soil-conservation-people-religion-and-land.pdf - South West NRM

individual's rights. No individual
should ever have the right to damage
forever, what belongs to the nation
and its coming generations. It was
John Ruskin who said:
"The earth is a great entail.
gs as much to those
US, as to us, and w
by anything we do,
in unnecessary pena
ve them of benefits
opposition of informed taxpayers to
the double standards applied to
mining and rural industries in the
realm of environmental impact
studies is defensible and becoming
more widespread.
The way to define land rights in
their true sense, is to recognise that
all land uses should use land to the
capacity of its potential and protect
it according to its susceptibility to
deterioration.
. - . . This principle has been taught since
the 1930's as the cornerstone of land
Land rights and conservation but somehow it hasn't
become part of the ethos of
wrongs
Australian values.
The National Conservation
Strategy represents a first attempt at
an Australian list of pre-requisites for
nation-wide sustainable land use and
as such it deserves wide support
despite its generalised statements and
its accepted shortcomings.
This strategy may appear to be
only remotely associated with
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attitudes toward the land but it forms
a unique starting point for the birth !
of a long-overdue Iand ethic in this
country. Such an ethic would change
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the previous individualistic approach 1
to land rights to one which recognises
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and protects what is known as 'the
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public interest.'
Our common wealth is the soil. It
supports us, it gives us security and
in the final analysis we are totally
dependent on it. The technocrats
argue that our science has made us
independent of the soil, to the extent
that modern man has become the
first animal who does not have to
adapt to his environment to survive.
Therein lies the most dangerous
assumption of our time, since such
technological arrogance is leading to
man's ruination of his biosphere in
the false belief that science will
somehow solve his environmental
problems.
In seeing to his own needs, man
has neglected the needs of the
ecosystems which sustain him. He has
treated land as if its only value is to
supply him with milk and honey. He
has been guided only by economic
principles, neglecting the ecological
and moral principles which should
have an equal place in his value
system.
The time has come for Australians
to re-define land rights in terms of
acceptable land use behaviour. It is
interesting to note that the term
'freehold' has nothing to do with
freedom of action but originally
meant that holders of freehold were
free of the obligation to provide
soldiers for the king's army in ancient
England.
As social values change with time,
so the understanding of rights
changes. With the changes in social
and moral values has come change in
the community's concept of
freeholders' rights.
The opposition from producer
organisations to the introduction of
land use controls is predictable and
understandable. Equally, the
me National Conservation
Strategy - trendy
environmentalism or
essential planning?
While the leader of the National
Farmers Federation refers to the
"petty emotionalism" of environmental
lobbyists, the Federal Minister
for Primary Industry describes
Australian land degradation as
"extremely severe and costly."
The annual report of the
Queensland D.P.I. refers to the fact
that "land resources in Queensland
are being rapidly and permanently
degraded.'' Perhaps it is none too
soon for the concept of land rights to
move from black consciousness to
white consciousness of our madland
relations.
The National Conservation
Strategy aims to marry the goals of
conservation and develo~ment in a
cational land use planning
framework which will support a
sustainable society. This entails
adopting long-term goals in
development and resource allocation,
to maintain options for the future
and increase productivity of the land.
Few people realise that Australia
has no national goals, no development
plan, no visionary image of the
nation's future. Such plans require
value judgements and commitment to
on-going paths of action aimed at
balanced use of resources. This
requires that conservation of land
resources be regarded as an
integrated segment of our production
systems and not simply as an optional
extra which is included if
economically acceptable.
Individual freedom and
the public interest
The early stages of settlement were
not characterised by land use
conflicts but as new lands became
scarce and competition for resources
and space became more serious, more
serious thought was given to the
relative merits of alternative claims
on the land for different uses. Today
the reconciliation of individual rights
and the common good (or public
interest) has become the fundamental
element of the land degradation
debate.
For the first time in Australia's
history, the community at large is
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starting to make it known to farmers
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and graziers, that their impact on the 1
land is the concern of all Australians. i
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As yet, there has been little evidence
that the taxpayers are willing to /
support landholders in their steward-
1
ship role.
The community expectation that
producers will act as genuine trustees
must be based on the assumption that
the individual landholder is motivated
by education, incentives or
regulations. The statement that land
degradation has been caused by need,
greed or ignorance, was warranted in
the past.
Today, extension services aim to
overcome the ignorance problem,
financial policy should aim to
neutralise the need, and regulations
can ensure that greed does not
disadvantage later users.
In the extensive grar~ ng region such
as the mulga lands of western
Queensland, there has JI ways been a
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THE AUSTRALIAN CONSERVATION FARMER PAGE 7