7 - Land degradation: legal issues and institutional constraints

Summary

Introduction

Regulation and property rights—a philosophical issue

Within modern society, law and the institutions responsible for its administration and enforcement constitute a formidable combination of authority and power. The growth in administrative regulation has been based to a considerable extent on the assumption that the problems confronting urban-industrial communities could not be dealt with adequately through the traditional channels of the common law. Hence, regulation has been accepted as necessary for the public or common good, at least by most sections of the community.

Most regulation has been focused on commercial and industrial activities. However, even where health, building and planning laws have applied to individual home owners, there has been a general understanding and acceptance that such measures have a sound purpose and are of benefit to the community at large. It is interesting to perceive therefore that, in the context of land degradation, a greater degree of resistance has arisen to measures which constrain the use of land for agricultural or pastoral purposes. The hostility displayed recently in South Australia by farmers towards the introduction of vegetation clearance controls demonstrates the point vividly.

At a more general level, there appears to be a view held within some sections of the the farming community that title to land carries with it the individual right to farm the land as one pleases.