Management Practices in the NT
Introduction
Land management decisions can have a profound impact on the sustainability of natural resources and agricultural\ productivity. Land management practice information is needed to help monitor trends in natural resource condition and develop effective land management responses. An important step in this regard is a consistent approach to the collation of land management practices information.
The national workshop “Land management practices: information priorities, classification and mapping – towards an agreed national approach” held in May 2004 identified the need for pilot studies to assist in developing and testing a national land management practices information framework. BRS has taken forward this concept and obtained funding from the Natural Heritage Trust (NHT) to document drivers and requirements for land management practices information, including at the State and regional level. This consultative process and the subsequent report are then to be used to develop fully costed proposals to undertake a pilot study in a selected region/s of each State. Subject to funding, it is envisaged that these pilot studies would commence in the 2006/07 financial year.
Land Use Management Information System (LUMIS)
It is envisioned that this framework will be implemented as a LUMIS that will inform or be populated by other systems or frameworks. (i.e. environmental management systems, ecosystem services studies). The land management practices framework seeks to provide a nationally consistent approach to enable users to access data relevant to their individual needs.
A system approach will ensure the framework is tangible and real. Ultimately, LUMIS will provide a closer step to evaluate land use impacts on land and water condition. The framework is based on the ‘land use pyramid’ as shown below.
Figure 1. Hierarchy of categories of land management and their effect on
land condition (BRS, 2001).
Farming Systems Approach
Land use practices will be modelled using the farming systems approach that considers management practices as ‘actions’ requiring ‘inputs’ with an associated ‘intensity’ and ‘timing’. These ‘actions’ are a result of a ‘trigger’ and may operate at different ‘scales’ to produce an output’. The ‘trigger’ and ‘output’ fields allow consideration of social and economic factors. For example, the ultimate output from harvesting a crop would be its yield (t/ha), which would have a monetary value. Below is a visual interpretation of the farming systems approach.
Figure 2: Farming systems approach
To put this into perspective, see the worked examples in the later section of this paper. The two examples attempt to capture the activities and actions of a developing property and an established horticultural venture.
For further information about Mapping Land Management Practice in the Northern Territory contact Land and Vegetation in Darwin.
