Dealing with salinity in Wheatbelt Valleys - Department of Water

with Salinity in Wheatbelt Valleys Conference
Dealing
Prospects and Practical Options
Processes,
Develop a system of incentives for the retention of remnant vegetation (including salt lake system vegetation).
e.g. Accreditation system for sale of products from environmentally sustainable systems i.e. market rewards for being
clean and green.
Whole community i.e. taxpayer) funded financial reward systems for retention of remnant ecosystems.
Distillation of knowledge into a structured framework showing gaps and uncertainties, in a public location. This
repository will be huge and include multiple ‘truths’ about processes. It will be in a variety of formats and
communicated/pitched to a variety of levels. Its creation will take a number of years, but the knowledge management
process is ongoing, as is the review/creation.
Convey to the wider public the visions of the forum.
Gauge the response by questionnaire of public support for the vision.
Share vision with rest of wheatbelt community and gauge their response (Ag memo survey?) to see if they want to be
a part of what the conference has done.
Let the wider community know what the vision is.
Do an audit on what has been done to date so we don’t reinvent the wheel.
General public survey on possible solutions/techniques to alleviate the problem and also opinions about the vision.
Get an integrated group of young, middle aged and older people from areas of finance, business, service industries,
environment etc who can discuss and brainstorm ways to revitalise country towns and diversity opportunities within
them.
As a farmer I
• support the Salinity Taskforce in their endeavours
• support the taskforce formation looking at drainage
- member selection vital in being representative of all views
• salinity finding to be half regional groups and half agencies
• agencies need to regain direction Ag WA – what is now their structure and purpose? Appear to be ‘gutted’ of
personnel and research purpose – more technical resources.
Request the new drainage council to do a comprehensive search on drainage works throughout the wheatbelt –
where they are, who did them, are they working – so that future decision can indeed be based on “creative, critical
thinking – (identify drainage hot spots). This will allow us to identify GIS and map drainage hot spots in order to
select an area to evaluate the effects and benefits of a linked drainage system. 4M$ could be used to link these
systems where appropriate.
Request the State Salinity Council to take the vision, refine it to a workable position and TAKE ACTION.
A contact list of conference participants be distributed to all participants (and posted on the web?). It would include
contact details and areas of interest. Maybe an on-line discussion group created (this is secondary to first idea).
Fund community groups to employ facilitator/futurist type to help them establish.
Let us move on from repetitive goal setting and circular discussions.
I look forward to moving into implementation of the many ideas previously developed.
Let us ensure that this is an inclusive approach without emphasis towards any partisan group.
Research/analysis of assets to assess viability of maintaining or changing to other options (e.g. new transport
technologies). This analysis will trigger decisions in community e.g. (1) cost of services at current rate compared to
change eduction system (2) review ‘community service obligation’ (CSO) services e.g drainage, rubbish etc.
All assets/services to be self-sustaining in long term but may need short term underwriting of capital investment to
restore/change.
Use Salinity Council investment framework process to assess values/costs/threats to assets.