CONTRIBUTION OF SUSTAINABILITY CRITERIA TO SOCIAL PERCEPTIONS OF LAND-USE OPTIONS

With relatively minor exceptions, the process of land use change is on e of intensification and the narrowing of future land use options. Thi s has led to community concern for the gradual irrecoverable loss of v alues associated with less intensive land uses; in particular, concern for the availability and functional capacity of biodiversity, earth m aterials, water and air. Concern extends to the functionality of these resources in industrial, amenity and service roles. Such losses, call ed, inter alia, environmental costs, are never wholly avoidable despit e the hopes behind the sustainable development concept. What is realis tically possible is conservative development, meaning that land uses w ith environmental costs exceeding the economic net benefits would be p roscribed as options, through the application of extant and emerging s ocial technologies such as land use zoning, environmental standards an d environmental impact assessment. This paper presents some general an d some more specific ideas about land uses susceptible to proscription under the conservative development criterion. Most major land uses st and to be challenged to a degree, particularly in densely populated ar eas, regions of economic opportunity and/or in regions recognized as h aving a high conservation value. Proposals involving a leap in intensi fication or loss of remnant or old-established land uses will be more liable to assessment for proscription. Several regions are identified where joint assessment for exclusion across members of a suite of land uses would not be surprising (e.g. the Kimberleys); also some regions and situations where particular land uses stand to be challenged, e.g . irrigated cotton, high country developments and integrated forest ha rvesting. Rather than list intensification trends at length and predic t which challenges to intensification might succeed, this paper discus ses the prospects for development of social technologies which evaluat e community concerns about the environmental costs of land use intensi fication. It is suggested that a blending of the existing procedures o f the Resource Assessment Commission for regional resource inventory a nd evaluation and the existing resource allocation procedures of the G reat Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority would form a highly defensible core for a new generation of option-defining technologies. The social importance of having a rich suite of social technologies for addressi ng intensification issues is emphasized.