Nature in Australia stored almost $60 billion worth of carbon in 2021–22! How do we know? Because this value was recorded in the country’s second set of ecosystem accounts just put out by the ABS. And they are open for everyone to see. You can look up your favourite ecosystem to see how it is doing in terms of its extent and condition, and the ecosystem services it provides. Here, Michael Vardon explains why these accounts are important and how we should be using them, and laments at how little attention they are given.
Australia’s ecosystems stored carbon worth $59.5 billion in 2021–22. Carbon in grasslands contributed $24.8 billion, slightly more than native forests at $24.5 billion. This will surprise some, as will that savannas at $9.8 billion contribute more than 20 times that of mangroves at $0.4 billion. This is a reminder that Australia’s carbon wealth is not only a forest story, and that blue carbon, a focus of much policy interest, is a small fraction of the total carbon stock. Mangroves are important for other reasons, and forests and mangroves store the most carbon per hectare, so the per-hectare value is highest. The point here is that in 2021-22 there is 187.5 million ha of savanna and grasslands, and only 1.3 million ha of mangrove.
How do I know this?
This a small part of what was released on Thursday last week by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in the second set of national ecosystem accounts. There was no fanfare, not even a media release.
You can look up your favourite ecosystem to see how it is doing in terms of its extent and condition, and the ecosystem services it provides.
The ABS has highlights on its webpage, for example mangroves and saltmarshes shielded 227,000 people and 104,000 dwellings from a 1-in-100-year coastal inundation. There are many spreadsheets you can download and interrogate with your favourite AI tool.
Great data, but how will it be used?
When the national economic accounts are released, the headline GDP number makes national news. The Treasury, Reserve Bank, Department of Finance, the private sector, and others know how to read the accounts and what to do with them. What about ecosystem accounts? They are mentioned in the Australian Government’s Nature Positive Plan, but it is unclear how the Government will use them.
Ten years ago, my colleagues and I characterised this as an accounting push lacking a policy pull. We have accounts, they have great potential, but the potential was not being realised. Things have progressed since with the accounting push increasing and signs, such as the mention of the accounts in the Nature Positive Plan, that their potential is being recognised more broadly
What is important about the accounts
While the numbers are important, just as important is how and by whom they are compiled.
The ecosystem accounts are produced by the ABS according to a well defined and internationally standardised framework, the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA). This is unlike Australia’ State of the Environment Report (SoE), which has never been produced the same way twice, although it does contain a lot of information. Historically, this was at 5-yearly intervals and is set to change to 2-yearly. It is also adopting the SEEA, so going forward, the format of the SoE should be standardised; which is a very positive sign.
The ecosystem accounts are anchored in the ABS. This differs from how the SoE is prepared, which it is under the supervision of the Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water and is subject to ministerial approval for release. The accounts are published by the ABS regardless of what they show. The economy may be good, bad or indifferent, but the national accounts are published at pre-determined times set a long way in advance. The Treasurer has no say in what gets published and receives the information at the same time as everyone else. Having routine ecosystem accounts produced independently of the government departments responsible for regulating and managing the environment is a necessary first step for public confidence in them and their routine use.
Turning accounts into action
The accounts can inform many things. This would be the ‘policy pull’ that has been missing.
For land-use planning, the accounts provide a consistent national baseline. Debates over Queensland land-clearing, Murray–Darling water recovery and infrastructure corridors could all be grounded in a common evidence base.
Or environmental regulation. The Nature Positive policy and reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act aim to introduce national environmental standards. The accounts contain exactly the type of extent and condition measures that those standards need. The accounts could help define what nature-positive means in practice, rather than being biodiversity double speak.
Disaster risk perhaps shows the ‘pull’ beginning to work. Coastal protection is already reported in units that emergency managers use, the dwellings and residents protected from a 1-in-100-year inundation. The numbers can flow directly into the National Emergency Management Agency and state coastal-hazard funding decisions.
Treasury’s Measuring What Matters framework tracks wellbeing. The accounts put dollar values on some ecosystem services. This is much more relevant to human wellbeing than the number of endangered species it currently uses (a truly depressing number). The number of ecosystem services in the accounts is currently small, but a policy pull from Treasury for information on additional services could prompt the ABS to provide it.
Finally, environmental markets. The Nature Repair Market, the Australian Carbon Credit Unit scheme and state biodiversity offsets all rest on credible measurement. A consistent national ecosystem account can lift transparency, reduce the risk of double-counting, and assess the effectiveness of these markets in achieving their objectives of reducing biodiversity loss and mitigating climate change.
If we had environmental protection expenditure accounts in addition to the ecosystem accounts, then we could examine the value for money we are getting. How efficiently are we spending our limited conservation resources?
The accounting push is still going strong. The policy pull is the job of the Treasurer, Environment Minister and those responsible for running the carbon and biodiversity markets. If they start drawing on these accounts, for planning, budgeting, regulating, etc, then last week’s quiet release may be remembered as the moment Australia began to manage nature the way it manages the economy – seriously.
Image: Forests and mangroves store the most carbon per hectare, but our ecosystems accounts show savannas and grasslands are way more extensive and therefore store many times more carbon. Accounting for ecosystem services requires a knowledge of quality and quantity. We’re now collecting this information but are still slow in using it.
(Image of mangroves near Cairns; photo by Yvette Salt)
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