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The Living Murray Initiative was established to recover 500 Gigalitres in average annual flows to address the declining environmental health of the Murray-Darling river system. The NSW Market Purchase Measure was initiated by the New South Wales Government as part of The Living Murray Initiative with the aim of purchasing up to 125 Gigalitres of high and medium reliability entitlements within the NSW southern connected part of the Murray-Darling Basin. The commencement of this measure provided an opportunity to survey participants in permanent water trading for an environmental outcome to determine general land use and socio-economic information as well as specific information regarding their current water use, future intentions and their opinion of the implementation of the water purchase process. The results of the survey will also assist in understanding the nature of the participants in this process relative to the broader irrigator/regional population. Importantly, the survey outcomes will help to improve understanding of participant circumstances and provide important lessons for future water purchase programs.

The widespread clearance of native vegetation has been identified as one of the major environmental issues facing Australia. Impacts of clearing include dryland salinity, weed invasion, soil erosion, soil structural decline and the loss of species. Development of effective polices to deal with remnant native vegetation (RNV) decline has been hampered by lack of detailed data on the economic benefits and costs of RNV conservation. This study measured the on-farm benefits and costs associated with RNV in the two study areas, the northeast Victorian catchment and the Murray catchment of NSW. Data were collected using landholder surveys. The most important economic benefits from RNV under current management regimes in the Victorian study area were productivity effects associated with prevention of land degradation, firewood production, and for the NSW study area, stock and crop shelter. The most significant cost in both study areas was weed management. A proposed conservation management scenario that included fencing of the RNV, and limitations on grazing and firewood and post removal would negatively effect most of the survey participants. The differences between the net present value (NPV) of the current management regime maintained over a 40 year period, and the NPV of the proposed scenario were large and negative. For Victorian participants, the marginal effect of the conservation proposal was - $2 million, and for NSW participants -$15 million. In both study areas, the incremental economic costs of the scenario outweighed the incremental economic benefits for at least 89% of participants. This study confirmed that one of the major barriers to protecting RNV is the economic costs associated with conservation management. A large proportion of participants cannot expect a positive return from investing in RNV conservation. Any policy approach to achieve conservation objectives for RNV requires significant financial incentives for landholders to undertake conservation activities.

Much of Australia’s native vegetation has been cleared or altered as a result of agricultural development. The native vegetation that remains on private land is highly fragmented and continues to be degraded and modified due to various land use and environmental pressures. One of the major concerns of landholders in retaining and managing remnant native vegetation (RNV) in the agricultural landscape is the lack of information and understanding about the potential benefits and costs associated with conservation of these areas. The contribution of RNV to changes in rural property values needs to be examined when considering future policy and management strategies to encourage private landholders to retain and conserve RNV within the agricultural landscape. The northeast Victorian catchment and the Murray catchment of NSW were chosen to examine the effect of RNV on rural property values using hedonic price analysis. The hedonic price approach explores the relationship that exists between the price of a good and the bundle of characteristics (or attributes) which the good possesses, to explain variations in the prices of the differentiated goods under consideration. Land sales records for the past ten years were obtained for properties greater than two hectares within the catchment areas, and those containing areas of RNV were identified. The purchasers of these properties were interviewed to determine the characteristics that influenced their purchase decision. Using this information, multivariate regression models have been estimated to quantify the contribution to property values of different attributes including the presence and nature of RNV. Based on the results of this hedonic analysis, the property market does not appear to be a good measure of the economic value of RNV.