rcs development MAKE A COMMENT

7.1 the concept of assets

In economics, an asset is something that has been preserved from previous production that can be used in further production. The stock in the store and the machinery in the shed are assets that can be used in further work.

In natural resource management, assets are the “things we have in hand” that can be used as we pursue further activity. For a sustainable future, biophysical systems will have to be maintained in reasonable working order, and may well require an investment in assets that we have previously taken for granted.

The concept of sustainability broadens the scope of assets to include society itself and economies as assets, because what happens here affects the condition of natural systems.

In the RCS, assets are all of the resources of the Corangamite Region that are valued in our society. The flow of services that can be obtained from an asset gives it a value. These services may be of an economic, environmental or social character. For example, water provides an economic service when it is used for urban, industrial or agricultural supply; an environmental service when it supports aquatic or marine life; and a social service when it provides a picturesque landscape, a heritage site or a sought-after location for angling or boating.[14]

The Region’s assets are therefore placed into three broad groups depending on the service being provided: (i) economic (ii) environmental, or (iii) social (see Table 18, Classification of assets of the corangamite region).

7.2 the concept of threats

Threats are the factors that can reduce the services provided by assets and have impacts across many assets. For example, decreased flows in streams and rivers affect the users of water (economic), the health of streams, rivers, lakes and wetlands (environmental), and recreational uses (social).

Threats often interact with each other to produce a cumulative effect on assets. For example, a wetland area may be degrading because of reduced water flow, increased nutrient levels and invasion by weeds, but these threats are related to management practices on adjacent land or clearing upstream that was not controlled by land use planning decisions.

The threats considered by the RCS therefore include not just biophysical threats, but also threats from the way human beings behave and organise themselves – threats from society (see Table 19, Threats of the corangamite region).

7.3 assessing threats to assets

Threats to assets were prioritised by gathering information on the change in asset value likely to result from each possible threat, in three steps:

• Six stakeholder workshops and three workshops with technical staff assessed the most important threats to social, environmental and economic assets. Twenty two different classes of threat and fourteen classes of asset were assessed. Each participant allocated 25 points to those asset/ threat combinations they thought were most important. In considering the importance of each threat, the workshops took account of: (i) the physical extent of impacts; (ii) the social, environmental or economic costs of those impacts; and (iii) the urgency of the threat. The allocation of points assesses the degree to which the value of the asset is likely to be affected by each threat, and therefore identifies valued assets requiring action to deal with threats. Table 20, Priority threats to asset values in the region, gives a rating of threats to assets for the Corangamite Region.
• Supporting Strategies were reviewed, and the workshop results were then supplemented by including assets and threats where there was technically based evidence suggesting some additional weight. The Corangamite Floodplain Management Strategy highlights the need for continued management of flood risks, where new development may occur and in existing flood-prone areas. This is an area where public management of risk is often taken for granted, and protection of infrastructure from flood should continue to play a part in the RCS. All Supporting Strategies are based on strong community contribution to planning and to on-ground action. Hence community is an asset in which there must be investment.
• State and National policy priorities were reviewed, and the workshop results further supplemented.

Largely, the important Assets and significant Threats identified in the workshops and the Supporting Strategies are consistent with National and State natural resource management priorities. One exception is that coastal and marine issues were not rated highly overall in the workshops. These were emphasised in the three coastal sub-Regions and to a lesser extent in the workshops held with technical staff, but were absent in the inland workshops, because participants were asked to rate the importance of threats to assets in their own sub-Region. Given the importance attached to coastal and marine issues at all levels of government, and by coastal communities in the Region, coastal and marine environments are a priority asset.

A second exception is fauna, where there are strong and binding obligations in National legislation.

Annex I gives details of the workshop procedure and results[15]. Table 21, Relative importance of threats to assets in the corangamite region, gives a regional summary of the scores of individual threats to assets and Tables 22-26 give the final set of priority threats to assets for each sub-Region.

7.4 key asset values at risk

The Corangamite Region is rich in assets, but faces many threats to those assets. Assets and key threats are outlined in Table 20, Priority threats to asset values in the region, with a detailed description of threats contained in this chapter, section 5 - key threats.

With a growing population and a growing economy, the Region must maintain the value of its most important assets. Based on the assessment of informed stakeholders and the technical opinions contained in the Region’s Supporting Strategies, there are eight assets that are a high priority for action. While each asset faces many threats, some are more significant than others, and these have been also identified.[16]

Land for economic use is the asset with the highest value-at-risk score. Stakeholders see many threats to the productive capacity of land, including salinity, weeds, inadequate strategic management or governance, soil structure and biodiversity decline, rural land use change/ conflict, poor on-ground management, land clearing, poor vegetation maintenance and conversion of rural to urban or hobby farm use.

Native vegetation (including environmental services) has the second-highest value-at-risk score. Land clearing and/ or poor vegetation maintenance is the highest threat followed closely by weeds. Other significant threats include poor on-ground management, pest animals, land use change/ conflicts, knowledge limitations, inadequate strategic management or governance, and inadequate resources to deal with threats.

Surface and groundwater for economic use has the third-highest value-at-risk score. Perceived threats include reduced flow rates/ volume, land use change or conflict, land clearing, and poor vegetation maintenance, all of which affect water quantity or quality.

Surface water (environmental services) has the fourth highest value-at-risk score. Threats are seen as clustering around water flow and water quality issues, including reduced flow rates, nutrients, eutrophication, sediments and turbidity. Other significant, but lower-rated threats include salinity, weeds, poor management, and urban/ industrial waste management.

Other significant threatened assets are seen to be soil, native fauna, groundwater, coastal and marine environments, and the community in terms of its capacity to deal with all threats to the Region’s assets.

Infrastructure is perceived as being relatively unthreatened by natural processes such as salinity or flooding. The coastal and marine asset is not seen as very highly threatened, though the scores do show awareness amongst the stakeholder participants of population and development pressure, inadequate resources, inadequate strategic management or governance, sediments and turbidity, and nutrients and eutrophication as being key issues for the coastal zone.

7.5 key threats

Land clearing and/ or inappropriate vegetation management, impacts the economic services yielded by land and water in the Region, as well as native vegetation, and terrestrial, riparian and wetlands ecosystems across the whole Region.

Land use change/ conflict and poor on-ground management are closely associated. This is especially true in the Otway Coast, the Otway Foothills, the Leigh-Moorabool, and the Geelong & Environs sub-Regions.

Population and economic development pressures are a major threat to the agricultural land resource, the economic and environmental services of the waterways, marine and coastal environments, and the landscape of the Region, especially in the eastern parts, from Ballarat through Geelong to Lorne. Inadequate strategic management is closely associated with this threat.

Altered flow regimes are a general threat to water use and surface water environments across the Region - flows are viewed as a serious threat to economic use of water, and to in-stream values, both environmental and recreational.

Salinity is an expression of the surrounding hydrology (both surface and subsurface) and as such salinity is both a threat and an integral component to some key assets. The 1992 Regional Salinity Management Plan “Restoring the Balance” determined that the main effort of salinity intervention should be on the agricultural asset. In the decade since the development of the Regional Salinity Management Plan both the level of regional information and the policy frameworks (such as the Victorian Salinity Management Framework, 2000) have advanced the concepts of issues such as asset management to achieve integrated catchment management, hazard assessment, and groundwater flow system delineation. Secondary salinity is a serious threat to the land resource, lakes and wetlands, especially in the Lakes/Plains & Northern Foothills, the Leigh-Moorabool and Geelong & Environs sub-Regions, including Lara salt lands and Lake Connewarre (Draft Salinity Action Plan, 2003-2008). Salinity is rated as highly important for its potential impacts on productive use of land, and on the landscape, with soil degradation also seen in this light. Knowledge limitations, stressed by both technical groups and community groups, are particularly related to salinised groundwater hazards, increasing salinity in the Lal Lal Reservoir, protection and threats to primary salinity discharge areas, urban salinity management and soil degradation processes.

Nutrients and eutrophication affect the economic and environmental services of rivers, streams, lakes and wetlands in all sub-Regions, but with slightly less serious impacts within the Otway Coast and Otway Foothills sub-Regions. The related issue of sediments and turbidity particularly threatens the Curdies-Gellibrand, Lakes/Plains & Northern Foothills, and the Geelong & Environs sub-Regions. The impacts of the highly erosive nature of some Otways Foothills streams are important threats, which are felt downstream in the Geelong & Environs sub-Region including the lower Barwon River and its estuary.

Weeds are affecting productive land use and native vegetation across the whole Region, but with different weed complexes in different sub-Regions. For example gorse in the northern parts, serrated tussock in the east, ragwort in the southwest and blackberry in many riverine, woodland and forest locations.

Biophysical threats that emerged with moderate value-at-risk ratings included soil degradation, climate change and/ or emissions, and pest animals. Each of these threats is serious, and their impact is only “moderate” in comparison with the higher-rated threats. Soil deterioration is significant in the Curdies-Gellibrand, Lakes/Plains & Northern Foothills and Geelong & Environs sub-Regions. Pest animals are having significant economic impacts and merit continued attention. Climate change will affect the way we manage all natural resources in future, and will be taken into account as new knowledge becomes available. The societal threats that were given moderate ratings include limited human capacity, limited resources and urban and industrial waste management although still remaining important.

The lowest-rated threats to assets are increased flow rate/ volume, diseases and/ or pathogens, fauna destruction and/ or taking of fauna, and disasters. These are areas where past management has been at a good level, and values-at-risk are not seen as being large. Nevertheless, such efforts need to be maintained.

There is strong agreement between community stakeholders and technical specialists about the importance of land use change, and conflicting land uses, land clearing, poor vegetation maintenance, on-ground management and governance issues. The technical specialists tend to emphasise salinity, flow regimes, poor on-ground management and knowledge gaps, whilst community stakeholders emphasise nutrients and eutrophication, climate change, population and economic pressures, and governance issues.

7.6 identification of opportunities for partnership

Opportunities for improving partnerships emerged during the early stages of stakeholder workshops. Stakeholder assessment of threats to assets highlighted the need to strengthen partnerships around planning and collaborative action.

Stakeholder critique of current approaches to each of the six Goals (in Chapter 1, Vision) was conducted progressively during the second round of workshops. Having assessed threats to assets, stakeholders were asked to describe the typical approaches to tackling the Goals, the limitations in these approaches and, with the 20 year Goals in mind, what new approaches would be needed over the next ten years. The focus in this line of inquiry was not change in project or program activity, but change in the way the current and emerging issues in natural resource management should be approached.

Stakeholders provided extensive comments on two earlier drafts of the RCS, with considerable addition to, and comment on, the actions put forward for each Partnership Opportunity.[17] (See also Chapter 11 - Opportunities for Partnership).