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Goulburn Broken - Natural Resource Management region

Regional summary

The Goulburn Broken region comprises 2,431,654 hectares and is home to around 189,500 people. This region is regarded by many as the Food Bowl of the Murray-Darling Basin, as it has substantial and varied agricultural, horticultural, forestry and aquaculture industries. The region's agricultural output supports a regional economy that has an annual output of $7.8 billion.

The region contributes more than 20 percent of Victoria's farm production from 10 percent of the state's land area. Dryland salinity, soil acidification, water-quality decline, flooding, pest plants and animals, soil degradation and decline of biodiversity and ecosystem processes are the major threats to the region's natural resource economic and social assets.

Priority issues

Key natural resource management issues in the region include:

• emerging water markets and demand for environmental water
• water savings
• land use, commodity prices and demographic change
• salt disposal constraints
• restoring the floodplain
• priority projects
• market-based approaches
• pursuing multiple benefits
• improving the regulatory framework
• focusing on natural assets and ecosystem services
• enhancing community engagement
• building capacity

Regional plan

The Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority was responsible for developing the Goulburn Broken Regional Catchment Strategy (RCS), in consultation with the local community. This strategy was based on a whole-of-region approach and addresses significant natural resource management (NRM) issues.

Following accreditation of the regional strategy, the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority was responsible for developing the regional investment strategy. This is essentially the business plan that has been developed to attract investment from the Australian and state governments and details the specific actions, costs and timeframes required to implement the RCS.

The Catchment Management Authority has recognised the importance of triple bottom line accounting in NRM. Actions promoted by its strategy and the sub-strategies are designed to generate environmental, economic and social benefits. Some 105 Landcare groups, involving 3,500 people, operate in the region. Regional priorities include actively engaging these people in local area planning and providing support.

• Goulburn Broken plan  - accredited October 2003

Current activities

NRM priority	Activities addressing the priority
Water quality	reduce potential phosphorous loads 65 percent by reducing loads from irrigation drains by 50 percent, dryland and diffuse sources by 20 percent, wastewater management facilities by 80 percent and urban drainage address terrestrial riparian habit loss by planting two million native plants
Native Vegetation	maintain all native vegetation types at 1999 levels protecting 6,000 hectares of remnant native vegetation on private land
Public frontages	maintain 2003 condition of 350 kilometres of all public frontages along waterways
Soil health	establish a monitoring programme to identify priority areas where erosion losses are greatest
Pest plants and animals	ensure weed, rabbit, fox and wild dog management integrates with other natural resource management programmes

Contacts

Further information can be obtained by contacting the Regional Facilitators for Victoria.