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2005 : Land Repair Study & Other ProjectsBack to Newsletters OnlineLand Repair Australia recently completed a joint 18 months study into the feasibility of creating a new investment vehicle to enable private sector investment into acquiring and rehabilitating degraded land and water resources in Australia. The study, completed in April 2005, was undertaken by the Institute for International Development and funded jointly by the South Australian Centre for Natural Resource Management utilising National Action Plan (II) funds. The study showed that a $50 million Land Repair fund utilising taxation and other official incentives in a wide range of agricultural industries and situation could show a conservative financial rate of return of 10.7 % and an economic rate of return of 15.8% to investors after paying management fees. LRA is a new approach to investment in Australia's Agricultural Natural Resource base. It mimics urban redevelopment of older city areas, a common form of property development. (More details can be seen at www.landrepairaustralia.com.au ) It will operate by re assessing the uses being made of degraded land and water resources rehabilitating land which should be continued in agriculture, retires that which should not to bio diversity reserves or changes its use to rural living or some other valued use and then resells the productive land and water or gifts the reserve land to recognized gift recipients. The fund would profit from capital gain, from increases in productivity into the top 25% of agricultural land, improving economic water use efficiency and benefits from taxation, carbon and salinity credits and other payments for ecosystem services. It would access funds from the rapidly growing Socially Responsible Index (SRI) based funds and contribute significantly to the nations stock of reserve lands. Its first project to rehabilitate an area of degraded land and former wetlands in the Murray River Corridor was commenced in March 2005 and is expected to be completed within 8 years. The project is situated south of Tailem Bend where the river discharges into the lakes at the mouth of the Murray. On completion it will constitute the largest area of reconstructed wet land in the Murray River corridor, contributing to water quality and restoring a degraded area of banks and wind blown sand hills. It will be financed by sales of redeveloped river side land into a residential area to serve the growth in light industrial manufacturing in the region and the commercial and residents will take long term responsibility for the wetland in cooperation with local community groups. More details can be seen at www.wellwetland.com Other projects are being planned. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan John Leake was contracted to by ADB/GEF (Global Environmental Facility) as Land Use Specialist, (Team Leader Turkmenistan), to assist in developing the national program framework for the Central Asian Initiative for Land Management (CACILM) to review land degradation in the field in (see more details at http://www.adb.org/projects/CACILM/ ) The program seeks to identify and prepare a $US 700 million multi-country initiative to combat land degradation in the 5 countries over 10 years. Conducted participatory planning workshops at international level and national level with relevant stakeholders in each country (5 missions). Prepared Turkmenistan National Program framework with National Working group; reviewed and edited land use project proposals for the five countries. Technical areas covered included irrigation, rangeland management, salinity, forestry, research and community based reserves management. Back to Newsletters Online
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