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The Control of Nutrient Run-Off from Agricultural Areas: Insights into Governance from Australia’s Sugarcane Industry and the Great Barrier Reef

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2018

Evan Hamman  and
Felicity Deane
Evan Hamman
Affiliation:
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Qld (Australia). Email: [email protected].
Felicity Deane
Affiliation:
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Qld (Australia). Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

Many parts of the world rely on nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus to improve farming production and increase yields. There are significant food security as well as socio-economic issues at stake. However, it is also clear that fertilizer loads are particularly damaging to aquatic environments, including lakes, rivers, coral reefs, and wetlands. This article explores governance approaches to fertilizer practices that impact on aquatic environments (eutrophication) by examining a case study of the Great Barrier Reef. Governance involves any and all forms of state and non-state control over a given set of issues. It can include, but is not limited to, rule-based approaches like regulation, although it can also involve market-driven measures like nutrient trading schemes, government grants and other financial incentives. So, which approach to governance works best to combat this particular policy question? What other insights into the design of effective regulation and governance can be gathered? In this article, the authors make three broad arguments for change: firstly, it is crucial that regulation features within government strategies; secondly, there must be a rigorous systematic evaluation of the strategies to ensure that the desired behavioural change is achieved along with the desired outcomes; thirdly, and most importantly, the strategies and the evaluation methods must be appropriate for the culture of the industry they are designed to regulate.

Keywords

GovernanceRegulationEutrophicationGreat Barrier ReefSugarcaneNutrientsQueensland
Type
Article
Information
Transnational Environmental Law , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , November 2018 , pp. 451 - 468
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

This article is based on research undertaken as a result of funding through the Institute of Future Environments, QUT Catapult programme. The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers who made helpful suggestions about how this article might be improved. The authors would also like to acknowledge the research services of Ilana Bolingford.

References

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41 Environmental Protection Act 1994 (Qld), s. 75.

42 State of Queensland, Queensland Audit Office, ‘Managing Water Quality in Great Barrier Reef Catchments’, Report 20: 2014–15, available at: https://www.qao.qld.gov.au/reports-parliament/managing-water-quality-great-barrier-reef-catchments. In particular the Environmental Protection Act 1994 outlines the fertilizer application requirements and creates an offence of applying more than ‘the optimum amount’ of nitrogen and phosphorus to soil on the property: Environmental Protection Act 1994 (Qld), Ch. 4A, ss. 78, 80. Further the Act specifies that fertilizer containing nitrogen or phosphorus cannot be applied if it would cause more than this optimum amount to be applied to the soil: ibid, s. 82.

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44 Environmental Protection Act 1994 (Qld), s. 78. These figures are the USD equivalent of AUD 10,000 and 12,615 respectively.

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47 Ibid.

48 Ibid.

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51 Ibid.

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77 Ibid.

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96 Pickering et al., n. 74 above.