Peter Crabb

Managing the Murray‐Darling Basin

SUMMARY Within the Murray‐Darling Basin lie Australias most important water and land resources as well as some of the countrys most serious resource management problems. This paper summarises the importance of the resource‐based industries, especially agriculture. The major agricultural and water resource problems are outlined, with most attention being paid to salinity. Critical to the problems and their solution are the institutional arrangements for the management of this large interstate river basin. The River Murray Waters Agreement, dating from 1914, has had limited success in tackling the basins problems, because of its limited geographical and functional scope, especially in the area of water quality. The growing severity of the latter problems, especially salinity, resulted in the 1987 signing of the Murray‐Darling Basin Agreement to promote and coordinate the management of the basins water, land and environmental resources. As it is concerned with the basin as a whole, its success is depende...

Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland, and Parks Canada Policies

Gros Morne, one of Canadas newer national parks, covers over 1,900 km 2 of exceptionally scenic country on the west coast of Newfoundland. However, the Park was initiated by the provincial government mainly for economic reasons rather than for the value of its natural heritage—particularly to stimulate development in an area of high unemployment. To some degree, this has been achieved—but not without considerable cost, as the area is one of long-established settlement and utilization. Most of the settlements were excluded from the Park, but some were not, and in spite of resident opposition, all but one of these has now been removed. There has been equally strong opposition to restrictions on traditional semi-subsistence activities. Such measures were in line with existing Parks Canada policies in the early 1970s, but by the time the formal Park agreement was signed in 1973, a number of important changes had occurred. Following opposition such as was met in Gros Morne, and the creation of new parks in areas inhabited by native peoples, more recent Parks Canada policy statements indicate some relaxation of previously rigid positions. Thus certain semi-subsistence activities are continuing in the Park. The situation is not so clear as regards settlements within parks, though people are now being encouraged to move rather than being forced to leave. The possible eventual removal of Sallys Cove, the only settlement remaining strictly within the Park, is difficult to reconcile with policies that place increasing emphasis on Man-land relationships and the cultural heritage. Gros Morne provides an opportunity for Parks Canada to foster a viable community within the Park, based on a traditional Newfoundland culture and consistent with the pertinent parts of its 1979 policy statement. This would be much more in keeping with the natural and cultural heritage than the urban-type recreational facilities that are being built or considered for the Park.

Rural change in Prince Edward Island, Canada: an interactive of directive economy?

Abstract Galeskis work on rural social change and organisation provides the framework for an examination of recent change in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island. The Island is a classic rural community, with its agriculture dominated by the potato. A variety of forces are promoting rural change, particularly those of an economic, political and social nature. The processes of change common to all developed capitalist rural economies — urbanisation, autonomous change, and agribusiness — are present, but there is also the PEI Development Plan, a fifteen-year federal-provincial program for the comprehensive economic and social advancement of the Province. The Plan has highlighted the obstacles to rural change. The family farm is central to the traditional Island way of life, but it is seen as being threatened by the growth of agribusiness and the increasing land purchases by non-residents. Other threats to the Island way of life are seen in the growth of tourism and the centralised school system. Paralleling these changes is the increasing level of direction in the Islands economy, particularly from the federal government and agribusiness. The response is seen in political change at the Provincial level, opposition to the Plan, and the tightest restrictions on non-resident and corporate land ownership in Canada. Rural change per se is not opposed, but there is a growing desire to preserve what is best in PEI and its traditional way of life.

There is more to Canada's constitutional problems than Albertan oil

Abstract At both national and international levels energy issues are increasingly ones of debate and conflict between governments. Canada is no exception, as illustrated by the recent paper by Walter Goldstein. Peter Crabb argues, however, that the provincial viewpoints in Canada have not been fully appreciated.