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BOB HAWKE made what he called the ‘world’s most comprehensive statement
on the environment’ on 20 July. The place where the Australian Prime Minister
chose to make his statement says a lot about environmental issues in Australia.
Hawke delivered his speech at Wentworth, a farming town in the southwest
corner of New South Wales. The region is one of the worst in the country
for land degradation and salinity. These are problems that cost Australia
about Dollars A600 million a year in lost agricultural production.

At some spots in the state of South Australia, not far from Wentworth,
2.5 tonnes of salt flows every minute into the Murray River. Excessive irrigation
is causing the water table to rise by 20 centimetres a year, bringing with
it dissolved salts – up to 3000 tonnes per hectare a year – that remain
on the surface after the water evaporates.

Hawke’s statement, published under the title Our Country, Our Future,
devotes a lot of space to land matters – indeed much of the Dollars A500
million that the government will plough into environmental problems in the
next 10 years will be spent on such things as tree planting, soil conservation
and better farming practices. The National Farmers Federation is delighted.
The agricultural industry is acknowledging, after years of abusing the land,
that land needs to be cared for.

The ecologists are also happy. ‘Most ecologists in the world would be
envious of a statement like this,’ says Mark Lonsdale from the Tropical
Ecosystems Research Centre in Darwin. Lonsdale has in mind such things as
the funding to set up computerised data bases which will provide inventories
of flora and fauna and information on endangered species.

The Hawke government, however, has to make sure any love affair with
the environment doesn’t overly jeopardise a flagging economy. Our Country,
Our Future does not contain a target date for reduction of greenhouse gases
because economic interests on Cabinet held sway. Instead, Australia is talking
about attracting energy-intensive industries from elsewhere, which would
increase its output of greenhouse gases. It is also considering lifting
restrictions on the mining of uranium so that it can export this to nations
which opt for nuclear power as an alternative to energy from fossil fuels.

By embracing environmental issues, Hawke has another problem on his
hands. Each of the six states and two territories in Australia has its own
government, with a large say over what happens to the environment within
their boundaries. This has long been a sore spot with the federal government
in Canberra, which says that environmental matters such as the greenhouse
effect do not respect state boundaries.

In the meantime, the business community – both in Australia and overseas
– is confused. The country is very conscious of the need to have industries
which add value to native resources. For example, it wants to process its
wood into pulp and paper, and export these products rather than import them.
When it comes to approving such business enterprises which may affect the
environment, however, both the federal government and the states have a
say: the results can be contradictory.

Earlier this year, the Hawke government invoked its power over foreign
investment to demand further environmental controls for a Dollars A1 billion
pulp mill in Wesley Vale, Tasmania, that the state had approved. It was
concerned about dioxins, a by-product of the bleaching process, being released
into the Bass Strait. To the surprise of Canberra the partners, North Broken
Hill-Peko and a Canadian company, Noranda Forest, pulled out instead of
complying. To prevent a repeat of the Wesley Vale incident, the government
is now drawing up, together with the states, ‘exacting but achievable’ environmental
guidelines for bleached-pulp mills.

The government also recognises that Australia needs a healthy, viable
forest industry. Hawke wants to see hardwood plantations developed for felling
to ease the burden on native forests. In the statement, he promised almost
Dollars A4 million to help establish these. But the timber industry says
that plantations will not provide the quality of log that is needed for
saw mills, although the timber could be used for the pulp-wood industry,
according to the Forestry and Forest Products Industry Council.

Against this, the Australian Conservation Foundation, the country’s
largest environment lobby, says that the very future of Australia’s native
forests is threatened, as long as the forestry industry can cut down forests
with the blessing of the state governments. Animals that live in the forest,
especially marsupials unique to Australia, are threatened.

Recently the federal and state governments reached a temporary compromise
over what should happen to a native forest in New South Wales – 91 per cent
of the forest will be protected for up to 12 months while scientific and
biological studies on the impact of logging are carried out. The real problem
is what happens after 12 months, says Graham Richardson, the environmental
minister.

Mining is another controversial area. Australia, with a foreign debt
growing at a rate of Dollars A1.6 billion a month, earns Dollars A23.5 billion
a year from exporting minerals. The ACF wants mining banned fron national
parks, but the federal government has refused to step in. Unlike the US,
in Australia the individual states run most of the national parks.

The conflict of environment versus the economy is no clearer than at
Kakadu National Park, a renowned wildlife area near Darwin in the Northern
Territory. Also mixed in are Aboriginal land rights – the Jawoyn Aborigines
call the area ‘sickness country’. They say great catastrophe and illness
will befall the area if it is disturbed.

Environmentalists do not want Kakadu turned into another Ok Tedi, a
copper mine in Papua New Guinea where tailings from the mine have polluted
the lower reaches of the Fly River. BHP Australia, which is involved in
Ok Tedi, wants to mine gold, platinum and palladium at Coronation Hill and
at El Sherana in the Kakadu park. There is a danger of chemical pollution
in the headwaters of the South Alligator River, which feeds into a wetland
area that is designated as a World Heritage site.

The ACF sees Coronation Hill as a test case. ‘If we lose this battle,
then mining could take place in national parks all over the place,’ says
Bill Hare from the ACF. The Northern Territory government is eager to have
the area mined; it is another issue that could end up as a squabble between
local government and Canberra.