Australia Funds National War Against Salty Lands
© Environment News Service (ENS) 2000
November 9, 2000
By Andrew Darby
CANBERRA, Australia, November 9, 2000 (ENS) - Australia's state and federal governments have embarked on a costly campaign to tackle one of the most destructive scourges of Australis's rural lands: rising salinity.
An $A1.4 billion ($US700 million), salinity fighting fund is to be used over seven years to map and manage salt levels around the country with the goals of preventing, or stablising and starting to reverse, salinity trends.
The fund will be concentrated on 20 degraded water catchments, including the vast Murray-Darling River Basin, which drains much of the southeastern quarter of the continent.
Land clearing and intensive irrigation have led to rising sub-surface water tables and salt levels in the predominantly dry Australia at an increasing pace in recent decades.
Salinity danger areas now ring most of the country, and are commonly visible as saltpans and tree dieback.
At least 2.5 million hectares, or five percent of cultivated land, is currently affected by dryland salinity, according to the Australian Bureau of Rural Science. This could rise to 12 million hectares (22 percent) at the current rate of increase.
The bureau said that one third of Australia's rivers are in extremely poor condition, and dangers to human water supplies are such that even the city of Adelaide would find its drinking water fails World Health Organisation salinity standards in two out of five days.
Land and water degradation is estimated to cost the country up to A$3.5 billion each year.
Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, finally reached agreement with state and territory leaders on dollar for dollar contributions after making significant concessions in talks between them.
He agreed to allow states to count money already allocated to salinity their programs, and he has promised a compensation package for landowners who have been affected by changes to land clearing, and to water use rights.
Howard had to overcome opposition to a national agreement, particularly from the state of Queensland, where there is a high rate of tree clearing for agricultural production. The Queensland premier, Peter Beattie, said the concessions would allow him to toughen controls over tree clearing, and put in place preventative strategies to avoid salinity developing in the first place.
Howard said the money would be applied to practical remedies including protecting and rehabilitating waterways, improvements to native vegetation, engineering works to address salt intrusion and land and water use changes where appropriate.
"No government or community can do the job on its own," he said. "It will require all levels of government, affected communities and individuals working together to achieve the desired outcome.
"This is a truly historic agreement between the Commonwealth and the states to tackle one of the most serious, if not the most serious, environmental difficulties that Australia has. It is only a first step but a very essential one in tackling this problem."
The plan has been welcomed as a landmark decision by conservation and farming groups who are jointly campaigning against rural environmental damage. The Australian Conservation Foundation and National Farmers Federation agreed with Howard that it is an essential first step.
"But let's not underestimate the challenge that lies ahead," said the ACF's president Peter Garrett and NFF's president Ian Donges in a joint statement.
The next task would be to broaden horizons beyond salinity and water quality to include rivers, vegetation and biodiversity, they said.
The two groups released a report earlier this year on the salinity issue, "Repairing the Country." They said $A37 billion ($US18.5 billion) will be required over the next 10 years to deal with the range of enviromental problems facing rural areas.