Plan calls for farmers to be paid to restore habitat

Age
Monday 8/12/2008 Page: 6

AN EXTRA 650,000 square kilometres of farmland and other privately owned land could be set aside for nature conservation by 2020 if a program that paid landowners to restore and protect native habitat was introduced. A CSIRO report concludes that this result could be achieved under a national scheme costing between $739 million and $1.6 billion a year. The finding comes out of a study on ways to promote biodiversity conservation. The study was carried out by the CSIRO for the Australian Conservation Foundation and released last week.

It found that "stewardship payments" -regular payments to landowners to reward conservation management - could play an essential role "in promoting environmental conservation and sustainable resource use". In response to the research, the ACF called on the Federal Government to allocate about 5 per cent of the money raised by auctioning pollution permits under the emissions trading scheme to fund a large conservation stewardship scheme. It also urged the Government to modify drought assistance payments to encourage farmers to plant trees or do other conservation works on land that was marginal but ecologically valuable.

The ACF's rural landscapes campaigner, Corey Watts, said that without more action on private land Australia faced a wave of extinctions. Some state and federal stewardship programs already existed and were very welcome, but were "hamstrung by woefully small budgets", he said. A bigger and better funded scheme of conservation payments would appeal to farmers and other landowners and deliver them an extra source of guaranteed annual income.

"The farm of the 21st century will be deriving its income from a range of sources," he said. "Not just the production of food and fibre, but it could include sustainable energy production and demonstrating that you are looking after soil, water, wetlands and wildlife." The idea of financial rewards for landowners to conserve native habitat won the approval of Benalla beef farmer Robert Richardson.

"I think it's a great idea and definitely a lot more farmers would plant trees and actively manage habitat restoration," he said. "Economies on the land are very marginal at the moment, so any incentive to do more and do a better job is going to be most welcome. "And if we can siphon some money off from carbon trading into native vegetation and habitat restoration, then it's got to be a win-win for everybody." Mr Richardson has planted about 50,000 trees on his property since 1982, including 40,000 for agroforestry and 10,000 to restore native habitat.