AUSTRALIA is to spend almost Dollars A100 million (Pounds sterling 50

million) over the next three years to improve its environment. Much of the

money – about Dollars A34 million – will pay for planting 1 billion trees

to prevent soil erosion.

About two-thirds of Australia suffers from some form of land degradation.

Conservationists blame much of the damage on poor farming and poor irrigation

practices. The environment statement, claimed by the Hawke government to

be the ‘most comprehensive by any world government on the environment’,

was released this week in the Murray-Darling Basin, where salinity and wind

erosion are acute problems. Dust clouds from the region have blocked the

sun in Melbourne, about 500 kilometres away.

Before delivering the statement, Prime Minister Bob Hawke visited some

sites that are worst affected by land degradation and planted the first

of the trees. The statement, called Our Country, Our Future, denounced Australians

for neglecting their own country. ‘Too often,’ it said, ‘short-term productivity

has been emphasised rather than long-term sustainability . . . the Australian

environment has been traumatised by these past 200 years.’ About three-quarters

of the nation’s rainforest has been destroyed. Soil erosion over much of

the continent is 10 times as great as the natural geological rate. More

than 41 million hectares of forest have vanished since Europeans began settling

in Australia 200 years ago.

Also, according to the statement, Australia has the worst record in

the world for the extinction of mammals – 18 have disappeared since Europeans

settled there and another 40 are threatened. An investigation will be made

into ways of controlling the European fox, which endangers small native

mammals.


The government is to spend Dollars A96.3 million on 18 ‘environmental

initiatives’. These include soil conservation, afforestation, the effects

of starfish on the Great Barrier Reef, endangered species, and the management

of coastal zones.

One controversial part of the initiative is the suggestion that scientists

should use viruses to control populations of rabbits and cane toads. The

cane toad, which has no natural predators, is moving west from Queensland

at up to 27 kilometres a year. At this rate, it will have reached Darwin

and the Kakadu National Park by the year 2025. The toads have a voracious

appetite and devour native frogs.

Another controversial proposal will link overseas aid – worth about

Dollars A1 billion a year – with the degree to which developments affect

the environments of beneficiary nations.

But the statement backs away from a highly volatile issue in Australia

– having a referendum to give more power over environmental matters to the

federal government at the expense of the states. The Australian Conservation

Foundation and other groups had supported the plan. They want the government

in Canberra to be responsible.