The Blue Mountains rise to the west of Sydney, NSW. In the year 2000 it was included on UNESCO’s World Heritage register for its representation of the evolutionary adaptation and diversification of eucalypts in post-Gondwanan Australia. Those eucalypts are rich in oil, filling the air with a distinctive blue haze that gives the region its name. Earlier this month, the many environmental organisations and community groups with connections to the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area came together for the Inaugural Blue Mountains World Heritage Conference. The meeting aimed to chart a way forward to ensure the protection and environmental stewardship of the globally significant landscape of the Blue Mountains. Michael Vardon was invited to speak at the conference on environmental accounting. Here he shares his personal perspectives on how the goodwill and enthusiasm generated at this meeting might translate into enduring environmental outcomes. Our governments chant a mantra of ‘nature positive’ but without a framework like natural capital accounting, it’s little more than empty rhetoric.
The Blue Mountains World Heritage Conference was hosted by the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute in Katoomba. The setting was spectacular, and the information shared was excellent. Though the region is confronting some daunting challenges, I came away with a warm fuzzy feeling. I think everyone did.
A little surprising was that natural capital accounting, the topic I spoke on, was extremely well received, generating many questions and follow-up discussions.
I was particularly satisfied because while I have been working on natural capital accounting for over 20 years, most of this work has been done overseas.
But how can we capitalise on the goodwill and interest generated at the conference, build momentum, and turn it into action? And the ultimate question: What next? However, before I get to that, a quick summary of some of what I witnessed.
The standard opening (and the standard problem)
There was the official opening, with a welcome to country by Aunty Carol Cooper, words from the conference hosts, and the launch of a “Research Prospectus” (a novel idea from the Institute for seeking out research partners).
And, of course, key political stakeholders were present in the form of the Blue Mountains City Council Mayor Mark Greenhill and the local Federal Member of Parliament, The Honourable Susan Templeman. Both made remarks on the prospectus, had their pictures taken, and skated out the door. I tried to catch the Honourable Member on her way out the door to raise concerns about the lack of full independence in the new federal Environment Information Australia, an agency she endorsed at the conference and in parliament. I got in one sentence and then a polite, brief “thanks for your interest” before her departure.
I raise this because such behaviour is typical and symptomatic of the problems facing environmental researchers and managers. We get general high-level statements on a commitment to “nature positive”, the importance of information and working with local communities for environmental management, and how great it is to see people coming together and sharing their ideas and knowledge. But they don’t wait around to learn or hear the ideas. They head off to other, more important, activities. Understandable perhaps, but a great shame in this case as the day was a microcosm of what it might mean to be “nature positive” in practice and how better information and natural capital accounting can help.
A wealth of (disconnected) knowledge
Reflecting on the presentations and discussions at the conference, many observations, questions, and answers are swimming in my head. Here are a few highlights.
There is a wealth of knowledge, but it is disconnected, and people do not take the time to discover, understand, or appreciate its value. Learning from First Nations was the focus of one session and collaboration in another. Knowledge or data sit in different cultures, agencies, and research labs. Advances are being made with more information online and more attention to traditional knowledge. However, in many cases, this is reliant on individuals and not embedded in organisations. We forget what data we have, do not know what data exists, or even bother to seek it out. We can and must do better to put our scarce resources to the best use.
We take for granted the benefits we get from nature. The Warragamba Dam provides drinking water for most of Sydney, but the dependence on the ecosystem services provided by the Blue Mountains is not appreciated. A study in the Victoria Highlands demonstrated the value of water and the losses and gains from different uses of the watershed.
It is hard to manage when there are multiple uses and values. Deer were given as an example: a resource for hunting, a feral animal degrading the environment, and a living creature deserving protection. How can you keep everyone happy? The short answer is you can’t, there needs to be trade-offs.
Another reported example involving a trade-off was using recycled concrete aggregate or “crushed concrete.” While it is good that recycled material is being used, as water flows through it, it changes its chemistry and degrades water quality. On balance, is it better to use recycled material, reducing the demand for new material, or does the decline in water quality mean it is not?
So many options
So, how might we move towards “nature positive” in the Blue Mountains? Some options I distilled from the day were to invest in:
- Revegetating private land on the edges of existing national parks in the Blue Mountains, increasing landscape connectivity resulting in higher benefits to biodiversity per dollar
- Protecting and expanding the ecosystems in the areas that need it most. In this case, the Blue Mountains already has a lot of natural capital. But the adjacent Cumberland Plain has just 9% of the original woodland and this is under pressure from urbanisation. It could cost a lot, but you could protect and expand a critically endangered ecosystem
- Controlling feral goats, which are causing erosion and preventing the regeneration of native species
- Reducing run-off from urban areas that is degrading water quality and eroding habitats both impacting biodiversity
Which option is best for nature positive? Who decides what is best? Answering these questions, requires data and research and then providing the information to the decision-makers in a form that they can understand.
Framing information and options for decision makers
We are not good at converting data and research into information for management. While you can always use more research and data, we already have lots of research and data on the drivers of change. What we need is a framework that can digest the data and transform it into regular information that can be used in decision-making. And as it happens there is one, the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting or SEEA, the only international standard for natural capital accounting.
Which brings us to the ultimate question: what next? Hardly a surprise, but my answer is natural capital accounting.
Let’s use the available information to create a set of accounts for the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. The accounts would reveal the ecosystem’s condition and its benefits: water supply, carbon sequestration and storage, recreational and cultural services, and biodiversity conservation.
We can use the accounts to assess “nature positive”, and judge the performance of past investments, target new investments and build the natural capital bank. The accounts can also assess the trade-offs that need to be made in environmental management: what are the benefits, who is benefiting, what impacts are caused, and is it sustainable?
Co-design and continuity
The accounts would be co-designed with key end-users such as the Blue Mountains City Council, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, and the Indigenous community. Producing the accounts would need input from many disciplines, including ecologists, economists, environmental managers, social scientists, accountants, and statisticians.
Importantly, the account design and development would aim to produce and integrate with the national ecosystem accounts on an ongoing basis. We do not want a one-off, isolated exercise; we want regular data for an information system to support decision-making.
The Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute is well-placed to lead the development of the accounts. It has strong connections to the research community, Indigenous people, and local and state government. Like everyone else, however, it lacks resources. But this is an opportunity for someone and everyone.
So, who wants to invest in natural capital accounts? I’ll be sending this note to Ms Templeman and others to encourage such investment.
Not everyone can invest, but we can all lend our support. Doing this whenever possible will build momentum and help turn my warm fuzzy feeling and the enthusiasm for accounting at the conference into something real.
More information: michael.vardon@anu.edu.au
Dr Michael Vardon is an expert in environmental accounting and has been collecting and analysing data for more than 20 years. His initial studies and career focused on the studies of animal population dynamics. (Photo by Cindy Trewin)
Banner image: Nature positive in the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area? Heaps of challenges; many options but few resources; lots of smart, committed people; how do you brings these elements together into a single framing to guide good decision making? (Photo by Cindy Trewin)
0 Comments