Actions by the Australian Government
The Australian Government has set many different laws and conservation efforts in regards to land degradation in Australia as it is a major problem. The laws and regulations that the government sets aim to "seek consistency between policies and programs aimed at natural resource management, industry development and drought". Balancing environmental sustainability and industry development would be a challenge that the government will face and their efforts will be analysed through statistics. The main efforts that have been put forward by the Australian Government are currently laws and various different programs. The major programs that have been initiated by the government are the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality in Australia, National Dryland Salinity Program, National Landcare Program and the National Heritage Trust. These fall under the "Caring for our country" program. These programs are started by the government and are normally carried out by the state or territory governments with funding from the federal government.
The focus will be placed upon the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality in Australia (NAP and the National Dryland Salinity Program (NDSP). These have been chosen due to the fact that soil salinity is one of the biggest problems that farmers face and these two programs were funded to provide research of solutions of soil salinity and the application of the treatments. The approach of these programs was to manage the problem of salinity at three different levels: national, regional and state. They were initiated by John Howard and funding lasted till 2008; it was a big step forward as people started to lose interest towards the health of Australia's soil even though it consisted most of Australia's economy. These programs costed over AUS$1.4 Billion over the 7 year period (2001-2008) and thus caused controversy. The criteria that will be used to evaluate the performance of the initiative. It was chosen as the approach taken by the government was unique to many other different programs by other countries. States or local members requested money from the funds that was allocated. This is similar to Landcare's approach and many people doubted it would work at such large scales. The money was used to educate farmers on salinity of the soils and its impacts while some money was used to treat major problems such as the Murray-Darling Basin. The criteria will be applied to these two programs and is:
The focus will be placed upon the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality in Australia (NAP and the National Dryland Salinity Program (NDSP). These have been chosen due to the fact that soil salinity is one of the biggest problems that farmers face and these two programs were funded to provide research of solutions of soil salinity and the application of the treatments. The approach of these programs was to manage the problem of salinity at three different levels: national, regional and state. They were initiated by John Howard and funding lasted till 2008; it was a big step forward as people started to lose interest towards the health of Australia's soil even though it consisted most of Australia's economy. These programs costed over AUS$1.4 Billion over the 7 year period (2001-2008) and thus caused controversy. The criteria that will be used to evaluate the performance of the initiative. It was chosen as the approach taken by the government was unique to many other different programs by other countries. States or local members requested money from the funds that was allocated. This is similar to Landcare's approach and many people doubted it would work at such large scales. The money was used to educate farmers on salinity of the soils and its impacts while some money was used to treat major problems such as the Murray-Darling Basin. The criteria will be applied to these two programs and is:
Were the programs that were introduced to combat soil salinity in Australia effective either through education or direct application of treatments. If not, what could have been done to improve the result.
This criteria was chosen as it will allow the evaluation of the efforts of the two programs, National Dryland Salinty Program and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality in Australia.