The BushBids program is in its fifth year in South Australia and has been a highly successful program. This program clearly demonstrates the use of market-based instruments (MBIs) to achieve improved environmental outcomes.

BushBids has enhanced the protection and improvement of biodiversity and ecosystem values in the remaining 10 percent of remnant vegetation within the Eastern Hills of the South Australian Murray Darling Basin (SAMDB) region, without increased financial burden to landholders.

Landholders receive a Payment for Environmental Services (PES) and society as a whole receives the ecosystem services (nature’s life support services) through conservation.

Currently there are two BushBids projects running successfully in SAMDB NRM region: The Eastern Mount Lofty Ranges BushBids and Woodland BushBids.

How BushBids works

The public or social benefits gained by protecting threatened native flora and fauna communities in SAMDB region are crucial with only 10 percent of precious native remnants remaining. Prior to BushBids, land managers received only traditional incentives to protect and enhance the biodiversity values in their private lands.

BushBids introduced Conservation Tenders as a market based methodology to increase participation in conservation by allowing landholders to identify the true cost of conservation upon their private land, while also allowing the NRM Board a mechanism to clearly prioritise the public benefit and identify best biodiversity conservation improvement for cost.

Biodiversity conservation inherits two potential causes of market failures: the ‘public good’ nature of biodiversity and the positive externality. The public good has two main characteristics; non rivalry (use or consumption of a good by one person does not diminish the availability of the good for use by others), and non excludability (no one can be stopped from using it). Due to these two characteristics, the public goods (in this case biodiversity) lead to free rider problems.

With the existence of positive externality, the marginal social benefit of conservation is higher than the marginal private benefit. When substantial positive externalities exist, the level of provision of a good or service (in this case the conservation of land) is less than the social optimum level. This means that the conservation efforts undertaken by landholders yields high social benefit with little to no benefit to the landholders themselves (as depicted in Figure 1).

Through Bushbids, funding provided to landholders boosts their desire to undertake conservation efforts, thereby providing the social benefit of continued ecosystem services to the wider community. BushBids as a MBI was able to efficiently internalise what was previously only a social benefit to also become a private benefit, by providing financial assistance to private landholders (Figure 1). In this way it created the socially optimum level of conservation and true market price for the conservation values of the remnant vegetation.



Figure 1: BushBids internalise the positive externality


Eastern Mount Lofty Ranges BushBids

Eastern Mount Lofty Ranges (EMLR) BushBids is one of the longest running successful biodiversity stewardship projects in Australia. EMLR BushBids protects and manages 2 256 hectares of native vegetation for biodiversity conservation on private lands in the EMLR since 2005.

The EMLR BushBids is the first stewardship-based initiative established under the Maintaining Australia’s Biodiversity Hotspots Programme and is delivered by the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin NRM Board.

The project includes 39 properties at 70 sites throughout the Eastern Mount Lofty Ranges. Successful bids were those that offered the highest biodiversity value for money.

Outcomes

Under this program six threatened plant communities, eight threatened fauna species and 19 threatened flora species will be protected as well as 21 managed sites providing habitat for eight vulnerable animal species.

The EMLR BushBids project has received two prominent awards, namely the South Australian Spatial Excellence Award (2007) and the South Australian Landcare Award (Finalist - 2007).


Woodland BushBids

Woodland BushBids is the second successful biodiversity stewardship project from SAMDB NRM Board after the very successful Eastern Mount Lofty Ranges BushBids program.

Outcomes

Initially, this program was aimed to protect and manage 1 250 hectares of private lands for conservation purposes. However, due to local landholders’ overwhelming interest, the program was able to achieve protection and management of 6 799 hectares of woodland communities on private land for conservation.

Woodland BushBids not only protects and conserves threatened woodland species such as Black Oak woodlands, Peppermint Box grassy woodlands and remnant Mallee vegetation, it also conserves the habitats for woodland birds such as the Diamond Fire-Tail Finch and the Southern Hairy Nosed wombat.

Increased community awareness and desire to participate in the BushBids projects has lead the SAMDB NRM Board to identify further opportunities for running future round of BushBids across the Eastern Hills or around particular issues such as threatened species or geographic region for conservation.

Find out more about South Australian Murray Darling Basin biodiversity projects.

Source
South Australian Murray Darling Basin Natural Resource Management Board and SAMDB NRM Board Biodiversity principal project officer Sarah Lance.

The BushBids program is in its fifth year in South Australia and has been a highly successful program. This program clearly demonstrates the use of market-based instruments (MBIs) to achieve improved environmental outcomes.

BushBids has enhanced the protection and improvement of biodiversity and ecosystem values in the remaining 10 percent of remnant vegetation within the Eastern Hills of the South Australian Murray Darling Basin (SAMDB) region, without increased financial burden to landholders.

Landholders receive a Payment for Environmental Services (PES) and society as a whole receives the ecosystem services (nature’s life support services) through conservation.

Currently there are two BushBids projects running successfully in SAMDB NRM region: The Eastern Mount Lofty Ranges BushBids and Woodland BushBids.

How BushBids works

The public or social benefits gained by protecting threatened native flora and fauna communities in SAMDB region are crucial with only 10 percent of precious native remnants remaining. Prior to BushBids, land managers received only traditional incentives to protect and enhance the biodiversity values in their private lands.

BushBids introduced Conservation Tenders as a market based methodology to increase participation in conservation by allowing landholders to identify the true cost of conservation upon their private land, while also allowing the NRM Board a mechanism to clearly prioritise the public benefit and identify best biodiversity conservation improvement for cost.

Biodiversity conservation inherits two potential causes of market failures: the ‘public good’ nature of biodiversity and the positive externality. The public good has two main characteristics; non rivalry (use or consumption of a good by one person does not diminish the availability of the good for use by others), and non excludability (no one can be stopped from using it). Due to these two characteristics, the public goods (in this case biodiversity) lead to free rider problems.

With the existence of positive externality, the marginal social benefit of conservation is higher than the marginal private benefit. When substantial positive externalities exist, the level of provision of a good or service (in this case the conservation of land) is less than the social optimum level. This means that the conservation efforts undertaken by landholders yields high social benefit with little to no benefit to the landholders themselves (as depicted in Figure 1).

Through Bushbids, funding provided to landholders boosts their desire to undertake conservation efforts, thereby providing the social benefit of continued ecosystem services to the wider community. BushBids as a MBI was able to efficiently internalise what was previously only a social benefit to also become a private benefit, by providing financial assistance to private landholders (Figure 1). In this way it created the socially optimum level of conservation and true market price for the conservation values of the remnant vegetation.



Figure 1: BushBids internalise the positive externality


Eastern Mount Lofty Ranges BushBids

Eastern Mount Lofty Ranges (EMLR) BushBids is one of the longest running successful biodiversity stewardship projects in Australia. EMLR BushBids protects and manages 2 256 hectares of native vegetation for biodiversity conservation on private lands in the EMLR since 2005.

The EMLR BushBids is the first stewardship-based initiative established under the Maintaining Australia’s Biodiversity Hotspots Programme and is delivered by the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin NRM Board.

The project includes 39 properties at 70 sites throughout the Eastern Mount Lofty Ranges. Successful bids were those that offered the highest biodiversity value for money.

Outcomes

Under this program six threatened plant communities, eight threatened fauna species and 19 threatened flora species will be protected as well as 21 managed sites providing habitat for eight vulnerable animal species.

The EMLR BushBids project has received two prominent awards, namely the South Australian Spatial Excellence Award (2007) and the South Australian Landcare Award (Finalist - 2007).


Woodland BushBids

Woodland BushBids is the second successful biodiversity stewardship project from SAMDB NRM Board after the very successful Eastern Mount Lofty Ranges BushBids program.

Outcomes

Initially, this program was aimed to protect and manage 1 250 hectares of private lands for conservation purposes. However, due to local landholders’ overwhelming interest, the program was able to achieve protection and management of 6 799 hectares of woodland communities on private land for conservation.

Woodland BushBids not only protects and conserves threatened woodland species such as Black Oak woodlands, Peppermint Box grassy woodlands and remnant Mallee vegetation, it also conserves the habitats for woodland birds such as the Diamond Fire-Tail Finch and the Southern Hairy Nosed wombat.

Increased community awareness and desire to participate in the BushBids projects has lead the SAMDB NRM Board to identify further opportunities for running future round of BushBids across the Eastern Hills or around particular issues such as threatened species or geographic region for conservation.

Find out more about South Australian Murray Darling Basin biodiversity projects.

Source
South Australian Murray Darling Basin Natural Resource Management Board and SAMDB NRM Board Biodiversity principal project officer Sarah Lance.