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

. Who has the knowledge and information?
. Who must manage the system in practice?
. Who is responsible for maintaining the resources?
. Who benefits from achieving sustainability?
o
Who pays the price for ecological failure?
Ideally the manager espouses community environmental values
and can afford to apply a conservative production system while
making a reasonable income. In practice a range of factors may
prevent this from happening, including:
1. Impractical idealism of the community.
2. Economic pressure on landholders unable to take the long
term view,
Unwillingness of landholders to accept recommendations by
others.
4. Lack of understanding by the landholder of the results of
unsound clearing and overgrazing.
5. Inability of advisors to develop sound and acceptable
clearing guidelines.
6. unwillingness of government to provide appropriate
incentives for sound land management.
The writer suggests that all the above six factors are of
significance in Queensland at present. So what's a fair thing
to ensure that the practical manager is given appropriate
independence of action while guaranteening that the national
soil resource is maintained?
Firstlv a sound set of guidelines on where and how clearing
should be done, must be developed and agreed to by producer
organizations and departmental authorities. This needs to be
qualified for each rainfall and major soil region.
Secondlv an intensive information campaign for landholders on
the dangers of unsound clearing and the principles of
sustainable land use planning must be implemented in all
pastoral regions.
Thirdlv, government must develop a drought assistance policy
which encourages land stewardship by being seen to reward
conservative stocking and the conservation of feed for dry
times .
The Western Australian Situation
In Western Australia the very large scale clearing of
potentially saline sandy soils has caused serious problems and
104 District Soil Conservation Committees have been formed
since 1982 to initiate better land use. These committees are
authorized:
1. To recommend supplementary shire land ratings as a source
for land improvement funds.
To inspect, and recommend on, any proposed clearing.