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

SOME PAST DEVELOPMENTS
The 28 February 1972 saw the formal birth of condition
monitoring in Australia, when an informal condition and Trend
Workshop for 25 participants was held at Alice Springs. The
survivors of that epic meeting have seen monitoring techniques
come of age despite the many unanswered questions and
intangibles in that grey zone between the science and art of
range management.
The STARC model of Lendon and Lammercraft (1976) was a serious
attempt to develop a homegrown Australian system of monitoring
at the time when satellite imagery was coming into use in the
arid zone (Graetz et al., 1976; Foran and ~ellier, 1980).
Despite efforts to re-define assessment concepts, eg
cunningham (1976), each organization still tends to use its
preferred concepts and definitions. The attempt to develop
the LIBRIS system for application in range monitoring (Graetz
et al., 1983) was an important initiative in assessment
methodology.
Western Australian scientists have made a major contribution
toward the development of a nationally accepted monitoring
system. The system widely known as WARMS has developed from
the original efforts of Carneggie, Wilcock and Hacker in 1970
using aerial photography (~arneggie et al, 1971). The on-site
photographic records (Morrissey, 1976) were the forerunner of
today's WARMS system (Holm et al, 1987) which is explained in
detail by Hacker at this workshop. At the same time Tongway
and Smith (1989) and Lay (this workshop) have further
developed approaches compatible with WARMS.
The Centralian Range Assessment Manual (CRAM) has gained
general acceptance by most cattle producers in the Centre, as
shown by Basten's report to this workshop.
The challenge to existing assumptions on plant succession and
site selection by Wilson (1984) reflected the growing nonacceptance
of traditional methodologies and gave impetus to a
more objective approach to field sampling. By concentrating
on the soil criteria of condition assessment, pickup (1985)
used-the earlier concepts of Butler (1959) to interpret both
condition and trend from the Iterosion cellv1 concept. This was
followed by the modelling of the effects of grazing on erosion
risk maps as a basis for determining preferred paddock layout
(Pickup and Chewings, 1986). In view of the discontinuities
caused by drought, flood and fire, ~ustralian range assessors
could note Jameson's (1988) contribution on monitoring and
adaptive management in which he refers to llsome extremely
helpful aids in addressing the concept of equilibria (which)
are found in the area of catastrophe theoryq1. Casti (1980)
has combined the concepts of adaptive management and
catastrophe theory, so breaking away from the so-called fixed
schedule systems which have failed so often to provide a
working basis for ecological models. The recurring criticism
of modelling based on poor quantitative data should not
detract from the usefulness of qualitative models in
understanding relationships, especially the effects of