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To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-5871.2008.00523.x Byline: SUE JACKSON (1), NATALIE STOECKL (2), ANNA STRATON (1), OWEN STANLEY (2) Keywords: tropical river management; water resource management; social values; north Australian development; catchment management in North Australia Abstract: Abstract Until recently the objectives of tropical river management were narrowly construed: the development imperative drove resource policy. During recent decades, community attitudes to river and water management have changed considerably and the national program of water reform, the National Water Initiative, is accelerating alterations to the way that water is used, managed and priced. A broader range of values and imperatives is now influencing water resource management policy. Not least is the concern over the ecological impacts and economic inefficiencies of the large-scale hydrological schemes that once excited the public's imagination. This paper reports on a recent study of social and economic values of tropical rivers conducted by the authors for an Australian statutory research and development corporation. The study shows that the values associated with tropical rivers have changed and diversified over time with growing societal awareness of the contribution made by unregulated, healthy river systems to human wellbeing and cultural identity. As a consequence of substantial social change, tropical river management must now contend with a more complex array of societal values and water management objectives. Author Affiliation: (1)CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, PMB 44 Winnellie, NT 0822, Australia. (2)James Cook University, School of Business, Townsville, Queensland, 4811, Australia. Article History: Received 17 August 2007; Revised 17 December 2007; Accepted 13 January 2008 Article note: (*) Corresponding author. Email: sue.jackson@csiro.au

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2004.12.001 Byline: John Asafu-Adjaye, Richard Brown, Anna Straton Abstract: In order for policy makers to plan effectively for sustainable development, there is a need for measures of welfare that consider changes in the natural capital stock. Current measures based on conventional national accounting are flawed because they are based solely on flow measures and do not account for environmental effects. In this paper, we use an expanded measure of wealth to estimate the value of natural capital for Queensland. The state's stock of natural capital is valued at A$355.6 billion, of which non-timber forest resources account for 45.3%, ecosystem services 20.0%, and mineral resources 17.6%. This figure is a conservative estimate of the true value since some significant components such as the ecological and life-support functions of the environment are excluded. The estimates highlight the relative importance of different forms of natural capital and can be used to draw the attention of policymakers to the need to give adequate weight to the value of such services in decision-making processes. Author Affiliation: School of Economics, The University of Queensland, Brisbane Q4072, Australia Article History: Received 4 March 2004; Revised 12 October 2004; Accepted 13 December 2004

This article shows how macroeconomic indicators of sustainable development can be applied to the Queensland economy. While recognising the complex and contentious theoretical and practical issues in deriving the Genuine Savings Rate (GSR) to serve as such an indicator, we use the World Bank's methodology, which includes only mineral depletion, deforestation and carbon dioxide emissions as environmental terms, to estimate GSRs for Queensland for the period 1989 to 1999, and compare these to World Bank estimates of Australia's GSR for the same period. We find that Queensland has a higher rate of natural resource depletion and a lower GSR than the whole of Australia. We also examine how well the World Bank GSR performs as a 'headline' measure of overall sustainability, review criticisms of the GSR, and compare its implicit policy implications with those of net state savings, and of the GSR plus a suite of other indicators.