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A consultative approach was used to set resource condition targets for dryland salinity in the south west of Western Australia. It was anticipated that farmer development of the targets would lead to a sense of ownership and therefore a desire to achieve the targets. Workshops were held at which farmers were presented with the latest information on salinity risk for their catchment. The farmers described their aspirations for salinity management and simple models were used to predict the impact of management options. Given this information, the farmers set what were considered realistic and achievable targets for dryland salinity. The project was evaluated to determine the impact of the consultative process. This qualitative evaluation involved semi-structured interviews with 20 farmers who attended the workshops. Results show that the process had a direct impact on the capacity of the majority of farmers interviewed. In addition, there was evidence that participation resulted in the implementation of management actions. The process that was used, rather than the targets themselves, appeared to be the key influence. The three key learnings from this work were: 1) there are added benefits to using a consultative process; 2) important elements of consultation are the interactions between participants and two-way discussions with experts; and 3) level of impact is dependent on the experience level of participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]