Readying Australia’s Nature Repair Market for Nature Positive Investments

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) recently published the 'Review of the Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship Pilots to inform the Nature Repair Market' report. The report was co-authored by Marsden Jacob, Prof John Rolfe and Environment Institute's Associate Prof Patrick O'Connor.

The Nature Repair Market rewards landholders for taking care of the environment and will provide businesses with ways to invest in restoring and protecting nature. The report reviewed pilot programs aimed at developing a Nature Repair Market and used interviews and surveys of landholders and institutions and a literature review to examine the DCCEEW pilot programs for Carbon + Biodiversity (C+B) Pilot and Enhancing Remnant Vegetation (ERV) Pilot.

Their main findings were that the following would be necessary:

• Building trust and confidence in the market and supporting arrangements.


• Design the markets to allocate risk to those best placed to choose to manage it, e.g. signing up to long-term management or strict outcomes can be challenging when the processes of nature are uncertain.


• Reduce the upfront and participation costs of the market to reduce barriers to involvement;


• Recognise that there is a diversity of landholder characteristics and the right approaches to motivating, engaging and supporting landholders will be different in different places and market design should reflect that situation;


• Fostering demand and recognising the impact it can have on supply, ie. through exchange of information and options for trading

Read the full report here.