The Cotton Stewardship Trial(MDBC 12/20),"Developing an environmental

management program for the Australian cotton industry" ("CST") was a

component of the Watermark Environmental Stewardship Program (ESP)

(MDBC 12/16).

The CST has had strong support from (and was jointly funded by) the Cotton

Research & Development Corporation as part of its commitment to the good

management and stewardship of the natural resources utilised in cotton

growing.

The CST had three distinct components:

. It sought to guide the further development of the cotton industrys

existing natural resource management(NRM) program (the BMP Program)

by investigating a range of issues related to the overall form, content and

structure of the BMP Manual and its implementation (including its

relationship with the institutional frameworks that support NRM).

. The finalisation of the last remaining major NRM area to be covered by

the industry's BMP Program, land and water management.

. It provided the on-going support for technical matters raised during the

normal day-to-day activities associated with implementing the BMP

Program.

This Executive Summary provides a brief overview of the trial participants,

followed by a summary listing of the achievements and findings of the trial,

and the resulting recommendations.

The full report provides a detailed listing of the 'best practices

recommended in the BMP Manual, the certification standard that has been

set by the industry for the issues addressed by those practices, discusses

the challenges confronting the industry as it deals with multiple catchment

authorities and catchment plans, discusses the proposed ESS and how it

may benefit the cotton industry and a complete discussion that provides the

background and context to recommendations for the industry to consider as

it continues to nurture the BMP Program from adolescence to maturity.

The cotton industry is on the verge of achieving formal recognition in

Queensland for the BMP Program as an alternative means of complying with

recently introduced regulatory requirements for the management of irrigation

farms. This Project provides a potential platform for the industry to expand

that formal recognition to a broader range of NRM issues, and to its other

major jurisdiction, New South Wales.