Policy Instrument Choice and Diffuse Source Pollution

1
Policy Instrument Choice and Diffuse Source
Pollution

• Neil Gunningham,
• Professor, School of Resources, Environment and
  Society, ANU

2
Non-Point Source Pollution from agriculture
policy challenges

• Many different contributors to NPSP, spread over
  a large geographical area
• on the ground inspection largely impractical
• NPSP very difficult to measure and track to its
  source
• Impact of agricultural practices varies greatly
  between properties and areas
• Agricultural enterprises limited awareness,
  knowledge, resources, and resistant to regulation

3
Key Issues

• What to target?
• -inputs or practices known to lead to pollution
• -emission proxies etc
• -ambient pollution
• Who to target?
• the impacter
• drain managers
• others

4
In broad terms

• Impact of State legislation and local government
  on NPSP very limited because these powers either
• -prospective in nature
• -establish a pollution threshold too high to
  capture diffuse sources
• -provide inadequate regulatory or enforcement
  powers

5
The result

• Current policy focuses on strategic policy
  development and associated education programs
• Eg Swan-Canning Cleanup program
• Riverplan
• Local community bodies
• All underpinned by variety of education and
  information programs eg Heavenly Hectares

6
Past Policy

• Heavy reliance on information and education
• Heavy reliance on voluntarism

7
Eg The Swan-Canning

• on-ground works by community and catchment
  groups,
• public education,
• ongoing research and monitoring and
• a number of scientific and engineering projects
• At no point in the Swan Action Plan is there
  any indication that non-point sources are likely
  to be regulated or licensed, with most effort
  being aimed at education and information
  provision and cost-sharing assistance for
  voluntary on-ground works (Gordon)

8
Why does exhortation fail?

• Gap between public and private interest is large
• Limits of appeal to do the right thing
• Perceptions that its someone else who is causing
  it
• Its hard to be green while youre in the red
• Perceptions that others are getting away with
  it

9
20 percent of the population will comply with
any regulation, 5 percent will attempt to evade
it, and the remaining 75 percent will go along
with it as long as the 5 percent were caught and
punished
10
Where next?Preliminary Steps

• Identifying causes (eg reducing risk from
  fertilisers, changing land uses, buffer zones,
  replanting, perennial crops)
• Establishing targets
• -individual management targets (X with buffers)
• -management practice targets (Y with
  environmental farm plans)
• -catchment/sub-catchment targets
• Assessment criteria efficiency, effectiveness,
  equity, political acceptability

11
Key questions What compliance mechanism(s) to
invoke

• Voluntarism, education and information
• Positive incentives
• Negative incentives
• Mandatory controls/regulation

12
What type of standards to employ?

• Performance standards
• Specification/technology standards
• Process (management-based) standards

13
Where to target?

• Farm Management Practices
• Landscape Changes
• Land Use Patterns

14
Farm Management Practices

• Process Standards- eg environmental farm plans,
  BMPs, EMS, Codes of Practice
• Environmental farm plans include farm
  description, issue assessment, design of works
  program or action plan, etc
• Fertiliser management plan level of application,
  when to apply, where to apply.

15
How to achieve compliance?

• Voluntarism?
• Positive incentives subsidies/ rate rebate
• Negative incentive cross compliance, BMP
  incentive charges.
• Mandatory regulation- eg Netherlands and Nutrient
  sensitive areas
• The role of check-lists and self-audit
• How do the above rate in terms of evaluation
  criteria?

16
Business inputs

• Taxes on fertiliser or pesticide use
• Mandatory quotas or bans

17
Landscape Changes

• Landscape changes include fencing, buffer strips,
  re-vegetation, riparian zones a, contour
  landscaping, soil modification etc
• Specification standards easy to monitor and
  enforce

18
Which compliance mechanism

• Voluntarism?
• Positive incentives- financial subsidy, NHT cost
  sharing programs, or auctioned grants
• Mandatory changes (eg buffer zones)
• How to the above rank in terms of evaluation
  criteria?

19
Land Use Patterns

• shaping the location and type of farm activities
  that take place across an entire
  catchment/sub-catchment
• Planning Law
• -enables coordinated approach and common
  standards state, local, regional
• -eg state or regional plans, local zoning
  requirements but confined to prospective
  activities
• Assessment in terms of policy criteria?

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Subsidies, Mandatory Controls and Compensation

• Subsidies targeted at farmers in pollution hot
  spots to adopt different land management
  practices
• Mandatory controls- cf native veg (again limited
  to hot spots)
• Compulsory purchase?
• Assessment in terms of policy criteria

21
A phased approach?

• Dangers of a smorgasbord approach and of single
  instrument approaches
• Build in responsiveness and principles of
  adaptive management
• Place different weight on different policy
  criteria depending upon external circumstances

22
A phased approach?

• The need for trade offs effectiveness,
  efficiency, equity and political acceptability
• Phase 1 positive incentives (process standards,
  landscape changes) and planning controls
• Phase 2 negative incentives and regulation
• - environmental general duty to the land,
• enforced through mandatory self-auditing and
  random third party audits)
• mandatory specification standards (eg buffer
  zones)
• levy or sliding charge re adoption of env farm
  plan