Intensification of agricultural practices is occurring in Canterbury. Dairy farm conversions continue with land use increasing 132% since 1995. Current concerns emanate predominantly from issues of water quantity and quality, in particular the degradation of lowland streams. These and other...

“There is a water crisis today. But the crisis is not about having too little water to satisfy our needs. It is a crisis of managing water badly – such that billions of people and the environment suffer.” (World Water Vision 2000).The management of water resources is becoming increasingly...

The Fitzroy basin in central Queensland is the largest basin in the Great Barrier Reef catchment area. The large quantities of sediment and nutrient export are of concern and come predominantly from diffuse sources in the grazing industry. The focus of the research reported in this paper was on...

Several trials have recently taken place in Australia of sealed bid discriminant price auctions for conservation contracts. The trials encourage landholders to competitively tender for funds to provide conservation actions on private land. In these auctions, environmental benefits of offers are...

Improving smallholder welfare in the rural sectors of developing countries requires improving access to both input and product markets. Success, however, in developing sustainable and mutually beneficial links between smallholders and agribusiness has been variable. Two recent ACIAR studies...

This paper explores the likely impact of emissions trading design on transaction costs. Transaction costs include both the costs for the private sector to comply with the scheme rules and the costs of scheme administration. In economic theory transaction costs are often assumed to be zero. But...

The dynamics of a population and a resource are investigated in a maximin model based on Brander and Taylor’s stylization of Easter Island, in order to consider the sustainability of the society represented. There are continua of both regular and non-regular maximin solutions, the type...

A rising saline aquifer in the Coleambally Irrigation Area constitutes a common pool resource, characterised by costly exclusion and rival utilisation for regional irrigators. The approach outlined in general terms in this paper is the application of formal, empirical techniques to guide the...

To maximise the economic benefits of tradable emission permits or emission taxes, while keeping these emission pricing mechanisms politically acceptable, requires the use of payment thresholds. There is no other way to avoid the "rock versus hard place" dilemma posed by the standard, polar forms...

Since the late 1980s, the concept of precaution has been incorporated into numerous international agreements and laws, as well as in domestic statutes and policies in many countries. This paper examines the international emergence of the concept and its application in Australia. Despite rapid...