Natural Resources and the Environment

Australian environments and natural resources have changed substantially since the Society was founded in 1957, partly as a result of changes to the economy, society, technology, and global conditions. This paper documents changes in the stock and condition of Australia’s environment and national resources 1955-2005, considering how policy has both responded to and influenced those changes. New resources have been discovered (e.g. minerals and some fish stocks); some resources have experienced long-term stock decline in both quantity and quality (e.g. forests and fisheries); new uses have been found for known resources (e.g. coal exports and agricultural commodities); technology and investment have changed the ways resources are extracted and used; and increased incomes have increased demand for outdoor leisure and conservation. These changes have variously increased and decreased the pressures on resources and the environment. Society has responded – both reactively and proactively – to changing environmental conditions and pressures, including increased scales of effects (e.g. climate change and stratospheric ozone globally). Perceptions have also changed about the extent of and proper limits to environmental and resource degradation, and appropriate responses to such degradation.. Insights gained from this retrospective are used to consider prospects for future policy impacts, and in particular how economists might contribute to policy processes concerning the environment and natural resources.