Institutional Response
Institutional Response
Much of Australia's rangelands is under either public or corporate/ownership and administration. Institutional policies have a wide and varied impact on rangeland management. There would be value in the on-going collection of consistent information about institutional operations. Institutional responses to problems arising in the rangelands include:
- change in lease conditions;
- rural assistance schemes;
- drought response;
- nature conservation through declaration of parks, reserves and off park conservation incentives;
- weed and feral animal control programs;
- Indigenous support activities and native title;
- training and skills development (e.g. property management planning); and
- stewardship support including technical advice on fire, stock and vegetation management.
Financial support
Institutional indicators include:
- total expenditure on resource management (care must be taken not to count funding transfers between levels of government more than one time); and
- share of total expenditure allocated for:
- surveys, data collection and monitoring (ideally activities would be distinguished by objective);
- stewardship, nature conservation, and on-ground remedial works (detailed by expenditure on parks and equivalent reserves, Crown lands, off-reserve, defence land and Indigenous land);
- skills development, training and extension work (distinguished by subject matter);
- subsidies and other transfers to private managers for resource management (distinguishing between programs targeting various groups such as pastoralists, Indigenous or other managers); and
- other purposes (e.g. administration of programs).
Each local government and State/Territory and Commonwealth department dealing with resource management in the rangelands would provide annual expenditure data for each region. Data would include documentation on program aims and outputs achieved, and would allow for systematic assessments and comparative analysis to determine return on investment and required changes in emphasis.
Reserve systems
Evaluation of return on investment will be based on specified program policies and outputs. One Commonwealth policy already in place is the development of a Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative reserve system.
Jurisdictions collate reports on protected areas established as part of the National Reserve System Program. The addition of parks and reserves within Australian rangelands to the National Reserve System is one direct measure of progress towards conservation of biodiversity.
- Comprehensiveness. The degree to which the national reserve system encompasses the full range of biological/biophysical diversity and other values as identified by an agreed nationally recognised system of scientific classifications.
- Adequacy. The capability of the national reserve system to maintain biological diversity and ecological patterns and processes and other values, given temporal and spatial perturbations, both natural and human-influenced.
- Representativeness. The extent to which areas selected for inclusion in the national reserve system samples known biological/biopysical diversity and other values.
Further Information
- Rangelands-Tracking Changes final report
- Rangelands-Tracking Changes summary report
- Rangelands-Tracking Changes summary report (11.5mb.pdf)
- The Australian Rangelands Information System Operational Manual Version 1.0 (A. Holm, November) (available October 2001)
- Rangelands Projects and Documents page
"Indicators within a decision framework - social, economic and institutional indicators for sustainable management in the rangelands" report (by Centre for International Economics, Bureau for Rural Sciences, CSIRO & Resource Planning and Management, 2001.)
Link to Map maker to make a map using this information.
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