Approximately 20% of ACT land is used for rural production. While intensive agriculture and horticulture is undertaken in some areas, the dominant rural land use is grazing. Grazing enterprises face challenges at three levels:

• addressing the legacy of the past
• accommodating the likely future impacts of climate change and
• maintaining enterprise viability.

Significant progress has been and is being made by most landholders to improve soil health and landscape functioning. However, further improvement is needed to address the cumulative impacts of rural activity and improve catchment health.

Climate change is also likely to place increased pressure on leaseholders and land management authorities to ensure more widespread and consistent application of best practice as a buffer against more extreme weather events. However, climate change may also bring new opportunities. For example, rural land might be a focus for carbon sequestration activities such as:

• planting more trees
• restoring and extending native grasslands
• assimilating organic waste from urban areas and
• capturing environmental and economic benefits of increased soil carbon.

Healthy soils are a fundamental part of the landscape and the intention of the rural land health target is to increase the viability of sustainable land management in the ACT. The key indicators of soil health are soil pH, soil carbon and hydrological connectedness. Inadequate data means a quantitative baseline cannot yet be established for this target. The proposed actions include developing and applying the required measures of rural land health. Improvements in rural land health will be driven by education, incentives and regulation through land management agreements.