Australia’s Natural Resources - building a landscape based and integrated approach to natural resources management

Australia is a unique complex of land, water and biodiversity resources. Australia has progressively doubled biological productivity from its landscapes in the 200 years since European settlement. Australia recognises that information is the currency for implementing sustainable development and has embarked on an integrated program of natural resources data collection and assessment through a partnership across Government, industry and community and coordinated by the National Land and Water Resources Audit. The key components of this approach include: • assessment, understanding the status and trends in condition of Australia’s natural resources; • knowledge brokering, translating information into priorities and actions at scales from local to national; • monitoring, tracking changes in condition and use and encompassing water use, quality and quantity; soil properties and health; nutrient balance and budgets; land use; biodiversity, terrestrial, river and estuary; and management practice, all agricultural industries; • resource accounting, integrating social, economic and biophysical components of natural resource management; • communication, providing reports and access to assessments, including Australia’s Natural Resources Atlas – www.environment.gov.au/atlas; and • data management, maximising returns on investment in all natural resources data collection. This paper summarises Australia’s integrated approach to natural resource management and by way of four applications, demonstrates the role and efficiencies of an integrated, spatial and landscape based approach to monitoring and assessing natural resources. Australia’s approach to natural resource management Responsibility for natural resource management in Australia is increasingly being delegated to regional and local groups and managers. People are being encouraged and empowered to participate in the design and implementation of innovative solutions based on local knowledge and experience within their own catchments. An all encompassing community-driven approach involving encouragement, partnerships and local commitment is being given much greater emphasis than the externally driven regulatory approach. The key ingredients for natural resource management in Australia are: • multi-faceted approaches across disciplines and issues; NIJOS rapport 7/2003 ______________________________________________________________________ 82 NIJOS/OECD Expert Meeting Agricultural Landscape Indicators Oslo October 2002 NIJOS rapport 7/2003 83 • planning based on regions of common or linked management interests; • spatial assessment and management frameworks considering available data, scale of management responses and the ‘total’ system for example catchments, bioregions, groundwater flow system, landscape / land system units; • partnerships wide ranging partnerships, across industries, government, science and community groups; • commitment facilitation, resources and commitment provided by local, State and Commonwealth governments; • shared vision a shared vision for the region, recognising trade-offs between competing social, economic and environmental demands; • solutions focus pragmatic and solution-orientated activities, making best use of, often incomplete, data and scientific understanding; • cost-effective emphasis on key components where improvement can be achieved, based on an analysis of costs, benefits and likely return on investment of various opportunities; and • opportunistic identifying key management opportunities, promoting common property resource stewardship and protective management of ecosystems in natural condition These ingredients apply equally to information provision. Information based on readily accessible data, sound and underpinning science and monitoring and evaluation of programs and their outcomes are all crucial to the success of any natural resource management program. Information needed to support these components establishes the client base for developing and managing Australia’s natural resources data collection, and its collation and assessment to provide information. It generates an imperative for strategic investment in these activities. The information must be based on rigorously collected data. It will assist managers to better understand the ecosystems within which they are working, and for which they are responsible. Sound data allows changes in resource condition to be tracked and policy and management initiatives evaluated, an essential basis for continuous improvement and to show with certainty the extent of any benefits from investment in natural resource management programs. Information is one of four key components identified for natural resource management, the others being partnerships, property rights and incentives (John Anderson, MP Deputy Prime Minister, ABARE Outlook Conference, March 7 2002). Information a key ingredient for landscape scale assessment and management in Australia Information underpins and provides the context for: • policy development particularly at State and Australia-wide scales, such as the development of the Council of Australian Governments water allocation and management arrangements; • understanding building an ethos of sustainable natural resource management behaviour and stewardship across all sectors of the Australian community • planning especially regional planning as a way to engage community, industries and government in natural resource management partnerships; • decision-making evidence-based and using information collated from data sets at scales from local and specific, such as with water licence approvals, through to regional and national, such as assessment under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act; • investment establishing priorities and setting targets; • program implementation monitoring progress and finetuning delivery of major programs; and • making improvements in management and practice, developing and implementing through industry, community and agency partnerships activities such as sustainable and productive NIJOS/OECD Expert Meeting Agricultural Landscape Indicators Oslo October 2002 NIJOS rapport 7/2003 84 farming systems, ecologically appropriate fire regimes and pollution minimising waste treatment systems. To generate information a structured approach is essential. The Audit has applied a set of key principles for the delivery of information. These are: Principle 1: Collect data spatially referenced and at as finer scale as feasible within the bounds of client needs, applications and costs of data collection. Principle 2: Maintain the richness of fine scale data sets and when aggregating with broader scale data sets to provide regional or national coverages, ensure that these collations still preserve and permit user interrogation at the finer scale. Principle 3: For all data sets, critically evaluate and document their appropriateness and validity, listing constraints to their use and levels of reliability. Principle 4: In determining attributes on which to collect data, make sure the attributes inform management and as much as possible, relate to cause rather than end impact. Principle 5: Information, being a collation and aggregation across data sets, is done within those spatial boundaries most appropriate to management responses. These boundaries might describe ecosystems, bioregions, , river reaches, catchments or administrative units as appropriate to client applications. Principle 6: Information products must meet various and often differing client needs and therefore their provision is often better done electronically within internet Atlas “make a map” environments. An example of this systems based approach to collecting and analysing data is provided in Figure 1, detailing how terrestrial river and estuary attributes are combined to build a catchment based understanding of resource condition and management opportunities.