Land Use in Australia: Past, Present and Future, is a compilation of invited chapters from Australia’s leading specialists in land use policy and planning and land management. Chapters present many widely recognised issues involved in Australia’s land use policy and planning, including limited understanding and poor awareness of: the rich history of poor decisions on land use planning and management across different levels of governmentthe discontinuities between providers of national biophysical informationthe tools, data and information to improve national land use decision-making outcomesthe poor synthesis and integration between science to policy to natural resource management and resource conditionthe benefits of land use practitioners engaging in connection, cooperation, mutual inquiry and collective social learnings. The aims of the book are threefold: 1) provide a review of the current status of land use policy and planning in Australia; 2) provide a resource to inform and influence the development of land use policy and planning; and 3) provide a sound contribution to Australia’s public–private land use debates in the future. The audience for the book includes government and non-government land management agencies from state and national bodies, universities and researchers.

Urban and regional planning is increasingly central to public policy in Australia and internationally. As cities and regions adapt to profound economic, societal and technological shifts, new urban and environmental problems are emerging - from inadequate systems of transport and infrastructure, to declining housing affordability, biodiversity loss and human-induced climate change. Australian urban land use planning provides a practical understanding of the principles, processes and mechanisms for strategic and proactive urban governance. Substantially updated and expanded, this second edition explains and compares the legislation, policy- and plan-making, development assessment and dispute resolution processes of Australia's eight state and territorial planning jurisdictions as well as the changing role of the Commonwealth in environmental and urban policy. This new edition also extends the coverage of planning practice, with a new chapter on planning for climate change, a more detailed treatment of planning for housing diversity and affordability, and a comprehensive analysis of the New South Wales planning system and its evolution over the last 30 years. Nicole Gurran is an associate professor in the Urban and Regional Planning Program at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on comparative planning approaches to housing, ecological sustainability and climate change. Prior to joining the University of Sydney, she practised as a planner in several state government roles, focusing on local environmental plan-making, environmental management and housing policy. She is on the Executive Board of the International Urban Planning and Environment Association.

Planning is becoming one of the key battlegrounds for Indigenous people to negotiate meaningful articulation of their sovereign territorial and political rights, reigniting the essential tension that lies at the heart of Indigenous-settler relations. But what actually happens in the planning contact zone - when Indigenous demands for recognition of coexisting political authority over territory intersect with environmental and urban land-use planning systems in settler-colonial states? This book answers that question through a critical examination of planning contact zones in two settler-colonial states: Victoria, Australia and British Columbia, Canada. Comparing the experiences of four Indigenous communities who are challenging and renegotiating land-use planning in these places, the book breaks new ground in our understanding of contemporary Indigenous land justice politics. It is the first study to grapple with what it means for planning to engage with Indigenous peoples in major cities, and the first of its kind to compare the underlying conditions that produce very different outcomes in urban and non-urban planning contexts. In doing so, the book exposes the costs and limits of the liberal mode of recognition as it comes to be articulated through planning, challenging the received wisdom that participation and consultation can solve conflicts of sovereignty. This book lays the theoretical, methodological and practical groundwork for imagining what planning for coexistence might look like: a relational, decolonizing planning praxis where self-determining Indigenous peoples invite settler-colonial states to their planning table on their terms.

Land use has important consequences for the environment, public health, economic productivity, inequality and social segregation. Land use policies are often complex and require co-ordination across all levels of government as well as across policy sectors. Not surprisingly, land use decisions ...

This book reconciles competing and sometimes contradictory forms of land use, while also promoting sustainable land use options. It highlights land use planning, spatial planning, territorial (or regional) planning, and ecosystem-based or environmental land use planning as tools that strengthen land governance. Further, it demonstrates how to use these types of land-use planning to improve economic opportunities based on sustainable management of land resources, and to develop land use options that strike a balance between conservation and development objectives. Competition for land is increasing as demand for multiple land uses and ecosystem services rises. Food security issues, renewable energy and emerging carbon markets are creating pressures for the conversion of agricultural land to other uses such as reforestation and biofuels. At the same time, there is a growing demand for land in connection with urbanization and recreation, mining, food production, and biodiversity conservation. Managing the increasing competition between these services, and balancing different stakeholders’ interests, requires efficient allocation of land resources.

Over the last decade, Australian governments have introduced a series of land reforms in communities on Indigenous land. This book is the first in-depth study of these significant and far reaching reforms. It explains how the reforms came about, what they do and their consequences for Indigenous landowners and community residents. It also revisits the rationale for their introduction and discusses the significant gap between public debate about the reforms and their actual impact. Drawing on international research, the book describes how it is necessary to move beyond the concepts of communal and individual ownership in order to understand the true significance of the reforms. The book's fresh perspective on land reform and careful assessment of key land reform theories will be of interest to scholars of indigenous land rights, land law, indigenous studies and aboriginal culture not only in Australia but also in any other country with an interest in indigenous land rights.