenges in the regional agribusiness sector in Australia. International Food and Agribusiness Management Review 5 (4)
http://www.ifama.org/members/articles/v5i4/hansford.pdf

Cary, J. W., Webb, T. & Barr, N. F. (2002). Understanding Landholders' Capacity to Change to Sustainable Practices: Insights about practice adoption and social capacity for change. Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry - Australia, Canberra.

Macgregor, C. J., & Cary, J. W. (2002). Social/human capital rapid appraisal model (SCRAM): a method of remotely assessing social and human capacity in Australian rural communities. Rural Society 12 (2): 105-122.

Wilkinson, R. L., & Cary, J. W. (2002). Sustainability as an evolutionary process. International Journal of Sustainable Development 5 (4): 381-391.

Williams, K. J., & Cary, J. W. (2002). Landscape preferences, ecological quality and biodiversity protection. Environment and Behavior 34 (2): 257-274.

Webb, T., Cary, J. W. & Campbell, A. (2002). Contracting to prevent land degradation: Landcare, a Success Story. In W. M. Rivera and W. Zijp (Eds.) Contracting for Agricultural Extension: International Case Studies and Emerging Practices. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 55-62.

Cary, J.W. (2001). Institutional innovation in natural resource management: A conceptualization and some Australian examples. In Steven Wolf and David Zilberman (Eds.) Knowledge Generation and Technical Change: Institutional Innovation in Agriculture. Boston, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 125-147.

Cary, J. W. (2000). Successful soil and landscape conservation in Australia. In T.L. Napier, S.M. Napier & J. Tvrdon (eds.), Soil and Water Conservation Policies and Programs: Successes and Failures. Boca Raton FL, CRC Press. pp. 535-548.

Barr, N. F., & Cary, J. W. (1992). Greening a Brown Land: The Australian Search for Sustainable Land Use, Macmillan, Melbourne.

Last Updated: October 7, 2009