The Heartlands initiative aims to design and achieve socially sustainable land use change in selected focus catchments and to monitor its effectiveness in alleviating environmental degradation. The strategies for targeted land use change will address economic and social objectives. The effectiveness of revegetation options is being measured to ensure their success, and support local communities in implementing improved management of their farms and catchments. Four catchments located in southern NSW and north-eastern Victoria are the focus of this project. Heartlands combines research with on-ground works such as tree planting, protection of remnant vegetation, establishment of perennial pastures and erosion protection. The research guides on-ground works to ensure maximum environmental benefit from the investment. The close link with implementation ensures that the research remains relevant and well focused. In particular, Heartlands focuses on: - Integrated catchment management strategies;
- Salinity;
- Water yield;
- Water quality;
- Biodiversity;
- Carbon sequestration potential; and
- Commercially viable systems of farm forestry and mosaic agriculture.
The web-based Billabong Land Information System is being used to facilitate knowledge exchange and community engagement, and represents an innovative means of providing spatially explicit information to catchment managers and landholders. The aim of the work is to produce a balanced land use plan that is acceptable to the community and based on sound science. Several reports and a seven-part fact sheet series on findings are available on the Heartlands website as well as the CD-ROM accompanying Dryland Salinity and Catchment Management: A resource directory and action manual for catchment managers.
| | | | Action: 5.11 |
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| | Consider the method trialled by the Heartlands initiative to develop an integrated land use map for sub-catchment-scale planning and implementation in your region and to identify some of the potential tensions between competing objectives. | | | COST |  | | | TIME |  | | | COMPLEXITY |  | | | | |
The technical report Planning for Sustainable Land Use and Catchment Health has contributed to development of integrated land use planning. The objective is to identify specific locations within a catchment for different land use options in order to maximise overall societal benefit – both commercial and environmental. The planning process recognises multiple objectives in the management of agricultural catchments and helps prioritise investment in land use change. Case study applications were conducted in three catchments using the process identified in Box 9. Box 9: The process used to develop integrated land use planning options for three
catchments in the Heartlands project.
Source: Creswell H, (Ed.) (2004) ‘Planning for Sustainable Land Use and Catchment Health.’ CSIRO Land and Water, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, CSIRO Forest and Forest Products, Heartlands Publication 9-04, Canberra ACT
Figure 26: Integrated (multiple theme) revegetation allocation for Simmons Creek catchment.
Source: Creswell H, (Ed.) (2004) ‘Planning for Sustainable Land Use and Catchment Health.’ CSIRO Land and Water, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, CSIRO Forest and Forest Products, Heartlands Publication 9-04, Canberra ACT
Management recommendations from each theme were expressed as guidelines and applied spatially to produce plausible single theme land use allocations. When combined, the land use allocation was most strongly driven by the salinity management recommendations. The application of the full set of guidelines produced a multiple theme allocation that represents a compromise with the aim of greater collective benefits. The case study demonstrates tensions between competing objectives, for example where the biodiversity value was forgone to meet groundwater management objectives. This result is an important consideration for focusing future scientific analysis, public awareness and discussion so that such issues can be resolved. The multiple theme allocation differs from all of the single theme allocations and as such is a ‘new’ land use pattern – a scenario that has not been specifically evaluated in any of the analyses underlying the single themes. Ideally, the integrated land use allocation should be evaluated and the outcomes used to decide whether modification of the guidelines is warranted. The authors of the report Planning for Sustainable Land Use and Catchment Health believe that adoption of the planning processes used could substantially improve the effectiveness of investment in NRM through much better targeting of on-ground expenditure. The procedure for combining diverse biophysical and ecological knowledge and datasets with social and economic considerations addresses a common deficiency in NRM planning. Even formulating and applying simpler guidelines in locations where data are limited would improve on many current approaches to prioritising investment in land use change. Full stakeholder participation will be important in the future, as well as greater emphasis on economics. The primary objective of the Landmark project was to identify the need for land use and land management change and policy responses to facilitate change in broadscale dryland regions in the Murray-Darling Basin. Landmark aims to provide the scientific foundation for determining whether current land uses and recommended practices achieve, or are likely to achieve, government and community goals for sustainability. It uses a logical approach to determine whether, what scale and what type of change might be required. This methodology is documented in detail in Landmark: A method for testing dryland agriculture sustainability. This and other reports can be accessed on the CD-ROM that accompanies Dryland Salinity and Catchment Management: A resource directory and action manual for catchment managers. The work was undertaken in three pilot regions – the Upper Goulburn-Broken (Vic), Upper Billabong Creek (NSW) and Upper Condamine (Qld) catchments. Landmark has produced a quantitative, spatial analysis of the sustainability of current land use and management methods for broadscale dryland agriculture in these three focus catchments. The indicators used to assess sustainability include biophysical measures (soil acidity, soil erosion, nutrients, biodiversity, water balance), economic data (e.g. growth in regional productivity) and social factors (e.g. population age structure, access to services). The Catchment Analysis Tool (CAT) has been used to model different scenarios of native vegetation restoration, using the best ecological knowledge as a guide, described in Question 4. The broad results from these analyses provide a set of quantitative and spatial data than can be further interrogated to help guide catchment plans, program development and delivery, and the use of policy instruments to help improve sustainability. It provides information to support decision-making processes at regional, State and National levels and will inform the implementation of the Integrated Catchment Management in the Murray-Darling Basin 2001–10 and the Basin Salinity Management Strategy 2001–15.
| | | | Action: 5.12 |
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| | Consider the integrated, catchment-scale method developed by the Landmark project, developed for the intensive land-use zone, to assess the sustainability of current land use and revegetation scenarios for application in your region. | | | COST | | | | TIME | | | | COMPLEXITY | | | | | |
Environmental management systems (EMS) hold promise as a business tool to help farmers, land and rural industry managers to address complex environmental and NRM issues. EMS implementation by farm businesses does not necessarily guarantee improved on-farm environmental performance, nor delivery of catchment-level outcomes. Pilot trials in the grains industry however have found the process of developing an EMS exposed farmers to a broader range of NRM issues, including native vegetation management, and the interactions between them. Industry, regional or catchment approaches can mean that businesses implementing EMS address industry, regional or catchment policies and targets, or that industry, regional and catchment scale targets and goals have been translated into standards and guidelines for application by the entity implementing EMS. An EMS consists of a cyclical management process where an organisation (e.g. a farm business): 1. defines its environmental policy and makes a commitment to work towards specified environmental goals; 2. establishes a plan to work towards its environmental goals; 3. implements the plan by, where necessary, assigning responsibilities, allocating resources and acquiring new skills; 4. checks progress through systematic measurement and evaluation; and 5. reviews its progress and acts to correct problems. The organisation then returns to the first step and revisits its environmental policy with a view to improving it, and to committing itself to working towards improved environmental goals, and so on. Thus, the EMS is designed to achieve continual environmental improvement. The Commonwealth Government has identified EMS as a potentially important tool for establishing and maintaining sustainable production systems. In 2003, it launched an $8.5 million EMS National Pilot Program involving 15 projects across Australia. The pilots represent a diverse range of industries, regions, partnerships and natural resource management issues. The objective is to: - develop and assess the value of EMS as a management tool to improve natural resource management, from the enterprise level up to the catchment scale;
- assist industry competitiveness and production efficiency; and
- help primary producers meet emerging market demands for quality and environment assurance.
Details about these and other EMS projects can be found by searching the EMS Navigator. The pilots have been designed to help answer questions about the practical and effective adoption of EMS on the ground. Two projects in particular are addressing the potential of EMS to contribute to natural resource outcomes at a catchment scale. - Linking on-farm EMS with catchment targets, a farmer-catchment-government partnership in Victoria – North Central Catchment Management Authority. This pilot is a partnership of three catchment management authorities in Victoria, and will implement EMS on 100 farms. It builds on the Riverina EMS project, and will use a four-tiered approach to EMS. Under this system, farmers work their way through the tiers, reaching a full EMS by the third. The project will examine the use of EMS as a tool to achieve environmental outcomes, linking on-farm action with catchment targets and outcomes. An integral part is developing practical on-farm environmental monitoring tools to help farmers assess environmental outcomes.
- The Mount Lofty Ranges watershed EMS project is a partnership involving Apple & Pear Growers’ Association of South Australia, Adelaide Hills Wine Region and Cherry Growers of SA. Mount Lofty Ranges is an environmentally sensitive area. It provides Adelaide with drinking water and supports a valuable horticultural industry. The project is aiming to improve business sustainability through better management of environmental impacts, and increased production efficiency. It will implement EMS on at least 30 enterprises and evaluate how the system can help producers meet growing environmental demands from the market and the community, and contribute to natural resource management outcomes on a catchment scale. Issues identified through the process will result in the development and implementation of property level activities and guidelines for participating growers.
The results of these projects will help inform the debate about the best way to utilise the EMS approach at a regional scale. A recent report concluded that concepts such as ‘industry EMS’, ‘regional EMS’, or ‘catchment EMS’ are meaningless because EMS may only be implemented by an organisation to manage the resources over which that organisation has specific control. The report does go onto say however that industry, regional or catchment approaches to EMS can mean that businesses implementing EMS address industry, regional or catchment policies and targets, or that industry, regional and catchment scale targets and goals have been translated into standards and guidelines for application by the entity implementing EMS.
| | | | Action: 5.13 |
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| | Use the EMS Navigator to discover the potential for EMS to integrate a range of NRM issues and link through to on-farm processes to regional targets. | | | COST | | | | TIME | | | | COMPLEXITY |  | | | | |
The IAWM (Integrated Area Wide Management) project is in its early stages, but is worth mentioning because it is a grower-led approach to NRM planning and tactical implementation that includes GIS-based database and monitoring systems. The IAWM approach came out of broad consultation where there was a broad consensus that current approaches were not working. As in many regions, participants were suffering from change fatigue (both rate and volume) as a result of statutory and industry reform processes. Growers, in particular, wanted a realistic, flexible support system to underpin industry in planning, and for ‘educated’ industry engagement in debates and discussion. They also wanted a better means to assess and demonstrate good stewardship at both property and landscape scales. The project that arose out of these discussions, and which will be worth following as it develops, will be: - Developing an integrated ‘learning’ environment so that land owners and other natural resource managers can establish ownership, and incorporate the learnings into improved management systems.
- Providing coordinated support and development of the Integrated Area Wide Management (IAWM) framework across Queensland’s regions and major stakeholder groups.
- Identifying and resolving strategic issues between industry, regional bodies and government in the monitoring and management of landscapes.
- Implementing and steering a series of case studies based on genuine partnerships within each of the National Action Plan regions to see IAWM principles and processes adopted and skills and learnings shared.
- Demonstrating that natural resource management objectives can be achieved in a cooperative, integrated framework, and that this method is more sustainable in the longer term.
Another project in its early stages aims to predict the ecological and socio-economic consequences of different land-management decisions on savanna landscape health and the people. A range of computer modelling tools will be used to examine different options. Existing simulation tools are considered too limited, as predictive understanding needs to include the basic ecological processes that sustain healthy savanna landscapes at fine scales. New tools are therefore being developed to integrate the biophysical, ecological and socio-economic dynamics at a range of scales. Guidelines will be developed that will be tested, developed and applied at the enterprise, catchment and regional scales. |
