What is the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality?

One of Australia's greatest challenges is the ongoing sustainable management of natural resources such as our soil, water, plants and animals. These resources are essential to the profitability of many rural businesses and conserving our native plants and animals. It is vital that governments and the community work together to protect Australia's natural resources and the future of our natural resource industries and the environment.

Recognising the need for action to tackle salinity and water quality problems, the Australian, state and territory governments adopted the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (NAP) in 2000.

Our vital resources: A National Plan for Salinity and Water Quality

The National Action Plan has a number of elements to tackle salinity and water quality problems in the key catchments and regions. These include:

setting regional targets for water quality and salinity
helping regional communities develop and implement integrated regional/catchment natural resource management plans
providing regional communities with advice and information for developing and implementing integrated management plans
introducing changes to secure property rights for water, improving water pricing, and establishing effective controls on land-clearing in salinity risk areas
clearly defining how partnerships can work effectively to address salinity and water quality
coordinating decision-making across governments.

For further information on the problem of salinity and the ways the NAP is tackling it, read or download the fact sheet:

Australia's salinity problem

For information on the Intergovernmental and Bilateral Agreements guiding the implementation of the NAP and links to relevant reports and discussion papers, read:

Reports, agreements and frameworks

Who manages the National Action Plan?

The Australian Government works in cooperation with the state and territory governments in jointly funding the delivery of the NAP through the 35 regional natural resource management (NRM) bodies whose regions intersect with the 21 National Action Plan Priority Regions.

Delivery of the NAP is through plans and investment strategies developed by the regional NRM bodies.

The Departments of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the Environment and Water Resources jointly manage delivery of the NAP on behalf of the Australian Government. This joint delivery approach between Australian Government agencies has been an innovative and efficient response to program delivery.

Each state and territory has an identified lead agency, often with links to other state agencies that are responsible for specific aspects of natural resource management.

Find out more from the NRM web site .

How is it funded?

The Australian, state and territory governments have committed $1.4 billion to the NAP over seven years to June 2008. The NAP supports targeted action by regional communities and landholders in highly affected catchments or regions. At the regional level the NAP is jointly delivered with the Natural Heritage Trust (the Trust).

The NAP, in conjunction with the Trust, forms the basis for the delivery of Australia's integrated regional natural resource management initiatives.

The Natural Resource Management (NRM) web site provides more information about how the NAP and the Trust are driven by regional plans, developed by local communities and supported by Government and the best available science, to improve natural resources on a regional scale.

What is a priority region?

The NAP targets the 21 Australian regions that are most affected by salinity and water quality problems (the NAP Priority Regions). State and territory agencies defined these areas based on dryland salinity risk or hazard assessments undertaken during the first phase of the Natural Heritage Trust and reported by the National Land and Water Resources Audit in 2000. The priority regions were defined by the catchment boundaries that included the areas identified as high risk. Many of the NAP priority regions overlap with more than one NRM region.

Australian Dryland Salinity Assessment 2000

The definition of the NAP Priority Regions in the South Australian Bilateral Agreement included an overlap between the South Australian section of the Lower Murray Priority Region and the Mount Lofty Ranges and Northern Agricultural Districts Sub-Regions of the Mt Lofty Ranges-Kangaroo Island-Northern Agricultural Districts Priority Region.

Map of NAP Priority Regions

Are you in a NAP Priority Region? Use our NAP and NRM region locality search tool to find out.

NRM and NAP region locality search tool

Communities outside these regions can still get involved in improving the way we manage our natural resources. Visit the Natural Resource Management or Grantslink web sites for more information.

What's happened so far?

See the Annual Reports for details of investments under the NAP.

NAP Annual Reports

The following is a reverse chronology of key dates in the progress of the NAP:

3 July 2001

Leaders from key national community stakeholder groups met in Canberra at the Forum for Community Consultation to discuss issues relating to the implementation of the NAP.

2 July 2001

The Premier of New South Wales, Bob Carr, signed the IGA.

26 June 2001

The Chief Minister of the ACT, Gary Humphries, signed the IGA in Canberra.

22 June 2001

The Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard signed the IGA in Canberra.

19 June 2001

The Premier of Tasmania, Jim Bacon, signed the IGA in Hobart.

8 June 2001

Establishment of the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council (NRMMC). The Australian Heads of Government confirmed the establishment of the NRMMC at the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting on the 8 June 2001.

This new Ministerial Council subsumes NRM issues from the Agriculture and Resource Management Council of Australia and New Zealand, the Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council and the Ministerial Council on Forestry, Fisheries and Aquaculture. The NRMMC oversees implementation of the NAP.

The Prime Minister, Premiers and Chief Ministers also agreed to the establishment of the Primary Industries Ministerial Council and the Environmental Protection and Heritage Ministerial Council.

8 June 2001

South Australian Bilateral Agreement signed. On Friday 8 June at the meeting of COAG, the Prime Minister, John Howard and the Premier of South Australia, John Olsen signed the first Bilateral Agreement.

April-May 2001

Research and development priorities established. A number of workshops were held to discuss research and development issues relating to the NAP.

The first workshop, conducted on 18 April, involved a range of commodity and land and water research and development corporations with an interest in the Australian agricultural sector. It also incorporated a selected number of Cooperative Research Centres with research interests relating to salinity and water quality.

Commonwealth, state and territory officials met on 2 May and considered government research priorities and possible delivery mechanisms for research and development funding under the NAP.

The workshops identified the possible themes, key issues and priorities of the research and development component of the NAP and explored opportunities for stronger involvement in natural resource management related research by industry research and development corporations.

The outcomes of both workshops have informed the Capacity Building Working Group on aspects of the research and development effort underpinning the NAP.

Late April 2001

On-ground action commences. One of the key elements, the Salinity Mapping Program, commenced with initial activity in the St George area of Queensland's Condamine-Balonne-Maranoa priority region.

28 March 2001

Northern Territory's Chief Minister, Dennis Burke signed the IGA in Darwin.

February-March 2001

NRM Roadshows commence in Queensland and South Australia - Media Release .

The roadshow provided landowners and regional communities with information on the NAP, detailing its affect on different regions and outlining what to expect over subsequent months and years.

25 February 2001

South Australian Premier, John Olsen signed the IGA in Goolwa at the mouth of the Murray.

23 January 2001

Premier Peter Beattie signed the IGA, making Queensland the first State to confirm their commitment to the NAP.

December 2000

An overarching IGA was forwarded to all states and territory governments, representing a major step in securing the funding commitments detailed in the COAG agreement of 3 November 2000.

3 November 2000

COAG Agreement - Media Release .

The NAP was endorsed by the Prime Minister, Premiers and Chief Ministers at COAG on 3 November 2000.

The Council endorsed the Commonwealth's proposal for a NAP as the basis for developing an IGA by the end of December 2000, in order to tackle salinity, particularly dryland salinity, and deteriorating water quality.

10 October 2000

The National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality was released - Media Release .

The Prime Minister, John Howard announced that the Federal Government will commit $700 million to the first comprehensive national strategy to address salinity and water quality problems, two of the most significant issues confronting Australia's rural industries, regional communities and our environment.

The Prime Minister indicated that the states and territories will play an integral in ensuring the success of the strategy. Salinity and water quality are issues that require not only national leadership from the Commonwealth but also collaboration between all governments throughout Australia.

Given the constitutional responsibilities of the states and territories for land management, the Commonwealth sought a dollar for dollar matching commitment from them. The Prime Minister also announced the NAP would be high on the agenda at the COAG meeting in November 2000.

Key

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National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality