directions MAKE A COMMENT

opportunities for partnership

Action to address the threats to assets requires strong partnerships. In natural resource management, no one can go it alone. The biophysical landscape connects people and the social landscape – the web of community organisations, government agencies and governance arrangements. Six opportunities need attention over the next five years:

• integration between NRM programs
• planning for sustainability at the local level
• developing sustainable practices
• facilitating innovation in the use and management of water
• engaging the whole Region, and
• investing more in the community-government partnership[18]

11.1 integration between nrm programs

Over the last five years, Supporting Strategies have begun to integrate action across Strategies to address the interrelated causes of environmental degradation. Using the frameworks for assessment of threats to assets, targets and management options developed in this RCS, integration must continue. This should be supported with projects at sub-Regional level specifically chosen to foster integration across agencies and programs, in:

• the Lake Corangamite system
• Lower Barwon River, wetlands and estuary
• gorges in the Leigh and Moorabool catchments
• salinity in the Lakes/Plains & Northern Foothills sub-Region, and the Leigh River Catchment
• ridge-to-ocean Action Plans for the Curdies and Gellibrand River systems, and
• integrated land use and pest animals/ pest plants projects

11.2 planning for sustainability at the local level

Each part of the Region has a distinctive ‘mix’ of three types of landscape:

• rural landscapes, where agriculture, forestry or lifestyle properties are the primary economic activity
• urban landscapes, where residential, industrial and commercial activities shape the environment, and
• natural landscapes, where the original ecosystems of the coast, forests, lakes and plains dominate

Each local landscape needs targets and plans that fit local aspirations and issues. Targets provide the community with a tangible reference point and allow the cumulative effect of restoration and on-going degradation to be measured. Targets and plans combined enable planners, regulators and communities to manage development in the Corangamite Region.

Local government has a key role in planning at the local level. DPI/DSE and CCMA have been providing technical information and advice to municipalities: the next opportunity is to work with local government to integrate natural resource management principles and targets into land use planning processes.

11.3 coastal planning

Contemporary coastal planning for the Region has largely been completed in the last two years through the Australian Government-funded Coastal and Marine Planning Program. Two sub-Regional Coastal Action Plans (CAPs), two Estuary CAPS, the new 2002 Victorian Coastal Strategy and location-specific CAPs for most activity nodes were developed through extensive planning and community consultation.

As such, the RCS review has not done any further detailed analysis of coastal issues or planning needs.

11.4 biodiversity planning

Biodiversity issues are strongly represented in several of the RCS Supporting Strategies, including the Corangamite Native Vegetation Plan, Victorian River Health Strategy, Draft Salinity Action Plan, Regional Nutrient Management Plan, pest plants and animals plans, and newly proposed links with coastal programs.

Draft Biodiversity Action Plans were prepared by DSE for the Otway Plain, Otway Ranges, Warrnambool Plain, Central Victorian Uplands and Victorian Volcanic Plain bioregions. These documents outline biodiversity assets, threats and current and potential management responses at a strategic level. “Focal species” (species whose habitat, if preserved, will protect many other species), “flagship species” (those recognised by the general community), and “priority species” (those that are threatened at State level and which have more than five per cent of their population in the Region) are identified.

Following completion of each Biodiversity Action Plan, others will be developed at the level of landscape zones. These set out priority management actions for each major land tenure. Local area Biodiversity Action Plans are developed in consultation with groups such as Landcare, setting out specific actions. This process is currently being trialled in the Corangamite Region.

11.5 developing sustainable practices

Best Management Practices (BMPs) are now widely used, and consumers, retailers and company shareholders are demanding that sustainable production be added to demands for quality and profitability. However, BMPs are not necessarily sustainable practices, even if the aspiration is there. Assessing the sustainability of practices requires: a) understanding specific risks to environmental health; b) indicators of environmental impact at property and local catchment scale; c) reliable measurement of indicators; and d) targets for environmental health. Putting practices together with a target for environmental health creates an Environmental Management System (EMS). Combining practices for particular landscapes will create sustainable farming systems. This approach to sustainable practice requires:

• a partnership between those with knowledge of environmental process and those innovating to improve enterprise profitability, and
• a partnership between government and industry around implementation of sustainable practices, to negotiate an effective mix of industry-driven accreditation, auditing, government standards and regulatory control.

11.6 innovation in the use and management of water

The Region faces rising demand for water and limited supply. Water use puts consumers’ use of natural resources in the spotlight and provides an opportunity for public agencies to help users reconsider their habits, technologies and values, and reduce their use of natural resources.

The long term health of the river systems in the Corangamite Region are intrinsically linked to the maintenance of adequate environmental flow regimes. The long term health of these systems must ensure that flow regimes in stressed rivers reflect as much as possible the cycles of cease to flow, low flows, freshes, high flows and over bank, as these processes are some of the key environmental stimuli for the life cycles of aquatic flora, fauna, riparian vegetation and floodplains.

The allocation process and the approach to environmental flows needs to be better understood by the community, and current allocations need to be discussed between regulators and users, and changed where necessary to protect environmental values. Responsibilities between agencies need to be clarified. Targets for water use and reuse need to be set and publicised.

This requires attention from the partnerships that already exist between Southern Rural Water, South West Water, Barwon Water and Central Highlands Water, Corangamite CMA, DSE and DPI.

11.7 engaging the whole region

Natural resource management agencies have good connections with agriculture and rural communities, and it is now time to engage the urban community in particular, including new settlers moving into the coast and rural areas, and townspeople. It is also timely to build on current partnerships with indigenous communities in the Region.

Success stories and the growing ethic of environmental responsibility provide an opportunity to show what is being achieved in the Region, but there must be a sharper understanding of who to engage, and what they are being asked to do. Specific, compelling invitations to action and interaction should be designed and the NRM community assisted to respond to people who seek more information, or want to get involved. Transmission of messages to target audiences is half the story: the Region also needs sustained two-way interaction about NRM issues, based on solid information, a clear purpose, and sometimes facilitation[19]. Access to information is critical – people active in NRM will be much more potent communicators with information designed for their use.

11.8 investing more in the community-government partnership

Co-investment of public and private funds needs to be recognised, and partnerships between organisations formalised as agreements. Integration of plans and action is needed between local and Regional levels of scale, and local government and local environment groups are key contributors to this. The heart of partnerships are not documents, but trust between people, which requires time and care. Agencies need to give their staff the time to create and maintain partnerships.