The new lead bodies overseeing this change will be Catchment Management Authorities, which replace the previous Catchment Management Boards, Regional Vegetation Committees and, eventually, Water Management Committees. Their key roles will be promoting the preparation of property vegetation plans and improved vegetation management, and establishing priorities for funding through the Regional Stream of the Natural Heritage Trust.

The Clarence is part of the area covered by the new Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority (NRCMA), one of the 13 CMAs to be established.

Thus far, only the Chairperson of the NRCMA has been appointed. Dr Judy Henderson, a paediatrician by training, has an extensive record in global sustainability issues. She was part of the Australian delegation to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and was one of the first private property owners to donate their land (in the Liffey valley of Tasmania) to Bob Brown’s Australian Bush Heritage Trust. She has been the chairperson of Oxfam International, chairperson of the Global Reporting Initiative, and a member of the World Commission on Dams. She is currently on the board of the NSW Environment Protection Authority (now part of the Department of Environment and Conservation).

With a great track record, the CEC anticipates great things from Judy as the Chairperson of the NRCMA. A Local Establishment Team is currently assisting Judy in pulling together a Catchment Action Plan from the current catchment blueprints and regional vegetation plans.

The principal office of the NRCMA will be in Grafton (due to be opened by the end of March). The rest of the Board will be appointed shortly and will have a busy time, spending $2.5 million on priority natural resource management projects before the end of June this year.

The NRCMA area includes all the coastal catchments from the Hastings to the Queensland border. The Clarence catchment – the largest river catchment east of the Dividing Range – makes up 40% of this area. The CEC will be scrutinising the workings of the NRCMA over the next few months and the new Catchment Action Plan. Will the significance of the Clarence be acknowledged? Or will the NRCMA be as biased against the Clarence as the former Upper North Coast CMB was, with the Clarence’s major broad-scale issues seen as less important than the multitude of smaller issues in the tiny coastal catchments? Will the Clarence be sacrificed again as it has been for the Regional Water Supply?

Anyway, the CEC wishes the NRCMA luck. They will probably achieve as little as all the previous catchment, water and vegetation committees. But this time they are in charge of lots of money and being paid themselves. We will be expecting some good outcomes from this investment.

-Janet