Melbourne Australia

1924

• Railways engineer W.E. Wood demonstrates that increased salinity in railway dams is the result of tree clearing in the catchment areas.

• Government sponsored soil conservation and reclamation schemes.

• Australia signs the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

• Australian Conservation Foundation established as a non-government, non-profit organisation dedicated to the protection of our environment.

• Victorian legislation places restrictions and controls on aerial crop spraying (first used in Australia in 1947).

• Commonwealth Standing Committee on Soil Conservation finds that one third of the non-arid areas of Australia are affected by soil erosion.
• Environmental Protection Authority set up in Victoria.

• Environmental Impact Statements required for all federal developmental projects having significant environmental consequences.

• Signing of the World Heritage Convention marks the beginning of the establishment of world heritage areas in Australia.

• National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act passed.

• Completion of the first national inter-government collaborative study on the state of Australian soils. The report finds that more than 52 per cent of the nation's agricultural and pastoral land needs treatment for degradation.

• River Murray Commission is given authority to initiate proposals to protect and improve the Murray waters.

• State agriculture ministers unanimously call for a national soil conservation policy.

• The ACF successfully lobbies the government to stop Tasmania's Franklin River dam.

• Victorian Government creates a new department called the Land Protection Service.

• The Commission for the Future established to "raise community awareness and understanding of the social and economic impact of technological change".

• According to the CSIRO, the salinity level of the Murray River could rise dramatically in the next 30 years.

• Victorian Government introduces Landcare, a project in which community groups, with government assistance, try to patch up and prevent land degradation through salinity and erosion.

• Ian Kiernan and Kim McKay found Clean Up Australia Day.

• Victorian Government launches "Salt Action: Joint Action". In February 1987 the Victorian Government promised to spend $90 million, including Commonwealth funding, to fight salinity over the next 10 years.

• Australia's first $45 million National Soil Conservation Strategy is launched.

• Hawke Government initiates Greening Australia - a "one billion trees program", with the aim of having them planted by the turn of the century.

• Prime Minister Bob Hawke announces that Australia will have an environmental database, costing $4 million over two years, to bring together the scattered information needed to improve environmental planning and decision-making.

• Landcare Australia launched to raise awareness and corporate sponsorship for landcarers.

• Federal Government Greenhouse gas inventory shows land clearing accounts for 25 per cent of greenhouse emissions.
• The Keating Government orders a reduction in the export of woodchips to 5.3 million. This comes after decades of sustained campaigns by conservation groups.

• The Howard Government launches its Australian Oceans policy with focus on rebuilding, conserving and improving coastal planning.

• Federal Government announces a $1.4 billion 10-year salinity proposal.

 

SFSF
Schools For a Sustainable Future
1 Curdies St.
E. Bentleigh Vic. 3165
Email: Joe Natoli
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