Land Use in Australia Past, Present and Future
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LAND USE IN AUSTRALIA PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE LAND USE IN AUSTRALIA PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE EDITED BY RICHARD THACKWAY Published by ANU eView The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at press.anu.edu.au A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia ISBN(s): 9781921934414 (print) 9781921934421 (eBook) This title is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). The full licence terms are available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ legalcode Cover design and layout by ANU Press. Cover photograph: Sunset by Ed Dunens, flic.kr/p/qUTrRt. This edition © 2018 ANU eView Contents Dedication: Robert George Lesslie . vii Foreword . ix Henry Nix AO Acknowledgements . xi Contributors . xiii Glossary of Terms . xxv Introduction . 1 Richard Thackway Part 1 – The Past and Current Situation 1 . Australian Land Use Policy and Planning: The Challenges . 11 Richard Thackway 2 . A Retrospective: The Influence of Rob Lesslie—Landscape Scientist, Geographer and Natural Resources Land Use Planner . .. 17 Richard Thackway 3 . Reprint: Land Use and Management—The Australian Context . 31 Rob Lesslie and Jodie Mewett 4 . Does Public Policy Obey Data, Information and Maps? . 59 Stephen Dovers Part 2 – Ad Hoc or Strategic Responses 5 . Addressing a Lost Opportunity: Towards Science-Informed Land Use Planning . 71 Darryl Low Choy 6 . Responding to Land Use Pressures: A State and Territory Perspective . 85 Richard W . Hicks 7 . Balancing Land Use Trade-Offs: The Role of Wilderness in Nature Conservation . 107 Jason Irving 8 . The Impacts of Land Use Change on Biodiversity in Australia . 115 John Neldner Part 3 – Working to Achieve National Coordination 9 . National Coordination of Data and Information to Inform Land Use Policies and Programs: The Recent Past, the Present and Ideas for the Future . 129 Richard Thackway 10 . Understanding Soil Change: Institutional Requirements to Ensure Australia’s National Preparedness . 145 Neil McKenzie Part 4 – Social and Natural Drivers of Change 11 . Environmental Conflict: Engaging with Scientific Information and Community Activism . 169 Jacki Schirmer 12 . The Role and Importance of Coordinated Land Information to Support Landscape Connectivity Initiatives . 181 Gary Howling and Ian Pulsford 13 . Monitoring and Reporting Land Use Change and Its Effects on the Queensland Environment . 203 Paul Lawrence, Craig Shephard, Phillip Norman, Christina Jones and Christian Witte 14 . Down Payments on National Environmental Accounts . .. 217 Michael Vardon, John Ovington, Valdis Juskevics, John Purcell and Mark Eigenraam 15 . Elephants in the Kitchen: Responding to the Challenge of Rapidly Changing Climate and Land Use . 241 Brendan Mackey Part 5 – Visions for the Future 16 . The Future for Land Use Mapping: National E-Infrastructure, Modelling Analytics, Synthesis and Securing Institutional Capacity . 253 Tim Clancy, Brett A . Bryan and Siddeswara M . Guru 17 . Land Use Planning as a Collective Learning Spiral: The Case of Regenerative Landscape Policy and Practice . 263 Richard Thackway, Valerie A . Brown, David Marsh and John A . Harris Appendix: Index of publications by Dr Rob Lesslie . 279 Dedication: Robert George Lesslie This book is dedicated to the memory of Rob Lesslie, who sadly died in March 2014. This volume honours Rob’s academic contributions and his national influence more generally in land use and management, wilderness protection and the conservation of biodiversity. It is the material legacy of a collaboration that began at the completion of a national land use symposium that was held in June 2015 in his honour, ‘Informing Australian land use policy and planning: Past, present and future’. Rob was a leading Australian geographer and ecologist whose working career spanned more than 30 years in natural resources evaluation and land use and land management in government, education and the private sector. Throughout his career, he published numerous book chapters, journal papers and many technical reports. Rob’s impact, however, went well beyond this: he was significantly involved in some of the most pressing natural resource management policies throughout his extensive career. Rob played a significant role in several initiatives: shaping the Australia China Environment Development Partnership (ACEDP), developing the scientific framework for the WildCountry project and initiating the development and ongoing enhancements and applications of the Multi-Criteria Analysis Shell for Spatial Decision Support. Rob was also the driving force between the establishment of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) and the Chinese Forestry Economics and Development Research Centre to support future cooperative research. Rob was instrumental in developing and delivering the Australian Government’s National Wilderness Inventory program (1986–96) and more recently led an advisory team that developed legislation for vii LAND USE IN AUSTRALIA wilderness protection in South Australia, the Wilderness Protection Act 1992. Currently some 1.8 million hectares of wilderness in South Australia is protected under the Act as a result of a state-wide assessment based on Rob’s work. Over many years, Rob also made major contributions to the classification and mapping of land use, land management regimes and vegetation condition. Information derived from these frameworks and assessments continue to influence decision-makers at national, state and regional levels in the areas of policy formulation, natural resource management and conservation. These endeavours reflect his abiding interest, passion and dedication to the environment—his life’s purpose, really. Rob’s generosity and commitment are exemplified through the enduring Lesslie Endowment, which supports research and other activities through The Australian National University (ANU) to promote long- term sustainable management and conservation of Australia’s national landscapes and ecosystems. The endowment provides support for research grants, scholarships, fellowships, prizes, public seminars and workshops. viii Foreword Henry Nix AO The untimely death of Dr Robert ‘Rob’ Lesslie was the catalyst for the enormous effort that went into the planning and development of this symposium. Rob was a key contributor to both the science and practical application of land use policy and planning, and natural resource management and conservation. While the states and territories have the primary responsibility for sustaining our natural endowment— land, water and life—most of our serious problems transcend these artificial boundaries. A national continental-scale overview then becomes a necessity; here, the Australian Government has a key role in building geographic information systems that inform and support natural resource management. Securing nationwide agreement among all three levels of government was never going to be easy. Rob was not only a good scientist, but also a key member of the negotiating teams that overcame initial interagency suspicion, disagreement, reluctance and opposition. Always enthusiastic, his calm, friendly and professional approach yielded results that were evident in many of the papers presented at the symposium, and in the reports of the panel discussions and plenary conclusions. Australia is a world leader in the development and application of geographic information systems that provide a foundation for land use policy and planning; however, the take-up in all levels of governance has been erratic and variable. Why is this so? This question provoked a number of responses from contributors and a number of possible explanations and solutions. Inevitably, there are time delays in any organisation in the development and understanding of new technology and its application. Thus, senior management will have to contend with e-infrastructure, high-performance computing, mass-data storage and modelling analysis if we are to move forward. ix LAND USE IN AUSTRALIA Land use planning has never been widely popular in democracies, as it is seen to impinge on the rights of the individual. However, a shift from rights to responsibilities is long overdue. There is evidence of some progress at all levels of resource management, ranging from the three levels of governance and corporations to the individual landholder. We do have some exemplars that provide a guide to the new world beyond ‘business as usual’, but time is short and the need is urgent. Our ability to cope with climate disruption will depend on accurate knowledge of the state and condition of our natural resource base. The papers presented at the symposium made it clear that we have the tools; however, these sometimes yield ‘inconvenient truths’ that can become political liabilities. Our political systems must find a way to address these issues and not drown them in obfuscation. The symposium highlighted a wide range of tools and talents and ended on a positive note for the future. However, in March 2016, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) announced a whole-scale demolition of climate, land and water research teams, demonstrating a lack of understanding of the need to monitor the state and condition of our natural resource endowment to achieve sustainable resource management. x Acknowledgements There are many