One of the key roles of the Tropical Savannas
CRC is to provide a neutral meeting place where different savanna
land users can talk over issues of mutual importance. In January
2000, the Centre held a workshop to discuss one of these issues:
land administration policy across the north and its attendant
issues.
Is multiple land use a good idea? What are the
issues involved in a new system of land leases? In this issue of
Savanna Links, we published articles from three of the delegates
covering general, pastoral and tourism viewpoints.
Below is an opinion piece on a broad range of
issues about land tenure and administration in the savannas, from
Emeritus Professor John Holmes, University of Queensland. Click in
the contents section on the left to view pastoral and tourism
viewpoints. Proceedings from the workshop are available from the
CRC.
Land Tenure and Land Administration in Northern Australia:
Needed Future Directions
Emeritus Professor John Holmes, University of Queensland
Popositions on
resource ownership, use and management | Changing land tenures on the tropical savannas |
Critical attributes of the tropical
savannas | Resource-rich locales |
Disconnection between income-generating
activities and broadscale land titles | Proposals for institutional reform | Concluding comments |
According to John Holmes, major institutional reform is urgently
required, focusing on the more marginal lands of the northern
tropical savannas, where pastoral values are modest and Aboriginal
traditional use, tourism and conservation are increasingly
important.
In this short talk, my argument is consistent with that which I
have already developed elsewhere, but I intend to add further
ideas, directed specifically towards the goal of sustainable land
use in the tropical savannas.
My proposals for an institutional framework for sustainable
management are based on five propositions. First, just as we have
developed adaptive, flexible approaches in rewarding property
rights to other natural resources, such as forestry, water and
fisheries, so also we need more flexible approaches to the
allocation of property rights on land in order to pursue goals of
efficiency, equity and sustainability.
Second, it is on marginal lands of low yield and low
income-earning capacity, that the case for flexibility is
strongest. It is on these lands that the interests of any private
titleholder are modest, and are generally outweighed by the
interests of all other parties, including the general public
interest. Accordingly, land titles, such as lease titles, should
award only limited property rights, and also specify the
responsibilities of the titleholder to ensure that other important
interests are accommodated.
Third, on the most marginal lands, incapable of effective
pastoral management, the switch towards multiple uses also involves
multiple users, all requiring specified access and use rights, but
none requiring exclusive possession. On these lands there is a need
for a new form of public tenure, with rights of commercial private
use by licences, permits and franchises.
Fourth, as a corollary to limitations on private property
rights, there is an enhanced responsibility on governments to
ensure effective management of the land resource, best achieved by
coordinated administration. Lessons can be learnt from the public
administration of America's federally owned rangelands,
increasingly subject to pressures from multiple use.
Fifth, in Australia, governments have acquired considerable
experience in flexible land administration, primarily through the
lease tenure system, which has evolved to meet uniquely Australian
needs, with lease tenures evolving as instruments for the delivery
of public policies. See Table
1* .
From mid-20th century on, there was a period when no clear
policy imperatives required governmental attention. Land
administration lost its sense of direction and lease tenures were
seen as an anachronism. The revival of public interest, with
newly-identified policy concerns, led to a renewed scrutiny of the
policy-role of lease tenures, but with a disconnected, piecemeal
series of attempts at "reform" of these tenures. The most
substantial revision was imposed by the High Court in the Wik
judgement. As shown in Table 1* , a pastoral lease can no
longer be regarded solely as a two-party contract between lessor
and lessee. Other interests need to be recognised.
(*Table 1 is a is an 18 kb PDF
document, you will need Acrobat Reader. When you want to return to
the article, click on the Back button on the browser toolbar at the
top of the page.)
It is not surprising that the Wik case concerned pastoral leases
in the tropical savannas. It is here that the pastoral interest is
tenuous and other interests, including Aboriginal traditional
occupance, are most substantial. As reported elsewhere (Holmes,
1991, 1996), there has been a persistent transfer of lease titles
into other tenures, with a net reduction in the area held under
leases by over 22 per cent in the period 1974-1994, a process still
continuing. I have referred to this as a logical process of
"de-privatisation" in reponse not only to new policy imperatives
but also to market forces. As shown in Table II by 1994 only 54 per cent of
the northern tropical savanna zone remained in pastoral leases.
(*Table II is a PDF document (10 kb), you will
need Acrobat Reader. When you want to return to the article, click
on the Back button on the browser toolbar at the top of the
page.)
Changing directions in the resource use of Australia's
rangelands, together with prospective outcomes, differentiated
between commodity-oriented and amenity-oriented regions, are
discussed in Holmes (1997). Certain critical directions are
summarised in Table III . These
new directions are impacting most strongly on marginal regions,
where pastoral values are very modest and non-pastoral
amenity-oriented values are increasingly important. These include
Aboriginal traditional use, tourism and recreation, and
preservation of biodiversity and valued landscapes, among other
uses.
(*Table III is a PDF document (6
kb), you will need Acrobat Reader. When you want to return to the
article, click on the Back button on the browser toolbar at the top
of the page.)
In these marginal zones, new directions in resource values
cannot be satisfactorily accommodated simply by a review of current
governmental policies and programmes. Major institutional reforms,
involving land ownership and land tenures are required, involving
property rights and use rights of both Aboriginal and
non-Aboriginal resource users. Some relevant proposals were spelt
out in Holmes (1996, 34-42).
However, before summarising and reformulating these proposals, I
need to draw attention to two attributes of the tropical savannas
which are of critical importance in shaping institutional reform.
These are: first, the concentration of resource values and
potential use into circumscribed resource-rich locales; and,
second, the increasing diversity of tenures, with a divorce between
land titles and income streams.
In proposing a new approach to the problems of integrating
conservation and production goals for the "semi-natural matrix" of
arid Australia, Morton et.al. (1995) differentiate between areas of
mainly fertile soils where pastoral impacts are not particularly
focussed, compared with mainly infertile soils where pastoral
impacts are focussed on 'resource-rich patches'. These patches are
also of critical importance in the maintenance of biodiversity. To
reconcile conservation and production goals, the authors propose a
"whole-of-landscape" approach, requiring a hierarchy of tenures,
comprising excised management units, restricted use units and
sustainable use areas. They also suggest that titleholders receive
financial assistance to meet any costs in managing off-reserve
conservation values within this tenure hierarchy. While Morton
et.al. were concerned only with the arid zone, their
conceptualisation can validly be applied to other zones, where
contrasts can be identified at the regional scale. A useful
comparison can be made between the Barkly Tableland and the Gulf
District. Over the extensive Mitchell grasslands of the Barkly
Tableland, pastoralism is likely to remain the dominant broadscale
land use, with resource values and income streams being captured
from dispersed pastoral occupance. 'Resource-rich patches' may be
identified in some locales, but they are rarely of critical
importance either for production or for conservation goals.
In the adjoining Gulf Region, resource values are highly
focussed in circumscribed locales, notably estuarine, riverine,
riparian and other wetland zones and lands immediately adjacent,
which are of prime interest not only to pastoral and conservation
interests, but also to Aboriginals and to a new wave of resource
users, including most modes of tourism and recreation activities:
fishing, boating, other water-based recreation, camping, walking,
wildlife observation and so on. Other rich locales include gorges,
cliffs, caves and "lost city" formations, often with a rich
Aboriginal heritage and increasingly attractive to tourism.
Effective, sustainable management of the savannas must
increasingly be directed towards minimising overuse and conflict at
these resource-rich locales. For comparable critical areas in the
arid zone, Morton et.al. propose innovative land tenure
instruments. There is a comparable need in the tropical
savannas.
In any restructuring of land tenures in the tropical savannas,
it is equally important to recognise that income-earning activities
are rarely tied to exclusive possession of broadscale land titles.
Owners of pastoral leases have rarely been able to earn
satisfactory incomes, and, as new economic opportunities arise,
usually not tied to land ownership, they have increasingly used
their local land monopolies to engage in rent-seeking activities.
Such activities encourage a form of endemic land speculation, and
increase the cost of much needed land purchases for conservation,
Aboriginal or other purposes. Problems of local land monopolies
were recognised in the 1990 Report of the Queensland Land Policy
and Administration Review Committee (the Wolfe Report) which noted
problems of land speculation in Cape York Peninsula (p.98) and
recommended that the state needed powers to resume small parcels of
land from pastoral leases, to be used for other private purposes,
with compensation limited to loss of pastoral value so that
pastoralists would no longer be able " . . . to obstruct required
alternative development, or inequitably capitalise on the other's
need for land" (p.60).
Dysfunctional outcomes from this overextension of private
property rights are discussed in some detail in Holmes (1991,
1996). The exact nature of the problem, leading to proposals for
institutional reform in land administration, can best be
scrutinised by a comparison of resource values and income sources
between core pastoral regions ("commodity regions") such as the
Mitchell Downs of Central Queensland or the Barkly Tableland, and
marginal regions ("amenity regions") such as Cape York Peninsula,
North Kimberley. Critical attributes include:
- Income sources at regional and property levels;
- Nexus (or otherwise) between rural enterprises and rural
properties;
- Extent of engagement in the market economy and ability to
capture income;
- Cost structures of broadscale rural enterprises and their
implications for economic viability and ecosystem
functionality;
- Changes in land tenure and ownership;
- Socioeconomic attributes relevant to ecosystem
functionality;
- Identification of land management units for implementation of
sustainable land use policies and programmes;
- Implications for land administration.
Some emerging differentials between commodity and amenity
regions are summarised in Table
IV . For many pastoral leases in the marginal regions,
post-BTEC pastoral income streams are often negligible, but so also
are fixed cost burdens and grazing pressures. Low fixed costs,
combined with high operational expenses (on- and off-property)
provide a disincentive to pastoral activity. Lessees are not
trapped in the cost-price treadmill which enforces heavy resource
use on pastoralists in core regions, and many non-viable properties
in the northern savannas are held for lifestyle, speculative or
other purposes, with many lessees also relying on off-property
income.
(*Table IV is a PDF document, you will need
Acrobat Reader. It is 18 kb. When you want to return to the
article, click on the Back button on the browser toolbar at the top
of the page.)
It is in these regions that the disjuncture between rural-based
enterprises and land ownership is increasingly evident.
Income-generating land-based enterprises are rarely pursued
directly by the owners/custodians of indigenous and public lands,
and this also is increasingly the case on privately-owned pastoral
leases. Enterprises reliant upon access to land are increasingly
footloose or with localised assets, all willing to share access of
land, but none (except possibly Aborigines) having a strong case
for exclusive possession. These include an increasingly diversified
spectrum of users, mainly commercial tourism, but many other
potential users.
As a logical outcome, much of this land is being transferred
into other tenures, including Aboriginal lands and National
Parks.
These currently diverging regional trajectories have strong
parallels in the western United States. Commodity regions in
Australia's rangelands are structurally similar to the Great
Plains, predominantly held in private holdings, reliant upon
dryland farming and ranching, with a close operational nexus
between economic and ecological processes. Further west, this nexus
disappears in the range-and-basin zone, where income from
broadacres commodity outputs is negligible and amenity values, tied
to a wide spectrum of recreational, tourism and lifestyle concerns
are dominant. Here also there is a disjuncture between
rural-oriented enterprises and rural landownership, which has the
potential to curtail sustainable land management. This outcome is
mitigated by public ownership and custodianship of most of the
rangelands, with private commercial use being facilitated by the
award of user rights in lieu of property rights. These include
grazing permits, and a variety of permits, licences and franchises
for commercial operations tied to forestry and tourism ventures.
This American experience can provide useful lessons for the much
needed development of localised publicly owned tenures in tropical
Australia designed to ensure sustainable multiple use by multiple
users.
There is one further complexity in promoting sustainable
management practices in the tropical savannas, namely in
identifying and targetting land management units. In agricultural
and core pastoral regions, land management units usually coincide
with individual landholdings, providing a reasonably consistent
"target" for policy delivery. In the tropical savannas, tenures are
already very diverse, including extensive areas of Aboriginal
freehold, Aboriginal-owned pastoral leases, private pastoral
leases, National Parks, defence lands and so on. Further, I have
proposed a new form of public tenure for multiple private uses.
This provides a more complex matrix of land management units, which
nevertheless should be included within a coordinated programme in
support of sustainable land management. Policies and personnel will
need to be sensitive to these different tenure contexts.
To ensure sustainable long-term use of the tropical savannas,
there is a clear need for a comprehensive approach towards
institutional reform, including the following steps:
- Designing a mix of land tenures to accommodate the emerging mix
of resource users, including a new tenure (or tenures) to enable
multiple use by multiple users.
- Reform of pastoral lease tenures to enable lessees to diversify
while also facilitating land conversion to other modes of ownership
and use, where appropriate.
- New mechanisms to ensure regional coordination in an ongoing
restructuring of the new mix of tenures linked to strategic
regional planning.
- A more coordinated input by the various public agencies engaged
in sustainable land management, with land administrators fulfilling
this coordinating role.
- Each of these proposals is discussed, briefly.
An appropriate mix of tenures
For the tropical savannas, there is a clear need to review the
mix of land tenures to ensure that all major uses are catered for
in an efficient, equitable and sustainable manner. The following
broadscale modes of land use need to be accommodated on tenures
awarding exclusive (or near-exclusive) occupation:
- Aboriginal homeland areas, held on non-transferable
freehold;
- Managed pastoral lands, held as term leases;
- Conservation lands, usually held under public titles as
National Parks;
- Intensive and/or diversified land uses, generally held as term
leases or perpetual leases, usually over relatively small
areas.
While it is appropriate to specify the primary purpose of lands
held for Aboriginal, conservation or pastoral uses, protocols may
be in place to ensure parallel uses, such as a continuing role for
Aboriginal traditional uses on pastoral lands and National Parks.
Already much has been done towards implementing parallel indigenous
management and use in National Parks, and I do not intend to
recapitulate these matters here. See Thackway and Brunckhorst
(1998) and Davies (1999) for recent overviews.
There is also a clear need for a new form of public tenure, to
provide for the growing demands of footloose enterprises requiring
specified rights of access and use but not needing rights of
exclusive possession. This form of tenure could be broadly similar
to the federal lands of western US, administered by the Bureau of
Land Management, but preferably avoiding the centralised,
bureaucratised administration directed from faraway Washington,
DC.
These multiple-use lands need to be strategically located to
satisfy the diverse demands of tourism ventures as well as
individual users, while also being available for low-intensity
pastoralism and Aboriginal uses, where appropriate. Licences and
permits would be issued for any form of commercial use, with clear
specification of rights and duties. Some licenced users may have
day-to-day custodial responsibilities. Such public lands would be
an additional responsibility for land administrators, preferably
assisted by a local advisory committee, comprising licenced
commercial users and some public representatives.
One purpose of the public tenure is to accommodate the growing
demands of commercial enterprises which are either footloose or
require only a limited local base together with access to a wider
area. However, there is a further important purpose. This is to
provide for more focussed and effective management of new modes of
resource use, notably the full spectrum of tourist and recreational
activities. Such uses need to be channelled into managed areas in
order to minimise otherwise widespread human impacts. The strategy
is similar to that applied in many National Parks where human
impacts are focussed into managed areas.
Further details on these proposed public
tenures is given in Holmes (1996, 39-40).
Reform of pastoral lease tenures
This writer has written extensively on this topic. See
particularly Holmes 1991, Holmes and Knight 1994 and Holmes 1996,
pp.35-39. Some general precepts and an outline of needed tenure
reforms are provided in Tables V
& VI . In addition to these, there is scope for pursuing
off-reserve conservation goals, through lease covenants or
management agreements tied to specified critical habitats, similar
to those proposed for arid Australia by Morton et.al. Needed
reforms can be facilitated by trade-offs in the re-allocation of
property rights and duties, by incentive payments for accepting
conservation responsibilities beyond those expected as prudent
managers, and by compensation payments which need only be modest
when based upon the value of foregone pastoral potential.
(*Tables V and VI are in a PDF document, you
will need Acrobat Reader. It is 9 kb. When you want to return to
the article, click on the Back button on the browser toolbar at the
top of the page.)
Regional coordination in restructuring tenures
Tenure reform will not achieve the stated goals unless
accompanied by a coordinated restructuring of the tenures at the
regional level. The goal is to maintain an equitable land
allocation, containing the mix of tenures already described. High
priority needs to be given to resource-rich locales, with a focus
on complementary uses and on preserving biodiversity. This will
involve intensive, ongoing consultations with all major interest
groups, to achieve optimal outcomes, comparable to, but more
far-reaching than the Cape York Peninsula Heads of Agreement. This
involves an ongoing comprehensive, adaptive project in strategic
land use and development planning. This need is being recognised,
belatedly, at both national and state/territory levels, with a
growing emphasis upon a broad-based, participatory approach, even
in reports prepared by scientific organisations, including ASTEC
(1993) and Australia (2994).
'There is an increasing trend towards landscape management on a
regional basis. Such arrangements emphasise regional environmental
characteristics, needs and response and promote intergovernmental
cooperation along with community participation.' (Australia
1993)
This need has already received some recognition, with
preliminary planning exercises in the Kimberley, the Northern
Territory Gulf District and with the ambitious joint federal/state
Cape York Peninsula Land Use Strategy. Governments have recognised
that priority must be given to marginal regions, and particularly
to the tropical savannas.
Some ideas on possible regional land use/land tenure scenarios
affecting pastoral land use can be gleaned from my report on the
economic viability of all pastoral leases in the Northern Territory
Gulf District under the requirements of the B.T.E.C. programme. The
report included an appraisal of land resources and land use
options, (Holmes, 1986, 1990). This project provided a basis for
the Gulf Region Land Use and Development Study (Northern Territory,
1991). The categorisation and mapping of pastoral lands into core
management areas, additional potential management areas, bush
mustering areas and areas unsuitable for mustering was used in the
subsequent land use study to identify pastoral lands, pastoral
support lands and lands with conservation/recreation values. The
division between core managed pastoral lands and bush mustering
areas could be used as one of the inputs for a parallel division in
land tenures, with managed areas held under a secure lease and
other grazing lands available under short-term renewable licences,
and being available for multiple uses. This would closely parallel
the existing bifurcated structure of property rights and use rights
for ranching in western United States.
Land tenures have been restructured along the east coast of Cape
York Peninsula, following the purchase of the Silver Plains and
Starcke leases by the state government, and reallocation to
National Parks and Aboriginal lands. It is unfortunate that no
consideration was given to ensuring managed public access and
commercial use at a few select locations, using a public tenure
designed for multiple use.
For further details on strategic land use
planning for the tropical savannas, see Holmes (1992, 1996,
pp.40-42).
Coordinated public administration
Unfortunately, in the tropical savannas, as in other remote,
sparsely occupied marginal regions, there is always a formidable
gap between project planning and implementation, as there is
between initiation and maintenance. The logistic problems and costs
are so high and the available resources so limited, that
"management" is a pious hope rather than a realistic goal.
The problem is worsened by the continuing division of
responsibilities between many agencies, each facing severe logistic
obstacles in undertaking on-the-ground programmes for a limited
array of tasks. In order to minimise those burdens, while also
maximising the scope for coordinated public inputs, there is a
strong case for deploying experienced personnel with
multifunctional responsibilities within these marginal regions, in
a manner traditionally undertaken by the police in very remote
locations. The prime role of these personnel would be as land
managers, with responsibilities for the management oversight of
various tenures, including pastoral leases, conservation covenants
or easements within leases, multiple use public lands, national
parks and any other public lands. This would involve ongoing
liaison with the relevant central agencies, and also regular
oversight of persons holding leases, licenses and permits, as well
as those undertaking custodial tasks on a salary or contract basis.
With multiple responsibilities these staff would be better able to
maintain regular, more frequent contact with private land
users/managers and achieve much needed day-to-day coordination.
I have gone well beyond my assigned task which was to comment on
"influences and impacts of current land administration". Instead, I
have presented a comprehensive proposal for reform of land tenures
and land administration, as a necessary framework for sustainable
land management. Specification of management programmes is another
matter which lies outside the scope of this forum. However, I take
the view that such programmes are only likely to succeed if the
institutional framework is appropriate. The tropical savannas
provide distinctive management challenges, which call for an
institutional framework uniquely designed to cope with these
challenges.
See links below for the articles on pastoral and tourism issues
and land tenure
References
A.S.T.E.C. (Australian Science and Technology
Council) 1993: Research and Technology in Tropical Australia and
their Application to the Development of the Region: Final Report.
A.G.P.S., Canberra.
Australia, Office of the Chief Scientist.
1993: Research and Technology in Tropical Australia: Selected
Issues. A.G.P.S., Canberra.
Davies, J. 1999: More than 'us' and 'them':
local knowledge and sustainable development in Australian
rangelands, (invited paper) Sixth International Rangeland Congress,
Townsville.
Holmes, J.H. 1986: The Pastoral Lands of the
Northern Territory Gulf District: Resource Appraisal and Land Use
Options. Brisbane, Uniquest, Vol. 1, 129 pp. and Vol. 2, 51 pp.
Holmes, J.H. 1990: Ricardo Revisited:
Submarginal Land and Non-viable Cattle Enterprises in the Northern
Territory Gulf District. Journal of Rural Studies. 6, 1 pp.
45-65.
Holmes, J.H. 1991: Land tenures in the
Australian pastoral zone: a critical appraisal. In Moffat, I. and
Webb, A. eds, North Australian Research: Some Past Themes and New
Directions, North Australia Research Unit, Darwin, pp. 41-59.
Holmes, J.H. 1992: Strategic Regional Planning
on the Northern Frontiers, North Australia Research Unit,
Darwin.
Holmes, J.H. 1996: Changing resource values in
Australia's tropical savannas: priorities in institutional reform.
In: A. Ash, ed. The Future of Tropical Savannas: An Australian
Perspective. Melbourne: C.S.I.R.O. pp. 28-43.
Holmes, J.H. 1997: Diversity and change in
Australia's rangeland regions: translating resource values into
regional benefits. The Rangeland Journal 19(1), pp.3-25.
Holmes, J.H. in press. Pastoral lease tenures
as policy instruments: 1847 to 1997. In: S. Dovers, ed.
Environmental History and Policy: Australian Explorations. Oxford
U.P., Melbourne.
Holmes, J.H. and Knight, L. 1994: Pastoral
lease tenures in Australia: historical relic or useful contemporary
tool? The Rangeland Journal 16(1), 106-121.
Morton, S.R., Stafford Smith, D.M., Friedel,
M.H., Griffin, G.F. and Pickup, G. 1995: The stewardship of arid
Australia: ecology and landscape management. Journal of
Environmental Management, 43, 195-217.
Northern Territory, Department of Lands and
Housing, 1991: Gulf Region: Land Use and Development Study.
Darwin.
Thackway, R. and Brunckhorst, D.J. 1998:
Alternative futures for indigenous cultural and natural areas in
Australia's rangelands. Australian Journal of Environmental
Management, 5, 169-181.
