Legal Issues Relating to Water Use

Abstract

Government policy for agriculture and natural resource management (NRM) has a profound influence on the ways in which natural resources are utilised. There is broad acknowledgment that agriculture will have to be practised differently from now on, in order to reverse the trend towards environmental degradation in many parts of the Basin. There is a need for new policy directions, especially considering the urgent need to address dryland salinity and related issues. This report is part of a project instigated by the Human Dimension Program of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission and was undertaken by the Institute of Rural Futures based at the University of New England in NSW. The project initially produced an Overview Report which is a description of the broad trends in 20th century government policy which impacted on land use practice in the Basin. A Workshop was then held to debate and agree upon the four most significant areas where a shift in policy could, in the long term, encourage and facilitate sustainable farming practices. Each of these four areas is the subject of an issues discussion paper. These papers are designed to be a broad canvassing of ideas which will contribute to the debate about the direction NRM will take in the future. Authors were asked for suggestions to move the agenda forward, and the ideas contained in the papers are not necessarily endorsed by the Commission.