S.O.E. LAND RESOURCES
The following information is taken directly from the soon-to-be-released
Australia: State of the Environment 1996. However, any information in
italics is not a direct quote and purely a qualifier.
* ¥ Australians enjoy a high standard of living and the country supports
more than its own population. For example, we feed the equivalent of
about an extra 50 million people with cereals.
* ¥ Australia is a dry continent with infertile soils and high climatic
variability. These features do not put pressure on our land resource,
but human activities that fail to take them into account do.
* ¥ ... only six per cent of our land is arable, compared with 20 per
cent of the United States.
* ¥ General pressures include: population, the failure to allow
sufficiently for the poor soil and climate variability, loss of
biodiversity, and economic and social pressures.
* ¥ Compared with other developed nations, Australia has only rudimentary
information on the condition and productive capacity of its land
resources, and the potential hazards associated with their use.
* ¥ Rangelands cover about 75 per cent of the country. Although only a
small part of the rangelands (two per cent) is regarded as severely
degraded, a much larger area (15 per cent) is sufficiently affected to
require destocking if it is to recover.
* ¥ To date surveys have been conducted over about 51 per cent of the
rangelands which includes most of the pastoral lands. In all survey
regions most of the land is assessed to be in fair to good condition,
with only a relatively small proportion considered to be in poor
condition or unrecoverable by normal property management. Where
assessed, areas of severe degradation and erosion, which are probably
unrecoverable, amount to no more than 2.3 per cent of the land surface.
* ¥ A common finding in rangeland surveys is that those land types or
vegetation communities with the highest potential for pastoral
production (for example, creek and river frontages) are the most
severely degraded.
* ¥ Although Australian cities and towns occupy only 0.01 per cent of the
continent , this area is concentrated in our most important catchments
and often on high-value agricultural land.
* ¥ In some wheat-growing regions ? such as south-west Western Australia,
the mallee wheatbelt lands of South Australia and the wheat belt of
central New South Wales ? expansion and intensification of cropping
activities have resulted in major changes to land cover. Less than 20
per cent of the native vegetation remains in these regions.
* ¥ Although land clearing was essential if we wished to grow food and
fibre, it has opened our land resource to damage by erosion, destroyed
soil structure, changed soil chemistry and caused losses of
biodiversity and other problems.
* ¥ Clearing for agricultural development has been very selective, with
the vegetation types occupying the better soils and gentler slopes
being used first. As a result, many land cover types are now severely
under-represented in remaining vegetation. For example, 85 per cent of
VictoriaÕs box-ironbark forests and woodlands have been cleared. Those
remaining are located mainly on rocky areas, upper slopes, poorer soil
or periodically inundated floodplains.
* ¥ Australia, as party to the United Nations Convention on Climate
Change is required to prepare an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions.
The inventory is prepared using an internationally agreed method
developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Using this
method, several land use changes that can modify carbon dioxide fluxes
between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere were identified ?
including clearing for agriculture. The results suggested that land
clearing may be contributing up to 27 per cent of total greenhouse gas
emissions. However, the limited amount of information on rates of
clearing, the type of vegetation cleared and the effect of regrowth on
carbon fluxes means that such contributions could be anywhere between
seven per cent and 45 per cent of total emissions.
* ¥ Most areas of cropland and improved pasture are affected by soil
degradation. Soil degradation occurs in several ways: soil structure
decline, water logging and salinity, water and wind erosion, soil
nutrient balance, and soil acidification.
* ¥ The limited data available indicate that rates of soil formation in
Australia are very low by world standards.
* ¥ ...given human life spans, soil has to be considered as a finite and
non-renewable resource.
* ¥ While changes in soil structure due to land use may be one of
AustraliaÕs most serious forms of land degradation, the extent,
severity and cost have not been well documented.
* ¥ Infrequent but destructive storms are responsible for much of the
soil loss even in the gentle rainfall zones of southern Australia.
* ¥ The most critical factor in protecting soils from accelerated erosion
by water is maintenance of cover .... in close contact with the soil
surface. Other techniques for erosion control, such as contour banks,
reduced tillage and strip cropping, provide supplementary measures. For
example, a storm at Cowra in southern New South Wales during 1992
caused soil losses of 342 tonnes per ha for areas under traditional
tillage, 362 tonnes per ha under reduced tillage and 65 tonnes under
direct drilling
* ¥ [The soil particles in dust storms] have nutrient concentrations many
times greater than the soil from which they came. Significant
quantities of dust are deposited offshore and Australian dust is
reported to have been transported to New Zealand on at least seven
occasions this century. The mass of the 1983 Melbourne dust storm was
calculated to be about two million tonnes and the cost of replacing
nutrients at around $4 million. However the fine haze in previous days,
which went largely unnoticed, carried more soil into the Southern Ocean
than did the dramatic dust storm.
* ¥ In an average year in Australia, about 14 billion tonnes of soil is
moved by sheet and rill erosion. This is about 19 per cent of the total
soil moved each year globally, even though Australia is only five per
cent of the worldÕs land area.
* ¥ Sheet and rill erosion is occurring up to 100 times the soil
formation rate on sloping land ? a clearly unsustainable situation.
* ¥ An estimated 29 million ha of mainly agricultural land are regarded
as significantly acidified, at least in the surface layers..... Soil
acidification can be remedied by applying lime of dolomite as sources
of alkaline materials. Recent estimates in South Australia suggest that
only about 10 per cent of the area thought to require liming received
applications over the last 10 years. If deep subsoils are acidified the
damage will be expensive to repair.
* ¥ Vertebrate and invertebrate pests cost rural enterprises dearly.
Since European settlement, more than 1900 vascular plant species have
become naturalised ? that is, deliberately introduced or accidentally
released. Half of these are now regarded as weeds.
* ¥ Potential weeds are still being introduced. Between 1947 and 1985,
463 exotic pasture species and legumes were introduced into northern
Australia. Only 21 (five per cent) were subsequently regarded as useful
and, of these, 17 were also weeds. Thus, only four species (less than
one per cent ) were useful without causing weed problems while of the
non-useful introductions, 43 became listed weeds, giving a total of 60
(13 per cent) new weeds of either cropping or conservation areas or
both.
* ¥ Weeds are estimated to cost Australia about $3.3 billion annually.
Insects cause annual losses to primary production of about $3.1
billion. A mouse plague in South Australia and Victoria in 1993 cost a
total of $65 million, including $55 million in reduced yields.
* ¥ The cost of controlling all insects pests in Australia exceeds $1
billion annually, mostly due to expenditure on chemical products.
* ¥ On a world scale, Australia releases only a small proportion of
pollutants such as pesticides and herbicides. On a national level, a
lack of information on the nature and amounts of the materials being
released is a matter of concern.
* ¥ The substantial benefits associated with the use of most pesticides
in agriculture outweigh their risks especially since their safety and
sophistication have increased during recent decades. The irony is that
on farming systems such as minimum tillage or conservation farming,
which conserve soils by minimising erosion and improving soil structure
, rely on agricultural chemicals much more heavily than traditional
systems.
* ¥ Misuse of agricultural and veterinary chemicals is low in Australia,
and the quality of our food compares favourably with other countries.
* ¥ Despite the low fertility of our soils we use less fertiliser than
comparable countries.
* ¥ Each year about 200 000 ha or one per cent of the native forest
available for logging is harvested and undergoes various regeneration
practices. Additionally, about 30 000 ha of new softwood and over 10
000 ha of new hardwood plantations are established annually ? mostly on
land previously cleared for agriculture.
* ¥ The Resource Assessment Commission (RAC) Forest and Timber Inquiry
found that across all forest types about 172 000 sq km (40 per cent)
remained unlogged but only 24 000 sq km (14 per cent) stood in
conservation reserves.
* ¥ Removals of obstacles to plantation forestry; development of
fast-growing hardwoods; and removal of subsidies for the harvesting of
native forests are ....ways of relieving the pressure on native
forests.
* ¥ Under the umbrella of the National Landcare Program, project such as
One Billion Trees and Save the Bush have resulted in the planting or
regenerating of 550 million trees. However there has been little
assessment of how these programs have affected the extent of tree cover
or conservation of bushland. At best, they make a relatively modest
contribution.
* ¥ By the mid 1980s and mid 90s, concern about the rate of disappearance
of native vegetation and associated land degradation problems resulted
in the establishment of legislative or regulatory controls on land
clearing in most States.
* ¥ The Decade of Landcare plan set a target of 22 000 Landcare groups by
the end of the decade. However, this target was passed in late 1994.
More than 325 000 people are actively involved in Landcare. A 1992-93
ABARE survey estimated that 28 per cent of broadacre farmers and 19 per
cent of dairy farmers were members of Landcare groups.
* ¥ The Landcare movement faces a number of challenges..... Groups need
to adopt a Ôworking together to develop sustainable systemsÕ approach,
rather than a Ôfix land degradationÕ approach.
* ¥ The major challenge for Landcare is to have all land-users adopting
best-management practices to ensure sustainable use of resources. This
difficult task will involve widespread changes to routine land
management practices. Such changes may be resisted, particularly in
difficult economic circumstances.
* ¥ Increasingly, people are recognising that natural resource management
issues are interlinked. However, policy and legislation are often based
on a single issue. QueenslandÕs initiative to remodel existing
legislation to underpin sustainable resource development illustrates
the trend towards a more integrated framework.
........................................
SOE INLAND WATER
* ¥ Inland waters include all water inland of estuaries, both in surface
features like streams, lakes, wetlands and reservoirs and in the
subsurface as groundwater.
* ¥ The combined effects of topography, climate and land use can produce
major changes to coastal waters and can cause pollution and
sedimentation in estuaries, reducing the productivity of fisheries and
the diversity of life.
* ¥ No national or even regional system exists for reporting on the
ecological health of Australian inland waters. Systems presently being
developed are limited in coverage and developing slowly
* ¥ Australia is the driest of all the world's inhabited continents and
as a result has the highest per capita storage capacity of all
countries in the world.
* ¥ Australia's capacity in major resevoirs totals some 81,000
gigalitres. This is equivalent to three Olympic swimming pools for
every one of the country's 17.8 million people. This water is released
during peak demand periods for irrigation and/or domestic and
industrial uses. These periods ususally do not coincide with the
requirements of native, flora and fauna, and so river wetland and lake
eco-systems are stressed over much of Australia.
* ¥ The key environmental water-quality problems are: salinisation,
nutrient enrichment, sediments, pesticides, trace metals and organic
substances.
* ¥ In parts of both the Murray-Darling Basin and eastern seaboard, water
is grossly over-allocated and demand continues to increase. The
Murray-Darling Basin is now facing major environmental problems because
of over development of it's water resources.
* ¥ A landmark decision coming out of the Murray-Darling Basin Initiative
has been the placement of an interim limit on further water diversion
from the Basin's rivers. A final cap on water diversion will be made by
30 June 1997. The initiative is one of the largest catchment management
programs in the world.
* ¥ In a number of basins- such as the great Artesian Basin, Pioneer
Balley(Mackay, Qld), Namoi Valley(Tamworth, NSW) and Burnett Basin
(Bundaberg, Qld) - groundwater is being used faster than it is being
replenished.
* ¥ Sixty per cent of the continent totally relies on groundwater for all
uses except drinking.
* ¥ The Great Artesian Basin ranks among the largest groundwater systems
in the world and is of critical importance over a large area of eastern
Australia. In Perth it constitutes about two thirds of total water use.
* ¥ The Great Artesian Basin has lost an excessive amount of water as a
result of the large number of bores left flowing. Bores are now being
capped to conserve the resource, but it will take several decades to
complete the work.
* ¥ It takes a matter of weeks for water to travel in surface streams
from inland of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland to central
Australia after flooding rains. In the Great Artesian Basin it takes a
million years for water to travel a similar distance. If pollution were
to occur in the Basin, the time scales make it obvious that a clean-up
would almost be impossible to achieve.
* ¥ In 1993, the Department of Resources and Energy indentified The
Burdekin River Delta in Queensland as the largest groundwater system
under stresss. The Burdekin is now the site of the largest artificial
recharge operation in Australia, which has sustained agricultural
output for more than 25 years.
* ¥ Of all the developed water in Australia, 70 per cent is used in
irrigation, compared with 21 per cent for urban and industrial use and
nine per cent for rural water supply.
* ¥ Rising watertables from clearing and irrigation are waterlogging and
salinating streams and large areas of land. Even with remedial action,
this problem will continue to increase for some years.
* ¥ Significant reductions in stream flow result from large increases in
the number of farm dams. Victoria alone is estimated to have some 300
000 small farm dams. In the Lal Lal Reservoir catchment in Victoria,
farm dams reduce average annual stream flow by seven per cent,
increasing to a 50 per cent reduction in drought years.
* ¥ High levels of phosphorus, in conjunction with reduced flows in
streams, have resulted in extensive and frequent blooms of toxic blue
green algae. Increases in Algal blooms are an indication of ecosystem
degradation.
* ¥ The world's largest toxic blue-green algal bloom along 1000 km
stretch of the Darling River occured in the summer of 1991. The closure
of water supplies caused significant disruptions to local communities.
The bloom was the single most important factor in generating government
and community action, resulting in a series of best-practice management
activities targeting the reduction of sources of phosphorus.
* ¥ The extensive use of superphosphate fertiliser in Australia is often
singled out as the major source of phosphorus in inland waters and
therefore, by implications, the principal cause of algal blooms.
* ¥ Few management options are available for management of algal blooms
in estuarine and marine environments and prevention remains the best
approach.
* ¥ Greater volumes of waste water and lack of treatment of stormwater
discharged to lakes and streams are issues of increasing concern, as
many rural areas use water from these sources without treatment.
* ¥ Even though water quality may be declining, water supplied at the tap
is satisfactory microbiologically because of good water management and
treatment in cities. There is some evidence of improved drinking water
quality in rural New South Wales and Victoria.
* ¥ Domestic water supplies for large cities generally have excellent
health and aesthetic qualities.
* ¥ Australia's drinking water supplies are generally free of industrial
pollutants.
* ¥ After irrigation, the next highest consumption of water occurs in
large urban areas. Although urban use includes industrial and
commercial activities, domestic water use is by far the largest
component. In Australian households, water is mainly used outdoors with
some 30-55 per cent spent mostly watering lawns and gardens. Toilets,
showers and laundries each account for between 13 and 20 per cent of
total domestic water use.
* ¥ Water conservation encourages the community to use less water and to
become more conscious of levels of use. The WA Water Corporation has
recently proposed a 10 per cent reduction in community water use, with
restrictions imposed. So far consumers have reduced consumption by up
to 9.4 per cent.
* ¥ Water quality problems are often linked to particular local
activities. The most important source industries and activities
affecting inland waters are: waste disposal and treatment industry,
electricity generation, town gas production, fire-fighting, transport
industry, agriculture and aquaculture, chemical and petroleum
industries, mining and mineral processing, manufacturing industry,
domestic and commercial developments.
* ¥ The most common pollutants are nutrients, organic matter, metals and
pesticides. Examples include trace metal pollution of the South Esk
River in Tasmania, pesticides in the Namoi and Gwydir rivers in New
south Wales, sugar-mill effluent in Queensland, milk, dairy wastes and
paper pulping effluent.
* ¥ Artificially high salts levels are a major issue for many rivers in
Australia. Aquatic ecosystems are adapted to particular salinity
regimes and any changes can result in adverse impacts on the biota.
* ¥ The salinisation of land increases the salinity of steams, making
them unsuitable for human stock or domestic stock use, and affecting
their biota.
* ¥ Land clearing is the major cause of salinisation. Salinity also
occurs in irrigated areas as a result of rising water table.
* ¥ The only practical way of slowing salinisation is by major
revegetation which involves changing land use significantly over wide
areas. Where commercial forestry is possible, the salinity trend may be
reversed within a decade. In drier areas, the increase in salinisaton
will continue if current land uses are maintained.
* ¥ In Western Australia, the estimated area of salinised land in 1994
was 1.6 million ha. or nine per cent of the area of cleared
agricultural land in the state. The Murray-Darling Basin Commission
estimated that about 200 000 ha of the Basin suffered from dryland
salinity in 1992, although this estimate is now regarded as an
underestimate.
* ¥ In South Australia, increasing salinity has made several reservoirs
useless for human consumption and the cost of treatment for Adelaide's
water supply is likely to increase as catchments in the Lofty Ranges
become salinised. About 21 per cent of the divertible surface water in
the State has salt concentration of about 1500 mg/L, which is above the
National Health and Medical Research Council Guidelines for human
consumption.
* ¥ Invasions by introduced animals and plants are causing major problems
in Australian waters. Some of the worst include: weed infestation by
water hyacinth in lakes, choking of irrigation drains by weeds, spread
of wood shrubs across floodplains in tropical Australia and increased
turbidity caused by European carp.
* ¥ Native fish species have suffered declines in abundance and diversity
in most regions of Australia since European settlement. Surveys in
Victoria indicate that only two out of 17 segments of river basins
still have high-quality native river fish populations. Similar evidence
exists for most of the country.
* ¥ Twenty exotic fish species have been implicated in the decline of
nine endangered, eight vulnerable and five rare or common native fish
species. Trout are assumed wholly or partly responsible for the
declines in the abundance and range of nine species composition.
* ¥ The extent and condition of AustraliaÕs wetlands have deteriorated
greatly. In Victoria, one-third of natural wetlands have been
destroyed, including half of the area of non-permanent fresh-water
wetlands. A survey of the state of 27 Victorian river basins revealed
that only 12 had more than half of their stream length in an excellent
or good environmental category.
* ¥ Very little water quality monitoring is conducted often enough.
Long-term programs are relatively uncommon. Long-term monitoring of the
biota of inland waters is rare in Australia. The National River Health
Program and Water Watch are major initiatives in this area.
Last modified: 2 February 1997
SOE Biodiversity
The following information is taken directly from the soon-to-be-released
Australia: State of the Environment 1996. However, any information in
italics is not a direct quote and purely a qualifier
* ¥ The loss of biological diversity is perhaps our most serious
environmental problem. Whether we look at wetlands or saltmarshes,
mangroves or bushland, inland creeks or estuaries, the same story
emerges. In many cases, the destruction of habitat, the major cause of
biodiversity loss, is continuing at an alarming rate.
* ¥ The most significant impediment to the conservation and management of
biodiversity is our lack of knowledge about it and the effects of the
human population and activities on it.
* ¥ In all, Australia is home to more than one million species, but less
than 15 per cent have been described.
* ¥ It is difficult to respond to changes in the state of biodiversity
without such basic information on what biodiversity consists of and how
it is distributed.
* ¥ For those terrestrial groups for which there is sufficient
information to assess current state, the trends are disturbing. Some
five per cent of AustraliaÕs higher plants, nine per cent of birds, 23
per cent of marsupials, seven per cent of reptiles, 16 per cent of
amphibians and nine per cent of fresh-water fish are extinct,
endangered or vulnerable.
* ¥ AustraliaÕs record of mammal species extinctions is the worst for any
country. In the past two centuries, the country has lost ten species of
the original marsupial fauna of 144 species and eight of the 53 species
of native rodents. Some marine species, like whales and seals, which
were hunted in Australian waters until recently, now show signs of
recovery.
* ¥ Habitat modification, particularly removal of native vegetation for
agriculture, urban development and forestry has been, and still is, the
most significant cause of loss of biodiversity.
* ¥ Since European settlement, Australia has lost an estimated 75 per
cent of its rainforests, and about 40 per cent of its total forest
area. Nearly 70 per cent of all native vegetation has been removed or
significantly modified by human activity since 1788. The rate of land
clearance has accelerated over time, with as much cleared during the
last fifty years as in the 150 years before 1945.
* ¥ Native vegetation is still being cleared at a rate of over 600 000
hectares per year ? almost half the rate of clearing in the Brazilian
rainforest in 1990-91. Most of this is taking place in Queensland and
New South Wales.
* ¥ Declines in wetland, riverine and water quality are primary causes
for the decline of several species of frog, aquatic tortoise and
lizard. Some 32 species of frog have been recorded as being in decline.
* ¥ The pastoral industry covers an area of 5.4 million sq km, or about
70 per cent of the continent.
* ¥ Grazing in arid and semi-arid regions is thought to be partly
responsible for the extinction of 34 plant species and continues to
threaten a further 55 species in the rangelands or 24 per cent of plant
species currently listed as endangered.
* ¥ Major pressures are also caused by exotic organisms introduced for
production purposes, introduced diseases and native species whose range
and/or abundance have changed because of human activities.
* ¥ Since 1947, 463 exotic plant species have been introduced as pasture.
Only five per cent of these have proved useful as fodder, yet 13 per
cent have become problem weeds, including para grass, which has spread
into Kakadu National Park, reducing habitats for waterbirds. Exotic
pasture species are still being introduced.
* ¥ Introduced plants are an acute and insufficiently appreciated
ecological problem. On a national scale, populations of the most
invasive species are expanding. Plant species not native to Australia
now account for about 15 per cent of our total flora. One species of
great concern, the rubber vine, entangles trees and other vegetation
and eventually smothers them. The vine is spreading at an alarming rate
through the river systems of southern Cape York and the Queensland part
of the Gulf of Carpentaria and along the coast as far south as the
Burnett River near Bundaberg, destroying the riverside vegetation in
these regions.
* ¥ At least 18 exotic mammals have established feral populations,
including cats, dogs, foxes, pigs, water buffalo, donkey, goats and
horses. Cats and foxes prey on native animals and have been implicated
in the decline, if not the extinction, of a number of species. Studies
of the red-tailed black cockatoo in Western Australia showed that feral
cats climbing into tree hollows and preying on nestlings, caused the
failure of up to 17 per cent of nests.
* ¥ Introduced species also affect marine ecosystems. About 70 species
are known to have been introduced into Australian waters, many in
ballast water discharge or on the hulls of ships. Northern Pacific
starfish were probably introduced into Tasmanian waters in ballast
water from Japan. These large starfish are prolific breeders and are
capable of spreading to much of southern Australia. They eat many
species that occur on the seabed.
* ¥ The introduced fungus Phytophthora cinnamomi, causes a disease, known
as dieback, that is devastating many native plant communities in
southern Australia and is now the most important threat to the
biodiversity of Stirling Range National Park in Western Australia. In
highly susceptible genera (such as Banksia, Grevillea and Dryandra) 80
to 100 per cent of infected individuals may die, exposing ground that
is then invaded by weeds.
* ¥ Native species outside their natural range may pose as serious a
threat to biodiversity as exotic species. Many are spreading beyond
their usual habitat or increasing in abundance due to human activities.
The galah was formerly associated with the river systems of the arid
zone. However, development has created vast areas of suitable habitat
(grasses, cereal crops and abundant water) encouraging the bird to
colonise much of Australia. This expansion puts pressure on other
species.
* ¥ Since the 1980s a number of major international agreements have
addressed biodiversity. As a result, biodiversity has become the focus
for a number of national policy statements and is now influencing
decisions being made at national, State and local levels. This
increases the scope for integrating biodiversity with social and
economic considerations.
* ¥ The spirit of the Convention on Biological Diversity is reflected in
the national Strategy for the Conservation of AustraliaÕs Biological
Diversity (Commonwealth of Australia, 1995) that has been developed by
Commonwealth, State and Territory governments.
* ¥ No broad Commonwealth, State or Territory legislation for the
conservation of biodiversity currently exists. However, governments
have, over many years, recognised the need to manage and conserve the
environment and natural resources through legislation.
* ¥ The effectiveness of legislation varies widely and, in general,
depends on the capacity and willingness of the responsible agency to
administer the powers provided by the legislation together with the
political agenda of the government of the day.
* ¥ Many community groups regularly monitor the environment and undertake
field activities to either protect or restore biodiversity. Programs
such as Worm Watch, Frog Watch and NatureSearch collate information
about species collected by members of the public.
* ¥ The Landcare movement has the potential to be the most important
mechanism for integrating conservation of biodiversity into
agricultural and pastoral production. More than 2000 Landcare groups
now exist across Australia.
* ¥ As the Australian publicÕs attitudes to environmental issues change,
so do those of industry. The agricultural sector is increasingly
incorporating nature conservation into landscape programs.
* ¥ In many cases industries have failed to respond of their own accord
to pressures on biodiversity and have only acted in response to
government legislation. However, some responses are based on industryÕs
need to preserve natural resources eg. commercial fishing
* ¥ Controls on native vegetation clearance and the provision of
incentives for native vegetation retention vary between States and
Territories. In South Australia, vegetation clearance is tightly
controlled but other states and territories have less stringent rules.
New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia are in the process of
strengthening measures to control native vegetation clearance.
* ¥ The removal of incentives e.g. tax incentives that encourage
deforestation of land degradation is an effective response to
conservation of biodiversity.
* ¥ When planning new mining developments, companies now must
carry out
environmental impact assessments that include plans
for rehabilitation.
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