Responsibility for Monitoring
The Northern Territory Government, in consultation with the Territory’s Cattle Industry, developed the Pastoral Land Act under which the Pastoral Land Board has the responsibility for developing and implementing monitoring programs on 219 pastoral properties (refer to pastoral properties on NRETA Maps).
The Pastoral Land Act recognises the increasing emphasis on landcare and ecologically sustainable land use. It also recognises that the primary responsibility for landcare and sustainable land use rests with the day to day managment of the land.
Each of the 219 pastoral properties is visited once every three years to carry out site condition monitoring, to apraise the general condition of the property to note locations of declared weeds and feral animals as well as updating property infrastructure maps.
Under the Pastoral Land Act , the Minister for Natural Resources, the Pastoral Land Board, and the lessees are responsible for ensuring that land held as Pastoral Lease is used in accordance with sustainable land use practices.
The role of NRETA’s Rangeland Management Branch is to monitor the condition of the pastoral estate on behalf of the Northern Territory Government, the Pastoral Land Board (PLB) and the general community.
There are two levels of monitoring undertaken:
Tier 1 Monitoring is a ground-based program that uses photographs of the same point over time combined with visual assessments and measurements of the ground layer to assess land condition. These sites are visited every 2 to 3 years by Rangeland Monitoring Officers who assess pasture condition and development of the property. Land managers are encouraged to conduct their own monitoring at these sites.
Tier 2 Monitoring is an integrated monitoring system of remote sensed images and ground based data. The satellite images are analysed and then correlated with detailed ground based data collected from permanent sites to provide information on landscape change over time.
Section 6 of the NT Pastoral Land Act stipulates:
It is the duty of a pastoral lessee –
- To carry out the pastoral enterprise under the lease so as to prevent degradation of the land;
- To participate to a reasonable extent in the monitoring of the environment and sustained productive health of the land; and
- Within the limits of the lessee’s financial resources and available technical knowledge, to improve the condition of the land.
