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

exclusive right to use the land, neither more nor less than
that. We are the custodians of the land. The land is not for
sale, it belongs to po~terity.~~
We have already considered lessons not learnt from world
history. In the Great Southland we have learnt the hard way
and Nature has. paid our educational . costs. It is worth
identifying and summarizing the key points of our lessons and
of our present dependence on land in Australia:
1. Australia's economy is primarily dependent on agriculture
and mining.
2. Agriculture is dependent on the maintenance of soil
productivity.
3. Soil productivity is declining as a result of erosion and
salinity in both cultivated and pastoral regions.
4 . The economic significance of land degradation is such as
to make it Australia's most important environmental
issue.
5. Despite decades of organised soil conservation activity
in most States, erosion is increasing rather than
decreasing.
6. The national erosion survey of 1978 indicates that soil
erosion in certain States has reached disaster
proportions.
7. Economic studies indicate that early preventative action
is able to control erosion at relatively low cost.
& 8. Analysis of the land degradation problem indicates that
.. * the--- solutions lie in three areas : financial assistance,
regulatory -policy and attitudinal education.
9. Experience in the extension field indicates that positive
financial incentives and negative legal incentives have
limited effectiveness.in.the long term.
10. All indications are that without attitudinal chanae
through education, little can be achieved in combattiGg
land degradation.
11. Research on present attitudes toward erosion and salinity
indicates that the significance of the problem is totally
under-rated by a large majority of the rural and urban
population.
I