Contents - Summer (December) 2001

About Connections

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Paper 1

Harry Potter and the Pendulums of Perpetual Motion: Economic Policy Instruments for Environmental Management

David Pannell
To protect the 'muggles' from themselves, the 'economic wizards' need to be careful and explicit about the strengths and limitations of environmental economic instruments.

Paper 2

Environmental Policy Implementation Challenged by some Land Management Realities

John Cary
The National Land and Water Resources Audit has identified some important realities that confront aspirations for significant and speedy landscape change in Australia.

Paper 3

New Knowledge Means New Approaches to Solving Dryland Salinity

Mike Read
Case study contributions to the National Land and Water Resources Audit point to the need for more options in the battle against dryland salinity and for better evaluation of engineering and land management strategies.

Paper 4

Farmer Land Stewardship : A Pillar to Reinforce Natural Resource Management?

Jim Crosthwaite
A set of mechanisms are needed to make progress in natural resource management and policy. Duty of care, or stewardship, market based measures and voluntary agreements are desirable pillars in a sustainable land management policy.

Paper 5

Dear Taxpayer, Send Money

Alistair Watson
Dryland salinity is a phenomenon with national ramifications. Without sound scientific research and a proper economic perspective, dryland salinity is capable of absorbing a very large amount of public money for a very long time to very little effect.

Paper 6

Land Management and Asset Security

Ian Donges
The National Farmers' Federation number one issue in the recent Federal election campaign was farmers' property rights. What is the farmer's policy position on property rights as a mechanism to protect public good on private farm land?

Paper 7

Expensive Lessons for Government and Rural Industry from the Wool Stockpile

Bob Richardson
The collapse of the wool industry's reserve price scheme created one of the bigger marketing and financial disasters in Australian farming history. Will lessons be learnt?

About Connections

Welcome to the first issue of Connections: Farm, Food and Resource Issues. Connections: the name reflects its origins, its intentions and the medium. It is a joint product of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (AARES) and the Australian Agribusiness Association (AAA). It is intended that Connections will publish connecting material in farm and agribusiness, in marketing and management, in environment and resources in rural and regional Australia. Finally, Connections is the first electronic based, extension publication for both AARES and AAA.

Connections is innovative and experimental. AARES and AAA are launching Connections on a pilot basis; its interest and appeal to you the reader and potential writer will be assessed by both groups after 12 months. Connections represents a commitment by both groups to the extension of information about economic and business issues affecting rural industries, resources and communities. There are no costs to readers to download issues or articles during the pilot period.

The editors of Connections are keen to receive feedback from you about published articles and issues. Your feedback may be published in the form of e-mail letters or comments in following issues. We plan to produce up to four issues of Connections per year, with about half a dozen articles per issue. Our ability to achieve this target will depend on Connections being appreciated by members of both AARES and AAA as an opportunity to extend research and thoughtful analysis about contemporary issues to a world wide audience. We extend an open invitation to any interested person to submit material. The Guidelines for Writers are located on the websites of both groups.

Compliments of the season.