The chapter now turns to the site of analysis. The south coast region of Western Australia^[4] has some of the world’s most endangered flora and fauna, is recognised as one of 25 world biodiversity ‘hot spots’, covers a land mass of some 5.4 million hectares in what is arguably a high-amenity area and is now experiencing rapid change. This is one of the oldest areas of human settlement in Australia, with Aboriginal settlement dated to 40 000 years and European settlement (around the Albany area) to the 1820s. Unlike the Margaret River (south-west) region of Western Australia, it is not yet as well known internationally, although this is changing.

It is the state’s second-largest agricultural production region. Despite the historical records showing a 30 per cent decrease in average rainfall for south-west Western Australia, the region had relatively positive rainfall in the 2006–07 season. About 70 per cent of the region’s 5.4 million terrestrial hectares is under some form of primary production, the majority being cropped (including wheat, canola, and so on) or under pasture, but with more than 125 000ha under timber plantations and about 4000ha under viticulture and various forms of horticulture (SCRIPT 2005:76). This intensive agriculture has resulted in four identified major environmental challenges for agricultural production:

To provide a brief snapshot of the costs associated with such threats, land salinisation offers a salutary lesson. By the late 1990s, 9 per cent of Western Australia’s agricultural land was affected by salinity and predictions identified a doubling in the next 15–25 years, with a further doubling in the next decades. The WA State of the Environment Report (Government of Western Australia 1998:56) detailed that ‘up to 80 per cent of susceptible remnants of native vegetation of forms and 50 per cent on public lands (including nature reserves) could be lost in the agricultural regions of W.A. within the next century’. It has been estimated that the current loss of capital value of WA land to dryland salinity is in the order of $1.445 billion, with a prediction to an escalation of a further $64 million per annum in the next five decades. It is not, however, just the land value that is decreasing; estimates of tourism potential are also impacted, as are the livability and amenity capacities of small rural centres and the potential production of agricultural products.

The south coast region of Western Australia is one of 58 NRM regions in Australia and it is being managed through the South Coast NRM Incorporated. It is also the site of a five-year research project by Curtin University, Sustaining Gondwana, funded through a grant from the Alcoa Foundation (United States). The site was chosen for this research because the region provided an example of the complex interrelationships between place, environment, production and sustainability.

In the 18 months since the start of our project, the pace of change has increased exponentially. For example, in the major western centre of the region, Albany, there has been a 37 per cent increase in the price of housing, with a projected release of more than 2000 new blocks in the next five years. The pressure of demographic change (see Stehlik 2007; Government of Western Australia n.d.) is now recognised as a key issue for future sustainability.

This chapter examines questions of change through what is termed the Albany hinterland, a broad arc surrounding the City of Albany and including the Shire of Denmark. Many of my comments apply to the region as a whole. The Albany hinterland subregion takes in the city of Albany and the towns of Denmark, Mount Barker, Manypeaks and Wellstead. It contains all of the Denmark, Hay and Kalgan River catchments flowing south from the Stirling Range and discharging into Wilson Inlet and Oyster Harbour.

Source: ANU Cartography.

ABS Census data highlight the trend towards the urbanisation of the south coast region, with nearly three-quarters of the population living in the two key urban centres of Albany and Esperance. Consequently, the population in the smaller rural villages—such as Tambellup, Gnowangerup, Jerramungup and Cranbrook—are decreasing (Figure 7.2).

The proportion of the population in the Albany Hinterland of the region as a whole is 62.6 per cent and growing. In this sense, the urban centre of Albany can be seen as acting as a ‘sponge city’—pulling services and residents into the urban space, at the cost of the rural outlying communities. There was a reduction of some 7–10 per cent in the populations of the smaller rural centres in the south coast region in the 2001 census and this pattern was expected to be repeated despite some early indications of a ‘tree change’ housing boom in some centres such as Mount Barker.

Source: Derived from ABS (2007).

There have been many predictions by the City of Albany that the population will continue to increase at 3 per cent per annum in the foreseeable future, and this in turn is placing increasing pressure on the demand for the release of land. The latest data from the 2006 census have, however, challenged such predictions. Nevertheless, the perception of demographic pressure has in fact changed the land usage in the immediate periphery of Albany: peri-urban land is becoming more urban and less rural.

The other important aspect of our brief demographic analysis is the proportion of those in the population aged more than fifty-five years (see above). In a state that is experiencing an unprecedented resources boom, we are also seeing the direct impact on skills shortages and, in the case of agriculture, even less interest in the sector as a long-term career opportunity. Young people are being led away from the sector and into another sector, which appears to offer more future opportunities as well as more immediate income. The latest ABS data put the proportion of the population aged more than fifty-five in the City of Albany at 27.8 per cent and in the Shire of Denmark at 33.4 per cent—which is high compared with the 24 per cent overall for Australia. In their analysis of the whole Australian population, Barr et al. (2005:1) suggest that ‘since the 1991 census the rate of exit of older farmers (aged over 60) has been slowly declining. Retirement is being delayed,^[5] possibly in response to the fewer numbers of young persons seeking to take over family farms.’

In the same report, Barr et al. also highlighted that the rate of exit of older farmers (aged over sixty) fell during the 1990s. They make the point that farmers ‘are retiring later. This appears to be counterbalancing the continued higher rates of exits of younger farmers, causing the median age of exit to again rise towards 58 years of age’ (Barr et al. 2005:17).