Government resources
Dan Daly, an officer of the Department of Primary Industries, compiled this critique of drought policy after being transferred to the Department’s Drought Secretariat. Qualified originally in agriculture and latterly in economics, his analysis was inconsistent with the conventional wisdom of the day.
” The potential for a drought begins on the first day after rain. As dry day follows dry day, the possibility of a drought developing increases. It can become difficult to distinguish
between ‘normal weather’ and ‘drought’. The distinction between what is normal and what is not blurs with each passing day.”
Society President Charles Nason was acquainted with Dan Daly. “Dan Daly was brave enough to speak out about his concerns about drought subsidies , was stood down as a result… It took a brave man to speak up in Qld those days.”
Mr Day was removed from the Secretariat in 1989 and his analysis came to an end. The book was published in 1994.
Related Images:
This 176-page report (21 MB) summarises an eight-year program of pre-competitive gathering of geoscience information, by Geoscience Australia, completed in 2024.
The concept of public funding of pre-competitive, pre-project assessment of natural resources is a thoroughly respectable one as it produces information of benefit to a wide range of potential users including public authorities, local government, commercial firms and civic groups. It draws a distinction between general public information about Australia’s landscapes and information that a particular applicant for development approval needs to commission to justify their particular project. Too often the information that applicants gather is locked behind commercial paywalls or is not made public online.
It’s a feature of Geoscience Australia that the information it produces is of particular benefit to the fossil fuel industry (along with other mining companies), and turns up as a gift from the taxpayer to the fossil fuel companies.
The program was explained in a factsheet dated approximately 2016.
Related Images:
From c.1995-2006 the Department of Natural Resources published a series of Resource Planning Guidelines that are no longer readily accessible . Some of these documents have enduring value, though legislation and policy has in many cases changed substantially since then. These papers are copyright to the Queensland Government. The Australian Web Archive has captured the set of published guidelines as they stood at August 2004: Resource Planning Guidelines in Trove.
Some titles are re-presented here:
B1-The Nature of Land Planning. 1998. This paper explains that land resources need to be planned to ensure that they are used sustainably.
B2-Allocation, Regulation and Management: Three Approaches to Resource Sustainability. 2002. This paper outlines a conceptual framework for understanding how land in Queensland is administered.
C5-Translating NRM Planning Between the Regional and Property Scales, 2004. Conceptualises the procedures for land-use planning.
E3 Strategic Data Capture Plan, 2004. A list of the data sets required to form prudent decisions about the use of land and natural resources, with explanations. See post “Condition and Trend“.
E51 Benefit/Cost of Land Resource Assessment: The Leichhardt Downs (Burdekin) Study, 2005. An economic analysis of the value of coordinated land resource assessment, demonstrating a benefit cost ratio of more than 50 to 1, primarily on account of avoided errors.
F9 Determining Most Appropriate Use, 2005. This paper explains the principles to apply in evaluating an area of land to determine its ‘most appropriate use’. Although this exercise is best known as part of the process of allocating State land (see s.16 of the Land Act 1994), the concepts can usefully be applied during other procedures such as writing reserve management plans or designating land in planning schemes; and for resources other than land.
G100 Implementing Natural Resource Management Plans: Ensuring that something happens, 2004. Explains property rights, tools for achieving conservation and NRM, constituting a coordinating body. A good read for members and staff of NRM and landcare groups. This paper consolidates a few themes covered in previous Guidelines. The repetition was deliberate, so that each paper would stand on its own.
E31 Assessing, Evaluating and Protecting Land as Open Space, 1999. This paper explains how to assess and evaluate the open space attributes of a parcel of land or a group of parcels. It also explains how to weigh up the need to apply protective mechanisms. It examines the meaning of ‘regional’ as differentiated from ‘local’ open space.
Related Images:
Context
For an introduction to ACRIS, see the QSN parent page https://scienceqld.org/2023/11/20/condition-and-trend/.
For its contemporary website (as at 3 October 2021), see Reporting Change in the Rangelands.
This official website states that “Extreme climatic variability in the rangelands makes it difficult to separate change resulting from seasonal climate variation from that driven by human activities. New ground in documenting change and its causes has been broken by the creation of the Australian Collaborative Rangeland Information System (ACRIS), which was first mooted in the 2001 report, Tracking Changes in the Rangelands. The ACRIS represents a new and important contribution to rangeland management and capacity to monitor change through scientifically rigorous data and information.”
This information system has not been active for several years and is not readily available. The DCCEEW rangelands/ACRIS website was last updated on 10 October 2021. Given governments’ piecemeal approaches to the management of rangelands, being manifestly inadequate given the wide-ranging implications of climate change, there is still a powerful need for an extensive rangeland information system.
The ABC published an informative story in 2014: “Acris-rangelands-funding-cut” (live link) or captured version (PDF). It ought to be a public scandal that tools like this suffer budget cuts. However, by that date, some immensely valuable reports had been produced.
ACRIS report 2001: Rangelands – Tracking Changes
175+ page Rangelands – Tracking Changes, September 2001. Bib ID: 419563 Call Number: NMT 4566 ISBN: 0642371148
QSN thanks the National Library of Australia for unearthing this significant document. This material has been provided pursuant to section 49 of the Copyright Act 1968 for the purpose of research or study. The Library has advised that this work is under copyright. No part may be reproduced by any process without the written permission of the Commonwealth of Australia.
Note: As the original file is 283 MB, it has been split into several parts and “optimised” with some loss of crispness. QSN holds a copy of the original file and this can be made available on request.
Summary (2.6 MB)
Pages 1-50, 38 MB (actual pages front cover-34)
Pages 50-100, 49 MB (actual pages numbers 34-84)
Pages 100-150, 43 MB (actual pages numbers 84-134)
Pages 150-196, 29 MB (actual pages numbers 134-175+)
Readme file accompanying the Rangelands Monitoring CD.
ACRIS report 2013: Reporting Change in the Rangelands
The Australian Collaborative Rangelands Information System (ACRIS): Reporting Change in the Rangelands. 2013.
Rangelands: The Heart of Australia – Main report
Reporting Change in the Rangelands – 2007 – WA Information for the National Report
Reporting Change in the Rangelands – 2007 – NT Information for the National Report
Related Images:
QASSMAC was a multilateral advisory committee animated by the soil scientists within the Department of Natural Resources. It set out to improve the management of these naturally occurring high risk soils. The State Planning Policy was identified as one of the main regulatory tools available. An early document was QASSMAC Acid Sulfate Soils Management Strategy for Queensland, April 1999.
State Planning Policy 2/02 Planning and Managing Development Involving Acid Sulfate Soils, November 2002.
SPP 2/02 Guideline: Planning and Managing Development Involving Acid Sulfate Soils, August 2002.
SPP 2/02 Checklist Form for Acid Sulfate Soils, June 2004. This was a precursor to Resource Planning Guideline E74: Checklist for Lodging Applications: Acid Sulphate Soils, March 2005.
General Information Required to Assist Assessment of Development Proposals
Involving Acid Sulfate Soils, June 2004. This was a precursor to Resource Planning Guideline E11, Referral Information Generally Required on Acid Sulphate Soil Matters, May 2005.
(Editorial footnote: Australian English uses the ph spelling for “sulphur” and its derivatives, but the scientific community has standardised on “sulfur”, so the scientists won over the policy officers when a new State Planning Policy on the prevention of damage from disturbing potential acid sulphate soils was formulated).
Related Images:
Town planning legislation in the early 1990s (the Local Government (Planning and Environment) Act 1990) provided that the State Government could promulgate “statements of planning policy” which local governments as the local planning authorities would be obliged to incorporate into their planning schemes and development decisions. The first such instrument (which by s.1A.2 had the status of subordinate legislation) was aimed at protecting “Good Quality Agricultural Land”. This page revives a number of documents dating from 1992 on the subject.
First came a non-statutory “Planning Bulletin” in 1991. A great push came from the sugar millers concerned about the viability of the processing facilities due to declining acreages growing cane and the risk of falling below the threshold supply needed to sustain a profitable mill. In the friable vegetable-growing soils of Redlands, damage had already been done through existing subdivision policies that allowed for the creation of small 4 ha farms for strawberry growing. This size was admirably suited for rural residential housing so the inevitable happened.
State Planning Policy 1/92 Development and the Conservation of Agricultural Land. The policy was later supplemented by Planning Guidelines: The Identification of Good Quality Agricultural Land, January 1993 and Planning Guidelines: Separating Agricultural and Residential Land Uses, August 1997.
Land Planning Guideline E62 The Protection of Good Quality Agricultural Land, April 1998 – An internal procedural paper that was distributed to departmental staff but not brought to finality (evidence is the incomplete pagination).
Protecting Queensland’s strategic cropping land: A policy framework, August 2010.
After the Newman government came to power in 2012, it abolished the State Planning Policies. However, while the original SPP1/92 lapsed in 2012, the same principles were carried forward into the agricultural land component of the replacement generic SPP and have been incorporated into each planning scheme.
Guidelines for Agricultural Land Evaluation in Queensland, December 2015.
State Planning Policy July 2017, the consolidated policy of that period.
See also the dedicated page on coal seam gas and agricultural land.
A 5-page leaflet by Bill Thompson of LRAM consultants dated March 2012, shortly after the promulgation of the Strategic Cropping Land legislation, explains the history of the GQAL and SCL regulatory regimes (categories of cropping land).
Related Images:
This page accesses the findings of several programs aimed at capturing knowledge about the condition and trend of Queensland and Australia. However, for policy documents such as the Draft National Rangelands Strategy, see the website of The Royal Society of Queensland.
Here we will link documents published under the historical programs of the National Land and Water Resources Audit (NLWRA), the Australian Collaborative Rangelands Information System (ACRIS) and the Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment (ATBA), along with a contemporary program GEOGLAM. These studies are/were Australia-wide. QSN is hosting the materials on this Queensland site to secure their availability to the world, and because a member of a member body (The Royal Society of Queensland) was instrumental in establishing these initiatives.
Queensland
In 2004-5, the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines published three reports assessing the adequacy of natural resource information in the State. In graphic form, see this map of the datasets.
Natural Resource Foundation Data Capture to Support the Reef Water Quality Protection Plan, by Adrian Webb, 2004.
Natural Resource Foundation Data Analysis for Murray-Darling Basin, Lake Eyre Basin and Gulf Rivers Catchment, M.A. Sugars and P.R. Wilson, 2005.
Natural Resource Foundation Data Analysis for South East Queensland, M.A. Sugars and P.R. Wilson, 2005.
Australia
Lead author Col Creighton explained the origins and content of the NLWRA and Atlas to a meeting of the national Arid Lands Administrators’ Conference at Emerald, Queensland, 7-9 August 2002.
NLWRA (National Land and Water Resources Audit)
The invaluable resource of the National Land and Water Resources Audit can be explored via the web archive of Trove. The headline page captured on 20 July 2008 https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20080719224451/http://www.environment.gov.au/land/nlwra/index.html explains that it was funded by the Natural Heritage Trust . It was set up in 1997 to improve land, water and vegetation management by providing better information to resource managers.
The captured page National Land and Water Resources Audit Web Site indexes some of the descriptive information and analytical knowledge released by July 2008.
The Australian Natural Resources Atlas Australian Natural Resources Atlas was the web-based community interface to the information prepared by the Audit. It provided an extensive range of information across the seven key subjects. It was the repository of the entire suite of Audit outputs.
The rangelands-specific information has been re-published on QSN headline page: https://www.nlwra.scienceqld.org/.
In a separate QSN post, the waste and lost opportunity imposed upon scientists and the community generally by the closure of the Audit and related initiatives has been noted by the two principal Queensland-based leaders of the Audit initiative.
ACRIS
The rangelands-specific Australian Collaborative Rangelands Information System (ACRIS) derived from a proposal by the National Land and Water Resources Audit. Read more in a separate QSN post https://scienceqld.org/2024/07/05/2877/.
ATBA (Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment)
The NLWR Audit also initiated the Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment, as one of a series of assessments of natural resources under the umbrella title of Australian Natural Resources Atlas. Read more in a separate QSN post https://scienceqld.org/2023/11/16/biodiversity-asst-2002/.
GEOGLAM program
Around 2018 CSIRO and its program collaborators launched an interactive map and other tools to provide real time condition and trend data (monthly reporting) – including fractional differentiation of cover into photosynthesising vegetation (PV), non-photosynthesising vegetation (NPV) and bare soil with rangelands firmly in focus. Amazingly, it all launches on an iPhone6s proving that the Data61 hosting addresses access and operability issues of sophisticated systems that are often stymied by many factors (including people refusing to get new technology every couple of years to keep up with ‘security’ etc).
This rangelands-focused toolkit was funded out of the Australian National Landcare Program.
The GEOGLAM RaPP platform keys into user needs at the local level (500m resolution); scalable for global monitoring purposes, providing spatial and other data outputs.
1. Program
https://www.csiro.au/en/research/animals/livestock/RAPP-Map-GEOGLAM
2. Interactive tool here showing spatial extent of fractional cover (monthly) , rainfall (monthly) and a suite of other factors or attributes.
3. Explanatory document Monitoring groundcover: an online tool for Australian regions https://publications.csiro.au/publications/publication/PIcsiro:EP187950 or access the document via the QSN database.
Related Images:
The Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment (ATBA) was a program of the pioneering National Land and Water Resources Audit and was driven by two Queensland scientists, Paul Sattler and Colin Creighton. The Audit ran from 1997 to 2008, but suffered an untimely end, chronicled in an article by David Marlow in volume 124 of the Proceedings of The Royal Society of Queensland.
The Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment 2002 combined the knowledge of State and Territory agencies on biodiversity and its management. It assessed the trend and condition of wetlands, riparian areas, threatened species, threatened ecosystems, birds, mammals and key values associated with eucalypts and acacias across Australia. The report identified threatening processes and conservation issues at a regional scale and made suggestions for improved biodiversity management.
The Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment 2002 has been captured (on 2 June 2011) by the National Library’s web archiving service in Trove:
https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20110602044946/http://www.anra.gov.au/topics//vegetation/pubs/biodiversity/bio_assess_contents.html, published by National Land and Water Biodiversity Audit. ISBN: 0 0642 3713137 7. (Home page was www.nlwra.gov.gov.au). The Age ran an editorial on the subject on 29 April 2003.
The Australian Natural Resources Atlas (ANRA) was developed by the National Land and Water Resources Audit to provide online access to information to support natural resource management.
The data were presented in the Australian Natural Resources Atlas as a series of IBRA (Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation of Australia) maps of bioregions (80 plus) and their subregions (384). These displayed the condition and trend of a series of biodiversity values and threats and their relative importance by a pie diagram superimposed on each subregion. Continental maps of distribution of various aspects were also presented.
The Australian Natural Resources Atlas is not to be confused with the contemporary Atlas of Living Australia, a repository for observational data, and which is no substitute. ATBA drew implications for policy and management from the information gathered.
Paul Sattler OAM, member of The Royal Society of Queensland, has written for QSN:
The Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment was commissioned by the Natural Land and Water Resources Audit and published in 2002. It represented the final report into the condition of a range of natural resources nation-wide.
It was presented in the format of a Summary report and an extensive data base on the Australian Natural Resources Atlas. It was a separate assessment under the NLWRA commissioned by the Minister, Senator Robert Hill, well after the other natural resources were underway.
The total Audit’s worth was in excess of $52 million including all partnerships, a not insignificant investment at the time. It is considered that the biodiversity assessment enjoyed at least $2 million of in-kind support from the states and territories in addition to the $1 million in cash provided by the federal government. The enthusiasm for a nation-wide biodiversity assessment was noteworthy.
Unfortunately, the opportunity for continuation of a program to assess and monitor the on-going condition and trend of Australia’s natural resources was not supported.
The framework to carry out a nation-wide biodiversity assessment within a constrained 12 month timeframe was the newly completed biogeographical classification of Australia by Gethin Morgan and others. The delineation of bioregions with their component sub-regions provided a practical scale to assess the condition and trend of biodiversity and the relative significance of threatening processes. This assessment also included technical contributions by CSIRO and State researchers into evaluating various taxa as examples of how biodiversity values could be further considered. The assessment relied upon the extensive information held by state and territory governments, with much data based on observational records.
Fourteen case studies on how biodiversity planning might be approached at a regional scale were presented. These case studies were stratified across dissimilar bioregions and subregions. Overall, the Audit’s assessment provided a valuable input for natural resource management bodies and local governments to consider in regional planning.
The nation-wide information collected by the Audit’s biodiversity assessment was used extensively in the preparation of the statutory Australian State of Environment reports over two reporting periods.
The Executive Summary (page V) identifies the range of biodiversity elements assessed. In hindsight, the significance of climate change did not receive the attention that it now demands.
Its existence and now ready access presents an opportunity for longitudinal assessment of biodiversity condition and trend at the landscape scale and the relative significance of threatening processes.
The Audit’s Assessment report on terrestrial biodiversity is linked below.
Paul Sattler OAM Co-author
Pages Intro – end are accessible via the Trove website https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20110602154342/http://www.anra.gov.au/topics/vegetation/pubs/biodiversity/bio_assess_audit.html
In PDF format:
Pages 1-29
Pages 30-50
Pages 51-75
Pages 76-104
Pages 105-end.
The data sets are available as a zip file and can be extracted in the form of Microsoft Access database sheets. To come.
The modern ABARES data repository via https://data.gov.au/dataset/ds-dga-d27ddf97-b437-451d-8b52-3079d44fae6a/ records datasets on this subject, but the direct link to ATBA seems broken.
Related Images:
On 30 December 2021, the Minister for Resources, The Hon. Scott Stewart, released the latest SLATS report. This report marks the first release in a new era of SLATS reporting in Queensland, with the program having revised and enhanced its methods and technologies. The media statement can be read here: https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/94205
The fully-online reports, which include the 2018 woody extent baseline report and the first change report using the new monitoring methods, the 2018-19 report, can be found here:https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/land/management/mapping/statewide-monitoring/slats/slats-reports
More information about SLATS, its revised and enhanced methods, and where to access SLATS spatial data and data summaries, can be accessed by navigating to the relevant locations from the SLATS parent page: https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/land/management/mapping/statewide-monitoring/slats
The Queensland Herbarium’s Spatial BioCondition mapping framework which was also part of the program enhancements aimed to deliver mapping outcomes in 2022. More information can be found here: https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/plants-animals/biodiversity/biocondition
Vegetation mapping – State coverage complete (superseded by the above section)
On 30 May 2017 then Science Minister Leanne Enoch announced completion of the mapping of Queensland’s vegetation types – “Version 10.0 of the Regional Ecosystems mapping” – after a scientific initiative extending over 28 years. Natural resource mapping is an input to the planning of a wide range of public sector, business and civil society projects. The value of information of this kind ripples through the economy in many more ways than simply supporting conservation planning.
Congratulations are due to a number of public-spirited scientists from a range of disciplines for investing their time and skills in this project; and to successive Queensland Governments for allowing them the budgets and intellectual space to fulfil this mission. Royal Society of Queensland Member and Past President Paul Sattler OAM has written of the origin of the regional ecosystem program in his memoirs, published on the Society’s website. Paul as a prime mover of the project was invited to deliver an address at the launch following Ministers Leanne Enoch and Dr Steven Miles – published here.
The Minister also released Queensland’s Regional Ecosystems: Building and maintaining a biodiversity inventory, planning framework and information system for Queensland. https://publications.qld.gov.au/dataset/redd/resource/42657ca4-848f-4d0e-91ab-1b475faa1e7d which documents the history and development of the regional ecosystem biodiversity inventory, planning framework and information system for Queensland.
Also released was Version 3 of the Vegetation of Queensland https://publications.qld.gov.au/dataset/redd/resource/78209e74-c7f2-4589-90c1-c33188359086 and version 4 of the Methodology https://publications.qld.gov.au/dataset/redd/resource/6dee78ab-c12c-4692-9842-b7257c2511e4.
A full media explanation is on http://statements.qld.gov.au/Statement/2017/5/30/qld-ecosystems-mapped-and-online-in-worldleading-science-achievement.
Related Images:
This 2000 benchmark publication by the SEQ Regional Strategy Group under the chairmanship of Michael Petter, initiated by Mary-Jane Weld and coordinated by Michelle Evans is divided into three parts.
Part A contains information on strategic direction and provides a context for the guide.
Part B contains information about the four core, and two supporting themes under which specific resources are organised for management purposes. The core themes are biodiversity, water, land, and coasts and seas. The two supporting themes are understanding and involvement, and integrated planning and coordinated management.
Part C, which is closely related to Part B, contains information about the major catchments in the region.
Front cover + Pages 1-18 (13.8 MB)
Pages 19-76 (25.1 MB)
Pages 77-124 (19.8 MB)
Pages 125-160 (16.9 MB)
Rear cover (1.0 MB)