In two articles in volume 124 of the Proceedings of The Royal Society of Queensland, David Marlow, member of the Society, and Jason Alexandra wrote of the destruction of a number of public agencies and programs dedicated to improving knowledge of the natural environment and resources. In this post we supplement that thoroughly documented account with personal observations by the two primary Queensland-based principals of the National Land and Water Resources Audit. We will add other observations if people with first hand knowledge provide them.

NLWRA

Paul Sattler, Society member, awarded the OAM for services to biodiversity conservation, wrote of his experience:

“I reconvened the original Audit team, including Commonwealth officers, to see how we could build on the first report for a second review, Audit II. We were keen to further quantify assessments where possible, add other components such as soil biota, and to start a process to more empirically assess trend, but there was no Commonwealth support for a comprehensive follow up. This burnt considerable jurisdictional goodwill across the States and Territories. Similarly, Col Creighton’s push for a separate national resource monitoring and assessment body to be permanently established was never acted upon. The National Land and Water Resources Audit program, and then Land and Water Australia, a successful body providing natural resource management advice to rural Australia, were closed down by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forests. Subsequently, the Australian National Reserve System Program was closed down. The waste in setting up and then closing these successful Commonwealth programs was staggering” (Sattler, 2014).

In a personal communication to David Marlow on 28 June 2018, he mused sadlythis on how the successes were wasted and opportunities were squandered:

“The NLWRA’s Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment (ATBA) was a very successful exercise in describing the condition and trend of a number of biodiversity elements across species and ecosystems for each bioregion, in identifying threatening processes, and biodiversity conservation opportunities and priorities for management. Fourteen case studies were also completed across the range of ‘Landscape Health’ scenarios to provide detailed insight into the specific mix of management responses required.

“This experience informed the Humane Society International submission for a new approach in regional planning. Despite significant goodwill by all States and Territories at the time to further expand on the Audit’s work, (it is estimated that the States and Territories contributed an additional $2m on top of the $1m allocated by the Federal government for the ATBA), thefederal government of the day did not show leadership in this regard or accept the Humane Society’s submissions for a new cost-effective approach to regional planning upon which to further roll out the Natural Heritage Trust program and its subsequent incarnations. Today little legacy exists of what was one of Australia’s most expensive environment initiatives at that time.” (Sattler, personal communication to David Marlow on 28 June 2018).

Queenslander Col Creighton, awarded the OAM for “significant service to environmental and natural resource management”, was the manager of the National Land and Water Resources Audit and remembers the highs and bitter lows of the period:

“In Audit 1 we rigorously made sure that data management was to the Australian standard. Much of it via ANZLIC [Australia New Zealand Land Information Council] ended up with nominated custodians, but as to whether these custodians have had the resources to keep data management going…? The proof [of the success of Audit 1] was in the follow-on investment. The National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality plus much of the follow on NHT [Natural Heritage Trust] investment were all based on Audit findings. There was of course an ANAO [Australian National Audit Office] review. The Audit came through according to ANAO as the best single investment of that NHT phase. I used to visit ANAO offices about every three months and we always made sure we were 100% compliant with their standards. As for the demise of Audit 1 – well the agencies that were supposed to build policy off our evidence felt we had too much control. The latest State of Environment Reporting is also still using Audit 1 data – an indictment of the current state of NRM – but then there is NO SENIOR NRM AGENCY. This should be Australia-wide, possibly ABS [Australian Bureau of Statistics], but more usefully perhaps Geoscience Australia). It [NRM] requires a national approach” (Creighton, 2018).

Sattler, P.S. 2014. Five million hectares – a conservation memoir – memoir 1972-2008.

Land and Water Australia

Land & Water Australia was established in 1990 as one of the rural research and development corporations which foster innovation in Australia’s agricultural production systems. Land and Water Australia’s unique charter was to invest in generating and managing new knowledge, focused on the sustainability of Australia’s productive agricultural landscapes. Its portfolio of work over 19 years ranged across the key challenges to both the productivity and sustainability of Australia’s land and water resources.

In May 2009, the Government decided to cease funding Land and Water Australia.

On 10-12 November 2009, Trove captured the LWA website with its extensive archive of knowledge reports.

Regional planning, South East Queensland

Stephen MacDonald, a former manager and land planner in the Queensland Public Service, has listed multiple regressions in the process of regional land use planning in the 2000s. He has compared the modern plan Shaping SEQ Regional Plan with the previous versions:

“The Shaping SEQ Regional Plan (2017) has abandoned critical aspects of regional planning that were key to the previous iterations (2005 and 2009). The matters of most concern to me are the [abandonment of the] Ecosystem Services Framework (Chapter 4.3), NRM Coordination arrangements (linking the NRM plan and institutional arrangements), State of the Region reporting (one of the few truly whole of Government process built into the previous plans), the Outdoor Recreation Strategy, Traditional Owner engagement (DRO 7), and Ecologically Sustainable Development (in DRO 1). The State Planning Policy has disappeared, but it had to have had some authority.

These components were built on consultation and involvement of key stakeholders within Government, local government and NGOS (e.g. SEQ Catchments, Queensland Outdoor Recreation Federation, Parks and Leisure Australia, Landscape Architects, Planning Institute of Australia, Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand, Queensland Conservation Council, Urban Development Institute of Australia, Property Council and many more). The Shaping SEQ approach has abandoned the products of hundreds of hours of consultation and liaison, with no regard to the efforts of the organisations or these individuals who toiled to build consensus and an agreed way forward. In my view, consultation processes would cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars to replicate on a commercial basis. Sadly, the Shaping SEQ model reverts to a ‘planner knows best’ approach which will not work across the diverse interests, expertise or issues confronting the SEQ community or the region.

All this was executed without explanation or reason and at a huge write down (write off) of social capital, expertise and knowledge!

[Note: Desired Regional Outcomes (DROs) establish the principles and policies that must be followed for a regional plan to achieve its vision.]

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