Impressive response by government agencies in South Australia to dry land salinity problem fully exposed in 2000

Murray Darling Association was an important addition to South Australia's dry land salinity committee formed in 1989, recognising the increasing salinity in the river system so critical to South Australia’s wellbeing.
Image courtesy South Australian government environment and water department

Dry land salinity roared into the public consciousness with national land and water resources audit in 2000 reporting that about 330,000 hectares of agricultural land in South Australia had succumbed to salinity and another 190,000 hectares were at risk if no action were taken within 50 years.

The problem was a legacy of past overclearing of vegetation, allowing unused water in the soil to percolate to lower areas and carrying salt on the way. When it surfaced, it often left a white saltpan and areas of unproductive sea barley grass. Since the 1950s, field officers in the South Australian agriculture department had tried to advise farmers who were most affected, offering salt-tolerant plants and methods of keeping vulnerable sites covered with vegetation to slow evaporation.

In 1989, the-then agriculture department took the first formal steps to tackle the salinity problem. The dry land salinity committee was appointed with Roger Wickes, chief of the soil and water conservation branch, as chairperson.  The committee comprised representatives from government agencies, Flinders University, Adelaide University and the the federal government’s CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation .

A year later, the first technical strategy to address dry land salinity in South Australia was released. Supported by agriculture minister Lynn Arnold, the response was impressive. The agencies on the committee provided resources while soil conservation boards and land care groups directed their efforts to field projects.  After nearly seven years work, the committee, then led by Phil Cole, published a comprehensive report: “Dry Land Salinity in South Australia”.

After the alarming result of the national audit on salinity in 2000, South Australia's government Soil Conservation Council, with strong public support, assumed leadership for managing the problem and the responsibility for developing an updated strategy. The outcome was the South Australian Dry Land Salinity Strategy launched by premier Rob Kerin in November 2001. The release of the strategy ensured the South Australian projects were well funded from the national action plan for salinity and from the natural heritage trust. 

To keep abreast of these rapid developments, the Soil Conservation Council, in its management role, appointed the South Australian dry land salinity committee at the beginning of 2002 with Rob Smyth, a farmer and a council member, as chairperson. Members were drawn from interested farmer groups, the state government primary industries and resources and environment and neritage departments, Adelaide University and the Murray Darling Association, an important addition that recognised the increasing salinity in that river system so critical to South Australia’s wellbeing.

By 2001, after a decade of coordinated work, the scene had also been set nationally with South Australia playing a prominent role through Cole’s influence on the Productive Use of Saline Land group that had worked through the Australian plant production committee. National workshops were every 12 or 18 months in venues across Australia to study salinity management. These workshops had been open to all interested parties and representatives from the Landcare movement, government agencies and agribusiness had attended.

With the natural resources management council formed, the Soil Conservation Council handed on its responsibilities with so much achieved but aware that so much was still to be done.

• Information from The Struggle for Landcare in South Australia by Arthur F. Tideman 1990, published by South Australia government’s then-water land and biodiversity conservation department.