S1 Consultant leads investigation into market based systems to define carbon and other environmental services produced on-farm

The team worked with farmers, scientists, community representatives and government stakeholders to examine the costs associated with incorporating environmental services within rural production, and how to define and create ownership of the services produced. They also looked at the types of financial, contractual and incentive arrangements necessary to promote greater awareness and take-up of these services within primary production.

Within this brief, the team developed an innovative tender based bidding and assessment process to select a diverse group of farmers interested in producing a range of new environmental commodities within their existing production farming enterprises.

The team also investigated and commenced development of indices to attach a universal value to the environmental services produced on rural land. This provides a starting point for selling these services into a market and is also valuable in making investment decisions about land use change, environmental improvements and rehabilitation works on degraded land. The indices can be applied at a property or regional scale, using a universal framework so that the environmental benefits generated by on-ground actions in different landscapes can be compared in a transparent and consistent fashion.

The systems and concepts demonstrated under the project can be used to quantify investment returns for environmental products, providing strong signals to guide investment on rural lands. They also provide mechanisms to economically value the full “cost of depreciation” of various approaches to use of our natural resources – allowing previously unpriced externalities such as impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity to be considered.

The outcomes of the project were successfully delivered through a process of developing and negotiating a shared position with rural landholders, peak stakeholders at a state and regional level, dispersed regional and scientific implementation teams, and government/agency representatives. A key aspect of success was the productive engagement with farmers “on the ground” to enable systems and support metrics to be developed and tested in real time alongside their day to day agricultural production activities.

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