The Salt Way – copyright 2014 Susanne Lorraine Harford

Consider these FACTS:
1. Australians are an interesting lot. During their lifetime 75% of the current +23 million Australians, ( that is, +17 million individuals), work without pay, in something they believe in. Many of these people are (now) senior citizens, and often grandparents.

They Volunteer.

Damningly, although it benefits enormously by their efforts, Australia does not (generally) fully acknowledge , thank, or reward its volunteers.
2. Recently 93% of Australians expressed deep concern about the current state of Australia’s natural environment, and 98% about Australian water.
Many of these people are part of a “major popular cultural shift of the last decade: sustainable living” (The Forever Project brochure, 2014, p. 6.) The majority of these concerned people must surely also be the hordes of Australian volunteers described above.

3 . Most Australians engage in two types of love-of-country; the first with a familiar .

The ocean, the beach.

More than 90% of Australians live, on freehold land, in cities situated along the coastlines. They play in their cities, and they feel familiar with the coast.

They volunteer in their cities, and towns                  .
.

4.Yet urban areas comprise just over 1% of the Australian landmass.
5. So the Australian Government, and The Crown, are long on land.

Thus also, most committed volunteers (as described above), are urban-dwellers
– as most Australians do not live in the bush.

1. Only just over 20% of Australian jobs are mining sector, yet this is currently where most ‘rural’ jobs are found in Australia today. Many of these are fly-in fly-out.

2. Yet Australians love their bush

When provided with clear opportunities to visit the bush individuals do so with gusto . Bush remains a big part of their idea of themselves, as Australians.

1. Australians visit the bush intermittently and
   most Australians do not go to the bush, do not volunteer in the bush ,
   do not know much about how to engage with, or enjoy the bush. We believe these are major reasons why decentralisation has not worked in Australia.
   *Some successful examples show :
   • the Australian bush attracts campers. El Questro Station successfully handles tens of thousands of campers per annum.
   • The Great Barrier Reef, and surrounding ‘bush’ field more than 2 million visitors per annum.
   • Tasmania’s Cradle Mountain provides us with a superb, world-recognised model for the light ecological footprint

2. Conversely, while most Australians do not live in, and are unfamiliar with the
   bush, or the country’s interior, approximately 35% of Australian land is, or has for long periods, been used for pastoral purposes.

Almost none of this land is or was freehold.

1. The rate of salt incursion on pastoral lands may now be 5% per annum, and is part of “the harsh reality faced by WA” (The Forever Project brochure, 2014, p. 10).

2. In 2015 all pastoral leases are to be reviewed.
   This idea will provide Australian classic, low-key bush experience; solar power/desalinated water/ community radio/communal outdoor movies/campfires/commune with nature/stars/wind/water/wood/stone
   no telephones/ TV/ computers

Five Points of an idea: The Salt Way:
1 – Conditional Purchase.

Australia has a colonial tradition of ‘conditional purchase’ land systems and historic examples of often-extensive, successful, programmes are available. They provided ways for financially less-fortunate individuals, and others, to earn freehold land.

Then people can earn individual freehold ownership of 5ha lots of bush.

While this land cannot be harvested for the first 25 years, it will be used to collect data, and for research, and for development of the uses and benefits of Australia’s natural species of flora and fauna.

These 5ha blocks of bush cannot be fenced, and no structure can be built on these blocks of land. Further caveats apply over the individual’s rights to sell, or manage and use their freehold land, and these continue unabated.

This land-earning is central to this idea, with the major impetus being public concern about the state of Australian nature. Its success depends upon individuals’:
– desire to assist to care for the land to acquire the land and willingness to enter into the conditional purchase contract.
– agreement with all the various conditions and timeframes of the conditional purchase contract.
2 – ‘Fair go’

This means any individual may register, regardless of financial standing, to be granted one 5ha block of land.
In addition:
– to facilitate their labour, families may apply for adjoining blocks, yet still on the basis of one block per individual.
– while the Way will provide agronomist services and individual planning for each block of land each land owner may elect to have final say in the design and planning.
– the conditions are $70 per annum membership fee, plus one month working on their block, per annum, per individual.
each individual may choose to work during two periods each year. For four months of the year, in Spring and Autumn.
accommodation will be provided in TENT CITY.
– while founding membership caps at 500,000 blocks/individuals, per stage, per state, further stages will begin with demand.
– those individuals with the inclination and time may volunteer further work for their communal benefit.
– a moratorium on government rates, taxes and other charges for 25 years, while the land recovers.
– successful land applicants also may register to purchase ownership of one individual TENT CITY site.
after the first 3 years the block owner may request re-sale of their land at current value.
– for a further 4 months of each year TENT CITY will function as eco-tourism accommodation.

Thus, others, visitors will “be inspired and empowered to survive, and even thrive, in a changing climate” (The Forever Project brochure, 2014, p. 10).
3 – First Australian land management

Australia is a land with a big disjunct between indigenous and other inhabitants.
The Way will:
– develop and provide a cultural environment that engenders mutual and exchanges of learning
– create day-to-day exchanges between the two groups.
– show respect to the indigenous landowners
– continue, and provide fresh avenues, for the expansion of custodian work recently begun
– create local employment for regional indigenous groups.

This idea will also showcase, over the very long life of the project, the unique and positive environmental synchronicity between indigenous peoples and nature.
4 – The Legendary Australian ability to manage

This idea is a huge natural resource project that will build decentralisation on a massive scale
So it carries all of the associated and diverse factors of these two types of project.
This idea will:
– find and identify all land targets in each state
– convince government to agree to the Way
– convince government to freehold the land – free of charges
– structure the funding
– create and commence the separate and different marketing programmes
– raise funds
– explore, map, survey
– undertake feasibility of the agronomy, geology, hydrology
– commission each 1st Stage 1
– commission each 1st TENT CITY Stage 1
– open the 1st public Invitations in each State for Stages 1
– underpinning: constructi/accommodate/transport/etc
– all other or new associated opportunities

Axiom 5 – the first new SALT LAND carers
THIS PROJECT IS BASED ON A DIFFERENT VIEW – AND ON
Australia, give thanks, and give back – to your great people:
Offer First. To Grandparents and their Grandchildren:
It is they who have made, and will continue to make, Australia what it is today.

Offer Second: to Australia’s Army of Volunteers, past and current.

END