Student: Robyn Bartel

Supervisors: Dr. Joe Leach & Prof. Ian Williamson

Abstract:

The loss of native vegetation is recognized as one of the major causes in the three most important, and for humanity, threatening, areas of global change: the greenhouse effect, loss of biodiversity and land degradation. Although the National Government has international obligations to discharge by its participation in international treaties on Biodiversity and Greenhouse, it is the States who are, by the omission of the Australian Constitution, chiefly responsible for matters concerning the environment. Since 1983 landholders in South Australia have been required to obtain a permit from the centralised Native Vegetation Authority before removing even a single tree. In 1989 Victoria introduced similar controls. Western Australia, Queensland and New South Wales have followed. There is usually considerable administrative discretion allowed, and permits are generally not required for the clearing of smallholdings, or for farm, mine, residential or fire prevention purposes. While the South Australian regime has received great accolades the reduction in clearance in that State is due at least in part to the fact that there is little arable land left to clear. New legislation to stop the high rate (400,000 ha/yr) of clearance in Queensland remains deadlocked (over compensation funds) between the Commonwealth and State governments. Since the enactment of the New South Wales Native Vegetation Conservation Act (1997) there has not been a single prosecution for illegal clearance although there have been numerous transgressions. Instead of legal action, the government offers immunity for revegetation. While revegetated areas may offset land degradation and greenhouse emissions, the ecological integrity of new plantings is unlikely to attain the status of the destroyed remnants. The importance of remnants in an evolutionary sense has recently been given extra weight in an overturning of traditional theories of island succession. Insufficient monitoring and enforcement are problems frequently encountered in the regulatory field in general, perhaps because of administrative reluctance to interfere with behaviour which is otherwise beneficial and with people whose electoral and political power is considerable. However, enforcement is considered necessary, even by those who oppose the regulatory approach, to deal with the recalcitrant. For the threat of punishment to operate as a deterrent the probability of detection, capture and prosecution must be high. Broadly, there are two tests for the success of a regulatory regime: the achievement of aims and the compliance. Satellite remote sensing can be used to assess, and assist, in both areas. For example, in several States, permit data is used as a surrogate for clearance data without any independent corroboration. Remote sensing can be used to assess the extent of illegal clearance by matching permit data with land cover change over time. Remote sensing is presently employed in the monitoring of land cover change for purely scientific data collection purposes but is under-utilised in the regulatory field, particularly in the forensic. Law and policy "gains" can not be viewed as endpoints in themselves. An assessment of the success of regulatory approaches to land clearance is long overdue, if the aims of the regulations are to be ultimately achieved. Although broadly successful in some areas, serious technical and institutional deficiencies exist. Given sub-standard monitoring, the most committed administration may fail, and the deployment of even the most ideal monitoring methods will have little impact on systemic problems.