Just as there are many definitions for beauty and truth, so there are many definitions of social capital - and perhaps, for the purposes of this dialogue, we shall define social capital as the "accumulated good-will of a community (Robinson, March 12th).

There are key elements that build or destroy social capital. Factors important to its building include trust, respect, participation, appreciation, good will, common goals, reciprocity, interdependence, common needs, empathy, transparency, as well as networks (that facilitate collective action). Factors which destroy social capital include self-interest, oppression, over-reliance on outside economic forces, bad policy decisions (lack of respect for citizen voices), lack of reciprocity, and lack of voice in community determination. In addition, fear, crisis and technology can destroy existing social capital and inhibit the building of new capital. It may well be that little or no social capital contributes to a lack of symmetry of meanings and shared history, and lacking meaning or purpose contributes to apathy, alienation and ultimately to the well-being of democracy.

But social capital can be both a force of light and a force of dark, for example the Hell's Angels are a tightly cohesive organization with very strong social capital between its members. And tightly cohesive groups can be very closed to "others", effectively controlling access and diversity.

In addition, governments can very quickly destroy existing social capital in communities if their policy interventions are not made wisely and strategically as social capital occurs at multiple levels-bonding, bridging and linking, and it may well be that interventions should be made at the bridging and linking levels to facilitate access to different kinds of resources, particularly knowledge networks.

Is there a relationship between social capital and sustainable development and healthy communities? Or in other words, if a community has high social "capital" is that community more sustainable? And what role does diversity and access to resources, and "shared meaning" play? Several themes emerged in response to these questions, including the importance of dialogue and the ability to create 'shared meaning' in an increasingly diverse world, engagement and the role it plays in defining our sense of "community", as well as access and inclusivity particularly with respect to decision-making at all levels. But social capital takes time to create and build; it involves the building of relationships, both in public and private spheres. There are important relationships and interconnections between all the capitals - ecological, social and economic.

"Having fuller stocks of social resources enables us in principle to do a more ingenious, more responsible job of managing human activities at the margins where our human (socio-economic) activities impinge upon and possibly compromise the networks and functioning of the natural systems. By being more ingenious we might be able to manage human activities so well that we sustain the functioning of those systems into the future" (Dobell, March 14).