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Objective

Recommendation

Key issues

Objective

To support investment in environmental and natural resource management in Tasmania, and to enhance human resource capacity in responding to environmental, planning and natural resource management within government, environmental care groups, and the wider community.

Recommendation

It is recommended that:

• opportunities for government-industry-University of Tasmania partnership arrangements are investigated to support critical research. These may be based on the successful Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute (TAFI) and Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research (TIAR) approaches;
   
• opportunities for the implementation of user pay systems for environmental and natural resource management are assessed and evaluated by the Department of Treasury and Finance and the Tasmanian Audit Office (priorities could include charges for disposal of waste to landfill and user pay systems for users of parks currently experiencing unsustainable levels of usage, and other priorities identified through this report and those identified through State and regional NRM processes);
   
• joint agency investment in critical core datasets is promoted (examples would include remotely sensed satellite data including Landsat and SPOT and water quality and quantity data); and
   
• rate and land tax rebates are applied consistently and transparently for private land held for conservation benefits.
   

Key issues

Environmental and natural resource management relies on maintaining and furthering human resource skills and capacity at many levels: environmental care groups such as Landcare; Local and State Government agencies; and the University of Tasmania and the Institute of TAFE Tasmania. Nationally, there is some expert opinion that bureaucracies do not now have the sort of technical expertise that they would have had in past eras. In Tasmania, the small-scale of government means that some tasks can be done more efficiently and effectively. At the same time, government at all spheres in Tasmania is often poorly resourced for implementing policy reforms. The increasing demands for consultation in policy implementation requires resourcing for those people charged with the task of managing the consultation process and for the community, private and corporate interests invited to respond.

Capacity within local government to manage an increasing array of environmental, planning and natural resource management issues is also constrained. Training and education is a key to generating the skill base that society will need to deal with current and emerging environmental issues. The re-establishment of the planning course at the University of Tasmania is an important recent initiative in this area.