Geoff Edwards
As the likelihood of legislation to limit clearing of native vegetation gained public notoriety in the late 1990s, and pre-emptory clearing accelerated, concern by rural landholders in particular about ‘property rights’ intensified. Heated meetings were held around the State. The Department of Natural Resources commissioned two significant consultancies and its own officers produced a significant internal report. These analyses lead to a government decision not to pay ‘compensation’ for newly imposed restrictions (which were of a regulatory and not proprietorial nature), but instead to establish funds for industry adjustment, property management planning and purchase of distressed enterprises.
Institutional Reform in Rural Australia: Defining and Allocating Property Rights, Tony Gleeson and Kirstie Piper, 2002.
Property Rights and Natural Resource Management, Ian Reeve, Institute of Rural Futures, 2002.
The Department’s internal paper was titled as if confined to property in water, but that was an artifact of late-stage internal negotiations; the analysis applies also to land.
In 2002 the Department commissioned eminent planner and lawyer Phil Day to produce an Issues Paper examining the concept of betterment – the taxing of the unlearned increment in value when government decisions and the general advance of a community result in a rising value of land. The paper – Incentives and Disincentives – the Potential of Property Taxes to Reinforce Public Policy Objectives wasn’t published but a copy has fallen from the back of a truck into QSN’s hands.
Maps of land use and land tenure in South-east Queensland:
Public land map – April 2008.
Map plus table.
Land use summary for the SEQ NRM region – June 2014.
In 2014 the Queensland Government published a Discussion Paper envisaging freeholding some of the public land estate. The Queensland Outdoor Recreation Federation (now Outdoors Queensland) commissioned a report titled Underpinning the Foundations of the Four Pillars. Queensland State Land–. A copy of the State’s Discussion Paper Strengthening our economic future has been annotated with detailed comments by QORF’s consultant.
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Professor Hugh Possingham has been awarded one of the global scientific community’s highest honours with his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society.
A world-leading ecologist, Professor Possingham is one of 90 scientific experts from across the world who have been awarded fellowship of the London-based Royal Society this year. He was elected for his contributions to biological diversity and nature conservation, including his role in co-developing a leading conservation planning tool that is used in more than 180 countries.
Professor Possingham is currently a VC Senior Research Fellow in the University of Queensland’s School of the Environment, and he is an Affiliate of both the Centre for Marine Science and the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science. He also served as Queensland’s Chief Scientist from 2020 to 2022.
The Fellowship of the Royal Society is made up of the world’s most eminent scientists,
engineers and technologists. Past Fellows include luminaries such as Isaac Newton, Stephen Hawking, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein.
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There has long been sensitivity by drillers licensed to sink wells for farming and miscellaneous purposes towards drillers engaged on drilling for mining and gas projects and who are not regulated in the same way. This leaflet by the Department and appended article by water bore drillers’ representative Simon Fitzgerald outline the situation.
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Published between 1970 and 1975, this series of black-and-white leaflets was produced by the national Forestry and Timber Bureau.
Leaflets 1 – 42
Leaflets 43 – 100
Leaflets 101 – 150
Leaflets 151 – 191.
Note that this series is a national one. No attempt has been made to extract the Queensland-specific species.
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This undated booklet by Apex Clubs of South Australia and Northern Territory is subtitled An Appeal for Conservation of Flora and Fauna in Australia – primary schools.
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Geography Writing Competition
This is your opportunity to write a short story set in Queensland using imagination, creativity and with a wide interpretation.
Opening date: 21 April 2025
Closing Date: 30 June 2025
This competition is open to all writers, nationally and internationally, at any stage of their writing career.
Find out more and submit entry
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A leaflet published for the dedication ceremony for the University of Queensland in 1909.
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The Australian Flora by John Shirley, a leaflet on behalf of the Education Department. Other works by John Shirley are listed in the State Library’s catalogue with dates of about 1890s -1917.
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F. Manson Bailey‘s Descriptive Catalogue of Queensland’s Grasses, 1899. Yes, his taxonomy has been superseded by botanists in subsequent decades, but his observations on the ability of the pastoral country to take rapid advantage of rain has complete contemporary salience.