Federal funding changes clarified
4 Apr 2008
Reasons behind changes to the way the new Federal Government will deliver its Natural Heritage Fund program have become a little clearer in the last few days.
Apparently there has been more than a little dismay expressed by bureaucrats and politicians at the results of audit outcomes over the last few years. Hundreds of millions of dollars have simply disappeared into the black hole of landcare networks (and others) without any identifiable long term environmental benefit.
Another issue has been the inconsistency of skills amongst the service providers who have delivered the programs. Victoria is pretty well placed with its Catchment Management Authorities - but even amongst those there are great discrepancies. The West Gippsland CMA went through a period of de-skilling several years ago and it is still suffering the results of employing people who don't understand the issues of biodiversity and effective natural resource management.
One of the highest priorities in all areas is the protection of existing remnant native vegetation - but often the allocation is a pittance compared with the funds spent on providing jobs for facilitators, project officers, co-ordinators and all the other staffing positions that anyone can deam up. The money needs to spent on things which show a...
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Tags:
caring for our country, catchment management, west gippsland cma
Posted at: 05:53 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink
Caring for our Country - the new NHT
28 Mar 2008
The Federal Government changes to NHT funding, as a result of slack processes revealed by audits of many of the delivery networks, may help to produce better environmental outcomes.
By reducing amounts distributed automatically through Catchment Management Authorities and other service delivery bodies throughout Australia we may see a greater percentage of the funds actually resulting in on-ground works.
Much will depend on how the CMA's react to the cuts in their funding allocations. If they simply maintain the status quo within their own organisations and chop the funding they handover to other groups, the situation will be even worse than before (if the Fed's tolerate that).
Apparently the Board of the West Gippsland CMA has already decided on cuts to the various bodies who deliver programs and projects which are designed to meet their Catchment Strategy. That approach clearly wasn't the idea behind the changes - the cuts in funding were supposed to cut some of the fat out of the administrative process.
Tags:
caring for our country, nht, west gippsland cma
Posted at: 08:06 AM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink
