Australia mulls national funds for salinity - paper
© 2000 Reuters Limited
October 10, 2000
CANBERRA - The Australian government has proposed a national A$900 million plan to tackle Australia's worsening salinity, one of the country's most serious environmental problems, an Australian newspaper said yesterday.
The Australian Financial Review (AFR) said the federal cabinet last week endorsed a report by the prime minister's natural resource management taskforce that called for urgent national action to address salinity problems.
The proposal involves the federal government working with the states and local communities, with the taskforce estimating the commonwealth needs to spend A$500 million over five years while seeking A$400 million from the six states and two territories.
Prime Minister John Howard would write to the state premiers over the next few weeks outlining the government's preferred course of action and seeking their financial support, the newspaper said.
A spokesman from the prime minister's office declined to confirm or deny the newspaper report.
The problems of salinity, which has devastated large tracts of rural Australia and undermined rural economies and hindered agriculture, are scheduled to be discussed at next month's Council of Australian Governments meeting.
The estimated A$900 million proposal is a small amount compared with estimates from the Australian Conservation Foundation and the National Farmers' Federation that up to A$6.5 billion needs to be spent each year for the next decade to repair damage from Australia's salt problem.
Salinity problems have been largely blamed on the use of European farming methods in Australia.
This has involved clearing and draining land to create grasslands which has caused river trenches to sink deeply into the landscape, lowering the fresh water table and dramatically reducing the volume of fresh water in flood plains.
Last month Agriculture Minister Warren Truss unveiled a 15-year strategy to tackle salinity in the Murray-Darling basin which provides 40 percent of Australia's agricultural value.
This incorporated salt interception works, improved irrigation practices, replacing crops with forestry, conserving vegetation, salt harvesting and redesigned farming systems.