permaculture

["John Schinnerer" <johns@eco-living.net>]

Aloha,

> Today its very difficult as government water authorities and downstream
> irrigators are making it real hard to establish upper catchment keyline
> systems due to over regulation and laws that take away the landholders
> ownership of water that falls on their land, and will likely require
> licensing and payment for access rights.

Dunno about down under, but I reckon in the USA one could simply cut the
keylines on one's land - no need to tell anyone that it was any different
than "plowing" or whatever it is that those farm folks do when they're
pulling stuff behind their tractors... ;-)  Building ponds and other
obvious catchments could be a bureaucratic hassle, but "plowing" that just
happened to be keyline cutting would probably slide under the radar...?

It's a double-edged sword...if someone wants to put a cynaide leach pit
upstream of me I sure hope someone takes away their "water rights!"  Either
no rights for landowners or all rights for landowners cuts both ways.  Much
of the downstream destruction from old-growth clearcutting in the
headwaters groves in N. CA. is due to the USA culture of "it's my land and
I'll do whatever I please" regardless of consequences on others' land and
in larger ecosystems.

> ...and that
> environmental flows to creeks and rivers are compromised by the
significant
> reduction in runoff that pattern cultivation creates.

Well, that's a possibility...?  Ultimately, how is a bunch of small
landowners capturing most upstream water different than one or two big
agribusinesses diverting most upstream water?  It's a shared resource, like
it or not, but that's not the cultural bias in the USA (or in Australia
either, I reckon... ;-).

John Schinnerer
---------------------------
Cultural & Ecological Designing
Human Habitat Design
johns@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net