Environmental Management

In an effort to achieve sustainable Natural Resource Management (NRM), the Commonwealth and State governments have moved to a regional focus for their major funding programs. This approach was driven by the belief that previous arrangements had been unable to achieve the required amount of change at the appropriate landscape scale and that state ....

In support of RUN’s commitment to strengthening the contributions of member universities to regional development, the Network commissioned a study to investigate the full scope of the member universities' engagement with their regions and associated contributions, including social, cultural, environmental and economic aspects. Report Location ....

The design of regulations to mitigate environmental externalities poses numerous challenges, including risk and uncertainty, information asymmetries, and complex and heterogeneous ecosystems. This research addresses a subset of these challenges within three distinct contexts: (1) agricultural production, (2) urban sprawl, and (3) exhaus ....

This report card summarises our current knowledge of the status and trend in the natural resource base in the agricultural areas of south-west of Western Australia and provides a discussion of the implications for agricultural industries. The condition of our natural resources is a complex interaction of numerous processes. In simple terms howev ....

This report updates changes in the Western Australian pastoral rangelands at the Land Conservation District (LCD) scale, providing information on seasonal quality, stock numbers and changes in the density/frequency of perennial shrubs and grasses. It is based on data from the Bureau of Meteorology, the Annual return of livestock and improvements ....

The Australian government has developed a range of programs to encourage sustainable agriculture and protect Australia’s natural resources. These programs include the National Landcare Program, the Natural Heritage Trust and, more recently, the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality. The 2001-02 resource management survey was de ....

As remnant vegetation covers <15% of the Australian sheep-wheat belt, it is important to identify conservation strategies suitable for use in agricultural landscapes. Tree lines are widespread ecological structures in rural areas, and are now the subject of government subsidy schemes in New South Wales. However, the contribution of tree lines ....

Revegetation is an important and urgent issue in natural resources management in Australia, and there is a growing awareness of the need for extensive revegetation to counter environmental problems arising from the loss of native vegetation, including the decline in biodiversity. This guide is the culmination of a project to identi ....

This paper examines the role of local institutions in supporting climate change adaptation action from a public policy perspective. While certain adaptation actions will provide public benefits, many others will offer private benefits. The paper argues that adaptation investments and assigning the adaptation responsibility across various actors s ....

What is a healthy community? In addressing this question the author argues that a healthy community is one that grows in a sustainable and equitable way and that the core issue is how to manage change in relation to landscape, employment and population in rural and remote communities. Issues which should constitute an agenda for a ....

A national forum, convened by the Department of Primary Industries Victoria, was held at Rutherglen on 20-21 July 2005. The purpose of the forum was to capture new knowledge and explore engagement strategies and capacity-building opportunities for the small lifestyle farm sector. The papers from the forum included here are: Engagin ....

The Rural Towns-Liquid Assets project is a multi-disciplinary, collaborative project that aims to provide an integrated water management solution for salinity in sixteen priority Western Australian Wheatbelt towns. A key aim of the research is to ensure that water management options are tailored to meet the specific social, economi ....

Many nations claim to be pursuing a ‘green growth' model in response to global economic and climate crises including ambitious green jobs projections. The rural dimension of this issue requires closer attention. This article draws on secondary sources and Australian Bureau of Statistics data to critically analyse green jobs projections based on ....

Grazing experiments are usually used to quantify and demonstrate the biophysical impact of grazing strategies, with the Wambiana grazing experiment being one of the longest running such experiments in northern Australia. Previous economic analyses of this experiment suggest that there is a major advantage in stocking at a fixed, moderate stocking ....