Dealing with salinity in Wheatbelt Valleys - Department of Water

with Salinity in Wheatbelt Valleys Conference
Dealing
Prospects and Practical Options
Processes,
KEY MESSAGES FROM THE CONFERENCE
(No recognition to speakers)
- unique landscapes – our rivers/valleys are different
- Salinity is not the only NRM issue
- Value our water – both fresh and saline. “We live in the driest continent, yet the irony is that too much
water is the issue”
- The scale of issues and actions needed mean that we must have profitable options.
- “People, people, people, people!” The social issues are really important.
- Don’t count on governments to help you – particularly to subsidise non profitable options.
- Our environment and biodiversity are unique and precious – value it and look after it.
- Don’t generalise (our valleys are different).
- Research is needed – Development at the farm scale is critical – Extension and knowledge transfer
also critical.
- Annuals have driven agricultural development, but are now under financial pressure and they leak!
- Neither side of the drainage debate has proved their point.
- How can we pigs involve the chooks?
- Enlightened self interest
- We are only limited by our imagination.
POWERFUL NEW DIRECTION
Those that made presentations on:
- deep drainage (and other engineering options)
- salt land pastures
- lucerne
- mallees
Were all understood and respected for describing an option that works and must be considered in
an overall approach to NRM management.
SHARED UNDERDSTANDING FOR THE FUTURE
1. People – Communities. They will be better informed, will be making more of their own decisions.
New industries will halt the rural population decline. Different views and values will be respected.
2. Profitable Agriculture (at both recharge and discharge). Existing annual production systems will be
augmented by various forms of perennials in both phases of farming and permanent woody trees and
shrubs. It will include on farm or regional value adding. Income options will be more diverse and
many will be less prone to seasonal risk such as drought and frost.
3. Water is our shared most valuable asset (both fresh and salinised). By surface water management,
more use will be made of annual rainfall, saline discharge water will be used beneficially in either
industrial or environmental outcomes.
4. Salinised land is a valuable resource for both productive, environmental and social outcomes.
5. The environment and biodiversity will be respected, understood, valued and appropriately managed.
6. All ‘tools’ (options) are viable and will need to be used in the right place and in the right mix. No one
‘tool’ is likely to work in isolation. Some ‘tools’ will need regional or state planning and support and
this should be with minimal bureaucracy.
7. Shared responsibility at all scales, from farm, to catchment, to Region to State. Leadership and
action will have to be locally driven with minimal reliance on State and Federal funds.
8. Continued need for R&D. Research must continue, particular attention to interactive paddock scale
development and extension will be needed with extension through all private and agency levels.
9 New Industries, both agriculture and non agricultural based (including eco-tourism) will be developed,
as regionally dispersed as scale/economics will permit.
10 Appropriate water management at all scales – recharge banks, large on farm dams, discharge control
drains, on farm use of as much water as possible.