"It had been the previous [Australian] coalition governments intention and by default the Rudd governments plan to meet it’s commitments to limit the nation’s Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2008-2012 to the Kyoto Target of an 8% increase above the levels achieved in 1990, by using these accumulated credits [from bans on landclearing] without paying farmers for them.
"The Federal Court in Sydney in December last year agreed that farmers have an arguable case against the Commonwealth over ownership of the 80 million Tonnes of carbon created from land clearing bans...
"Now the court has given Mr Spencer the Green light to file a “notice of motion” which is an injunction to stop the Commonwealth from entering into any carbon trading scheme, until the case is decided.
Read more here: http://www.agmates.com/blog/2008/02/24/108-billion-payment-to-farmers-to-meet-kyoto-commitment/
The real problems will start if the high court goes against the landowners and validates the taking without compensation as some perverse interpretation of the States power to govern for the "peace, order and good governance" of the people.
For at that point, there is no longer the barest semblance of a social contract and any obligations to the community that this, by far our most community minded minority, may have felt in the past are void.
We will have been taken so far down the road to ecological "Bosnia" that the only option left is for them to demonstrate that the consequences of state sponsored fraud is neither "peace", "order", nor "good governance".
The deparmental spivs simply calculated that they can abuse a majority mandate with impunity. But they have not even begun to contemplate what sort of costs would be involved in defending vital ecological assets from a home grown terrorist network with a solid community base.
Hang on this is a very southern centric view of life ? cropping ? improved pastures? WTF. Most of Queensland is just extensive rough grazing - no we'll say pastoralism! Maybe throw in some buffel.
And everything is old growth if you want to look for old stumps and ring-barked trees. You can really only do a height definition i.e. it has regrown to an extent that it looks close enough to remnant vegetation again.
The "ecologists" wanted regional ecosystems not to be cleared below certain levels or minimum areas in the case of small areas of remnant.
The vegetation working groups would agree to minimum levels of remaining of regional ecosystems, sensible clearing near creeks and rivers, avoiding high slopes and saline prone systems, and made good attempts to develop corridors of interlinked woody vegetation.
All swept aside by the tree clearing laws. The salinity argument ended up to be substantially bogus.
What I want to know is why was the 25 Mt the magic number needed by the Feds - no more no less.
None of this adds up of course.
And we're now left with an emerging problem of thickening and how they are going to allow thinning operations. Round and round and round we go.
Should have stuck with the regional processes and made them work. Could have had a win win. And landholders should have been able to realise their carbon resources either directly or by regional investment from the Commonwealth.
Would have delivered production, biodiversity and greenhouse outcomes. And improved terms of trade in the bush.
Now you've just got a bunch of very pissed off disenfranchised individuals.
But that's just my two bobs.
Luke,
No, they wanted to clearly identify the differences between what could be considered regrowth and has been subject to clearing on past occasions, to that of mature or 'old growth' vegetation; the removal of which would count negatively towards Australia's Kyoto target if it was ratified.
The farm lobby wanted a transparent system that they could have confidence with and wouldn't negatively penalise them for their management systems, the green lobby wanted all land clearing stopped regardless of whether it was regrowth or not. In many of the areas under question many properties are manaed on quite long term rotations such as 10-15 years or more. The paddock is cleared and depending on location and quality of the season either cropped for a year or two, then put to improved pasture for a few years then left to rough graze for another few years until the paddock regenerates and then basically not much is done until the qualitiy of the season is such that it starts over again.
p around places like the Pilliga and throught o Qld such rotations used to be quite common until the new land clearing laws came into force. Now th e rotation length is shorter due to the definition of regrowth. Essentially it used to be quite a sustainable method of farming, extensive in nature rather than intensive with a long term focus on not over manageing it. Due to the new defintitions of regrowth in conjunction with revised land clearing laws, such as the NSW Native Vegetation Act, farmers are being pushed into reducing rotation length and adopting a more intensive management of their properties inorder to survive, where the quality of the season permits of course.
How does that work - Feds were pushing for regrowth only? Huh?
On another note, it should not be forgotten that the Kyoto emissions target is a Government 'debt' and not strictly an individuals. The State Labor Governments in Victoria, NSW and Qld especially pursued land clearing legislation that had proved to be a windfall for the Howard Government, in terms of meeting its Kyoto target (even though Howard never ratified and the target had no legal standing).
Whether or not the Rudd Government has an obligation to compensate farmers for meeting Australia's Kyoto target is interesting as the States introduced the legislation mostly for other environmental reasons. As the Commonealth does not have the right to legislate in regard to land use practices (States rights) a decision by the High court may go against States rights or result in providing greater powers for the Commonwealth on land use issues due to obigations undertaken through the signing of international treaties such as Kyoto.
We shall have to wait and see what the outcome is, but I feel that it may prove to be a realignment in State and Commonwealth powers over such things as land use.
The reality is that the previous Federal Government cannot be wholly blamed for the Qld land clearing legislation. Whilst the Feds were pushing for regrowth only, and a consistent objective method of identifying it,the Beattie Govt became frustrated at not achieving the outcome it wanted in the time frame it wanted and pushed through its own legislation, losing any hope of Federal Govt compensation for farmers that was on offer.
I clearly remember the the toing and froing that went on for months as draft and redraft went on at the desk next to me. Beattie basically put one over the Feds for State reasons.