•A comprehensive assessment of the Australian Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) systems to inform emerging Nature-based Solutions.•Offers a detailed description of PES systems for including ...Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC)’ perspectives.•More than 90% of PES-related investment is from the Australian Government and very little from the private sector.•Illustrates PES as a system, beyond a mere market tool.•Proposes to develop bottom-up PES systems, including IPLC’ perspectives, for successfully achieving biodiversity and UN SDGs goals.
With recent growing interest and potential investment in nature-based solutions (NbS), a local, regional and global level understanding of what kinds of mechanisms or arrangements work effectively to deliver the required biodiversity and climate change outcomes is essential. This paper presents the status and opportunities for Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) arrangements in Australia, with a focus on Indigenous peoples in northern Australia. We reviewed 62 studies related to the distribution and extent of the predominant PES schemes globally and nationally in Australia, including different ecosystems (e.g. forest, water, savannas, etc.), spatial scale (e.g. local, regional or global), types of payment methods used for ecosystem services (ES) transactions, types of ES providers and beneficiaries, funders, users, and contract arrangements and related challenges. Globally, 54% of the studies were supported by government investment, 17% by private–public, and only 29% by private investment. 80% of studies focused on forests as the most common ecosystem for PES, with 61% of the PES arrangements implemented at a local scale, 16% at a catchment scale and the rest (23%) at a national scale. In 33% of the studies, a single ES is the focus for the system, i.e. water quality or carbon sequestration; in 37% of studies a bundled approach was followed where typically > 1–2 services are included as a bundle; and in another 7% stacked ES were included. Within Australia, six main schemes were considered to be PES, i.e. Conservation Agreements, Water trading (buyback) in the Murray Darling Basin, Reef Credits, Carbon Farming, the Queensland Land Restoration Fund, and the Indigenous Protected Areas and Caring for Country programmes on Indigenous lands. About 90% these programmes are funded by the Australian Government, focusing on carbon or biodiversity outcomes, with little consideration of Indigenous values. From an Indigenous perspective, a bottom-up PES approach incorporating the social and cultural aspirations of Indigenous people is preferred. Traditional management with low transaction costs, combining both socio-economic and environmental attributes as verifiable measures, can yield conservation as well as positive socio-economic outcomes for Indigenous communities in Australia and elsewhere. Empowering local communities, recognising and supporting their skills and knowledge, ensuring equitable and just distribution of funds, sustainable and reliable co-designed incentives are essential for the success of these fast-emerging opportunities.
Savannas constitute the most fire-prone vegetation type on earth and are a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Most savanna fires are lit by people for a variety of livelihood ...applications. ‘Savanna burning’ is an accountable activity under the Kyoto Protocol, but only Australia, as a developed economy, accounts for emissions from this source in its national accounts. Over the past decade considerable effort has been given to developing savanna burning projects in northern Australia, combining customary indigenous (Aboriginal) approaches to landscape-scale fire management with development of scientifically robust emissions accounting methodologies. Formal acceptance by the Australian Government of that methodology, and its inclusion in Australia’s developing emissions trading scheme, paves the way for Aboriginal people to commercially benefit from savanna burning projects. The paper first describes this Australian experience, and then explores options for implementing community-based savanna burning emissions reduction projects in other continental savanna settings, specifically in Namibia and Venezuela. These latter examples illustrate that savanna fire management approaches potentially have broader application for contributing to livelihood opportunities in other fire-prone savanna regions.
In ecological monitoring, data on changes in biotic and environmental attributes over space and time are used to investigate the function and persistence of ecosystems, and how societal actions ...affect ecosystem attributes. Long-term monitoring is particularly important as it yields insights that are not possible from short-term investigations (e.g. those that span only a few seasons or years). Despite being crucial for understanding our environment, securing long-term monitoring in Australia is notoriously difficult. But there are exceptions from which we can learn.
Successful monitoring can be understood by answering two key questions: What are the characteristics of effective monitoring studies? And, what factors contributed to these studies being maintained and remaining influential in the long-term? In this paper, we address these questions, primarily through collating the practical wisdom learned first-hand by a diverse set of people who have successfully led long-term monitoring programs, and subsequently formed the Long Term Ecological Research Network in Australia in 2011 through Commonwealth funding, only to see it de-funded in 2017.
We synthesise these learnings to identify four key characteristics of any successful ecological monitoring program, and eight key characteristics of successful long-term monitoring. Essential features include: appropriate study design, adequate data curation and management practices, agile project management and funding strategies, concerted succession planning, diverse and strong partnerships, and varied and effective forms of communication. These features, if each attained sufficiently, should enable the necessary spectrum of (adequately-funded) activity from: (1) robustly collected and curated ecological information; to (2) scientific understanding; to (3) planned intervention; to (4) adaptive management.
Natural Hazard-induced Disasters (NHD) cause a wide range of losses to built and natural environments, the latter often beyond standard measures. Precise accounting and characterisation of the losses ...can assist in developing effective management policies that help to build resilient communities. This study applies trans-disciplinary approaches to assess total, monetary and non-monetary, NHD-related losses, estimated at AUD 156 million per year (2010–2019 average), for Australia’s Northern Territory where bushfires, cyclones, storms and floods are destructive and frequent events. Non-monetary losses, often overlooked or omitted, were estimated at AUD103 million per year, accounting for two-thirds of total disaster-related losses. Marketable losses, estimated at AUD 53 million per year, were inferred, using standard and non-standard datasets, from the Australian Government’s Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements, insurance costs (Insurance Council of Australia database), and other relevant sources. Non-monetary losses were accounted for by the loss of ecosystem services from natural systems caused by cyclones and bushfires only, applying ecological economics approaches, but without considering long-term losses over the duration of recovery. This study informs disaster management policies to invest in collective emergency and environmental management planning for reducing NHD risk and building resilience of local communities to manage and prepare for rapidly changing climates. Such an accounting approach is essential in contexts where NHDs disproportionately affect the lives and well-being of disadvantaged remote communities.
Global change is altering interactions between ecological disturbances. We review interactions between tropical cyclones and fires that affect woody biomes in many islands and coastal areas. ...Cyclone-induced damage to trees can increase fuel loads on the ground and dryness in the understory, which increases the likelihood, intensity, and area of subsequent fires. In forest biomes, cyclone–fire interactions may initiate a grass–fire cycle and establish stable open-canopy biomes. In cyclone-prone regions, frequent cyclone-enhanced fires may generate and maintain stable open-canopy biomes (e.g., savannas and woodlands). We discuss how global change is transforming fire and cyclone regimes, extensively altering cyclone–fire interactions. These altered cyclone–fire interactions are shifting biomes away from historical states and causing loss of biodiversity.
Tropical cyclone–fire interactions are key drivers of the distribution, composition, and dynamics of woody biomes on islands and in coastal regions.Cyclone-induced damage to trees can increase fuel loads on the ground and dryness in the understory, which in turn increase the likelihood, intensity, and area of subsequent fires.Historically, cyclone–fire interactions have been rare in closed-canopy forests, but have maintained open-canopy savanna and woodland biomes via cyclone-enhanced fires.Global change is modifying cyclone and fire regimes worldwide, producing increased frequencies and intensities of cyclone–fire interactions that change biomes and their distributions.Increased frequencies and intensities of cyclone–fire interactions shift closed-canopy forests into open, degraded biome states and open-canopy savannas and woodlands into treeless grasslands.
To recruit to reproductive size in fire-prone savannas, juvenile trees must avoid stem mortality (topkill) by fire. Theory suggests they either grow tall, raising apical buds above the flames, or ...wide, buffering the stem from fire. However, growing tall or wide is of no advantage without stem protection from fire. In Litchfield National Park, northern Australia, we explored the importance of bark thickness to stem survival following fire in a eucalypt-dominated tropical savanna. We measured bark thickness, prefire height, stem diameter and resprouting responses of small stems under conditions of low to moderate fire intensity. Fire induced mortality was low (<10%), topkill was uncommon (<11% of 5 m to 37% of 1 m tall stems) and epicormic resprouting was common. Topkill was correlated only with absolute bark thickness and not with stem height or width. Thus, observed height and diameter growth responses of small stems are likely different pathways to achieving bark thick enough to protect buds and the vascular cambium. Juvenile height was traded off against the cost of thick bark, so that wide stems were short with thicker bark for a given height. The fire resilience threshold for bark thickness differed between tall (4-5 mm) and wide individuals (8-9 mm), yet tall stems had lower P
Topkill
for a given bark thickness. Trends in P
Topkill
reflected eucalypt versus non-eucalypt differences. Eucalypts had thinner bark than non-eucalypts but lower P
Topkill
. With deeply embedded epicormic buds eucalypts do not need thick bark to protect buds and can allocate resources to height growth. Our data suggest the only 'strategy' for avoiding topkill in fire-prone systems is to optimise bark thickness to maximise stem bud and cambium protection. Thus, escape height is the height at which bark protects the stem and a wide stem per se is insufficient protection from fire without thick bark. Consequently, absolute bark thickness is crucial to explanations of species differences in topkill, resprouting response and tree community composition in fire-prone savannas. Bark thickness and the associated mechanism of bud protection offer a proximate explanation for the dominance of eucalypts in Australian tropical savannas.
•Highlights and evaluates the role of fine-scale fire management in Australian tropical savannas for delivering a wide range of ecosystem services.•Assesses the total value of well-being benefits, at ...USD 189 million/yr, for Indigenous peoples who play a vital role in managing fire.•Emphasizes the importance of Indigenous land and fire management practices for informing health, social, economic and other policy sectors.•Supports Payments for Ecosystem Services mechanisms to enhance Indigenous well-being and conserve rapidly degrading natural resources.•The first of its kind study in savannas to underline the value of Indigenous fire and land management at a regional scale.
The savannas of tropical northern Australia, covering 1.9M km2, are relatively unmodified and support a very sparse human population (0.5 person/km2). Largely marginalised and impoverished Indigenous communities are key stakeholders in the region with legal rights to >60% of the land. Colonisation in the late 19th century significantly impacted long-standing Indigenous land management practices, resulting, until recently, in fire regimes dominated by extensive wildfires emitting, on average, >16Mt of greenhouse gases (GHG) per annum. To manage these emissions, the Australian Government in 2013 enacted an incentivised scheme—the Savanna Burning Methodology (SBM) under the Carbon Farming Initiative Act (2011)—to reduce wildfires through strategically applied prescribed burning. This paper assesses the value of ecosystem services (ES) delivered by fine-scale fire management under the SBM that is now applied to 25% of the 1.2 M km2 regulatory eligible savanna area, abating >7 Mt of GHG emissions per annum. While this scheme delivers and maintains a diverse range of ES supporting (i) the well-being of local Indigenous people, estimated at $189 million/yr (using a substitute value of government expenditure on Indigenous welfare), and (ii) many off-site ES for regional and global populations, the realised market value for GHG emissions abatement represents < 1% (i.e. USD 74.6 million since 2013) of the total value of ES. This assessment emphasizes the: (i) need to recognise the many benefits derived from SB; (ii) challenges associated with valuing ES for regional savanna stakeholders; (iii) further development of incentivised mechanisms for maintaining the flow of ES across sparsely settled northern Australian savannas. This assessment has broader implications globally where Indigenous and local communities aspire to sustainably manage their lands
Moving beyond evidence-free environmental policy Russell-Smith, Jeremy; Lindenmayer, David; Kubiszewski, Ida ...
Frontiers in ecology and the environment,
2015-October, 20151001, October 2015, 2015-10-00, Letnik:
13, Številka:
8
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Despite universal recognition that environmental policy should be informed by robust scientific evidence, this is frequently (and perhaps increasingly) not the case, even in wealthy countries such as ...Australia. How can the scientific community respond to this fundamental problem? While acknowledging that many constructive actions can be taken, and that scientists have a direct responsibility to inform the policy-making process and advocate for sound policy positions, we contend that such responses are insufficient unless the wider community is better informed and engaged. We agree with those who believe that a broader democratization of the policy-making process is essential to improving this situation, and that an expanded application of scenario planning, augmented with targeted public-opinion surveys, has considerable potential. Used in this way, scenario planning can help scientists engage with and inform citizens about the kind of world they want to live in, while incorporating the best science about possible futures.
Fire has shaped plant evolution and biogeochemical cycles for millions of years in savanna ecosystems, but changes in natural fire regimes promoted by human land use threaten contemporary ...conservation efforts. In protected areas in the Brazilian savannas (Cerrado), the predominant management policy is fire suppression, reflecting a cultural heritage which considers that fire always has a negative impact on biodiversity. Here we compare resultant fire-regimes in Canastra National Park (CNP), southeast Brazil, associated with areas under and without fire suppression management, based on a 16-year Landsat imagery record. In open grasslands of the Canastra plateau (CP), firefighting is undertaken under government-sanctioned regulation, whereas in the Babilonia sector, non-sanctioned fire management is undertaken by small farmers to promote cattle grazing and cropping. Fire regimes in the Canastra sector are characterized by few, very large, late dry season wildfires recurring at intervals of two years. Fire regimes in lowlands of the Babilonia sector are characterized by many small-scale, starting at the beginning of the dry season (EDS). In Babilonia uplands fire regimes are characterized by higher frequencies of large fires. The study illustrates major challenges for managing fire-prone areas in conflict-of-interest regions. We suggest that management planning in CNP needs to effectively address: i) managing conflicts between CNP managers and local communities; and ii) fire management practices in order to achieve more ecologically sustainable fire regimes. The study has broader implications for conservation management in fire-prone savannas in South America generally.
•In Brazilian savannas the predominant management policy is fire suppression.•Fire regimes in CNP are mostly man-made, either by the government or by landowners.•The three zones of the CNP differ in landscape structure and fire management.•Large and severe wildfires occurred in the CP more often compared to other areas.•Arising fire regimes are unable to ensure the sustainable biodiversity conservation.
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