The Land and Water Resources Research and Development Corporation (LWRRDC) is funding this project. The project has three objectives, which are as follows.

1. To investigate the potential of the Citizens' Jury as a means for informing social decision making about resource and environmental management, and to compare it with standard approaches involving environmental valuation and environmental cost benefit analysis.

2. To investigate the perceived usefulness of the Citizens' Jury to actors in the social decision making process, in part by surveying members of the advisory panel at successive stages of the project.

3. To establish guidelines for the use of the Citizens' Jury in resource management /environmental contexts.

Under the project, two citizens' juries have been run. The first, which was conducted in October 1999, involved examination of the management of national parks and reserves in one Australian State. The second, conducted in January 2000, looked at management options for a coastal road in northern Queensland.

So far, three reports have been published under the umbrella of the project.

The first of these, Citizens' Juries and Environmental Value Assessment, introduces citizens' juries and contrasts them with other forms of public consultation and environmental value assessment (eg contingent valuation).

The second report, Citizens' Juries and Small Group Decision-Making, considers the role of group-dynamics in citizens' juries and offers guidelines for harnessing group dynamics with a view to maximising the quality of the recommendations emerging.

The third report, A Citizens' Jury Study of National Park Management, provides an overview of the methods and results of the first citizens' jury.