Twenty video interviews were conducted during the highly successful National MBI Forum in Brisbane in late September.

The interviewees include people from all over Australia, working in all areas of natural resource management (NRM), from economists and scientists, to regional group project managers. These short video interviews provide an insight into a range of people's MBI experiences.

Each of the interviewees share their experience with MBIs and provide some useful ideas on how to use MBIs effectively. The interviews are also a great way to find a useful contact person or get an introduction to MBIs and what they are used for in NRM.

The 20 interviewees are: Nerilee Boshammer, Kathleen Broderick, Anthea Coggan, Mel Feldmuller, Mike Gooey, Greg Hales, Darryl Harvey, Donna Hazell, Claire Heath, Brett Janissen, Nicola Landsdell, Honorlea Massarella, Margie Milgate, Patrick O’Connor, Hugh Possingham, Rohan Sadler, Jennifer Stace, Vikki Uhlmann, Jill Windle, and Charlie Zammit.

Visit the Designer Carrots website to view the interviews.

The national Market Based Instruments (MBI) Capacity Building Program (Designer Carrots) has ended. Designer Carrots products are still available on the Designer Carrots website and they include the following.

Website
A third stage of the Designer Carrots website is now developed. This upgrade makes finding assistance on MBIs easier and helps people to set up their profiles on the site's little orange book (the yellow pages of MBIs).

Stage two brought new online tools to the website, including online versions of the MBI decision support tool, metric tool and training modules.

This website provides an ongoing portal for MBI information. It contains all the Designer Carrots fact sheets, case studies and general information on MBIs.

The website will be hosted for at least three years, so it will remain an active site of MBI knowledge and interactive sharing long after the Designer Carrots program ends.

Case studies and fact sheets
Eight fact sheets and three case studies are available from the Designer Carrots website. They have been tailored to various levels of MBI awareness.

Designer Carrots Seed Money
There are several new case studies on the website in the Designer Carrots Seed Money section on these projects which were designed to provide the resources to broker knowledge and build the capacity of regional natural resource management (NRM) bodies to implement and design MBIs. There were 10 successful applicants.

Decision support tool and metric framework
These tools help to create a knowledge platform for the consistent national application of MBIs. The decision support tool will provide guidance to assist in determining the feasibility of applying different MBIs. The metric essentials online tool is a framework which communicates current knowledge and recent experience in metric design and implementation; it is complemented by a literature survey that gives readers much more in-depth insights into the design of metrics, as well as sources of further reading.

Little Orange Book
This practitioners’ network has been developed as a community of MBI practice through face-to-face contact (workshops) and virtual networking, and uses the website to further facilitate interaction. Network members now have access to the Designer Carrots website and Little Orange Book, creating an ongoing resource.  It’s easy to become a member: click on the registration link, and the system administrator will sign you up. Membership gives you access to more resources than the open site allows.

Training package and regional workshops
The eighteen two-day regional workshops have been completed. Held nationwide they have helped participants gain a better understanding of the role of MBIs among the NRM policy options, the range of MBIs, and their appropriate application to solve NRM problems. These workshops for regional NRM groups and for government agencies provided training, practical information, and a forum for discussion on the development, administration, communication, monitoring and evaluation of key MBI approaches.

National MBI Forum
Following on from the regional workshops, the Designer Carrots program hosted a very successful National MBI Forum on 30 September and 1 October in Brisbane. Over 145 people attended the Forum and disucussed a way forward for MBIs in NRM in Australia.

Some of the presentations from the forum are now available on the Designer Carrots website.

Additionally, 20 video interviews of MBI practioners were done at the forum and these videos are now available on the Designer Carrots website.

Please email Carl Glen or the Coordinator Claire Heath or phone on (07) 3239 3875 if you have any questions about the MBI Capacity Building Program.

The national Market Based Instruments (MBI) Capacity Building Program (Designer Carrots) is extended until the end of September 2008. Designer Carrots products are now available and they include the following.

Website
A third stage of the Designer Carrots website is now being developed. This upgrade will make finding assistance on MBIs easier and help people to set up their profiles on the site's little orange book (the yellow pages of MBIs).

Stage two is complete, bringing new online tools to the website, including online versions of the MBI decision support tool, metric tool and training modules.

This website provides an ongoing portal for MBI information. It contains all the Designer Carrots fact sheets, case studies and general information on MBIs.

The website will be hosted for at least three years, so it will remain an active site of MBI knowledge and interactive sharing long after the Designer Carrots program ends.

Case studies and fact sheets
Eight fact sheets and three case studies are available from the Designer Carrots website. They have been tailored to various levels of MBI awareness.

Designer Carrots Seed Money
There are several new case studies on the website in the Designer Carrots Seed Money section on these projects which were designed to provide the resources to broker knowledge and build the capacity of regional natural resource management (NRM) bodies to implement and design MBIs. There were 10 successful applicants.

Decision support tool and metric framework
These tools help to create a knowledge platform for the consistent national application of MBIs. The decision support tool will provide guidance to assist in determining the feasibility of applying different MBIs. The metric essentials online tool is a framework which aims to communicate current knowledge and recent experience in metric design and implementation; it is complemented by a literature survey that gives readers much more in-depth insights into the design of metrics, as well as sources of further reading.

Little Orange Book
This practitioners’ network has been developed as a community of MBI practice through face-to-face contact (workshops) and virtual networking, and uses the website to further facilitate interaction. Network members now have access to the Designer Carrots website and Little Orange Book, creating an ongoing resource.  It’s easy to become a member: click on the registration link, and the system administrator will sign you up. Membership gives you access to more resources than the open site allows.

Training package and regional workshops
The eighteen two-day regional workshops have been completed. Held nationwide they have helped participants gain a better understanding of the role of MBIs among the NRM policy options, the range of MBIs, and their appropriate application to solve NRM problems. These workshops for regional NRM groups and for government agencies provided training, practical information, and a forum for discussion on the development, administration, communication, monitoring and evaluation of key MBI approaches.

National MBI Forum
Following the regional workshops, the Designer Carrots program is hosting a National MBI Forum on 30 September and 1 October in Brisbane. Click here to learn more and register.

Please email Carl Glen or the Coordinator Claire Heath or phone on (07) 3239 3875 if you have any questions about the MBI Capacity Building Program.

People with an interest in learning about market-based instruments (MBIs) gathered in Sydney in the third week in August to do training on MBIs, including using online tools, such as a decision support tool and metric tool.

The two training workshops were part of the 18 workshops to help regional NRM groups and government staff nationally to determine if MBIs are an appropriate tool to use for designing on-ground project delivery, and how they might apply them in their own situations.

The attendees were regional groups and government officers wanting to get involved in MBIs.

The interest in MBis in NSW was reflected by the good attendances at both the two-day workshops conducted in Sydney; there was also good attendance at a workshop held in Wagga Wagga.

The training was an introduction to MBIs as policy tools that encourage behavioural change through market signals rather than through explicit directives or through unsubtle mechanisms such as grants. The workshops covered a range of MBIs, including cap-and-trade mechanisms, offsets and conservation tenders.

Online forums have been set-up on the Designer Carrots website* for all the trainees who attended the workshops, so they can continue to stay in touch and share their MBI learnings. Some of the attendees have already added contributions to the forums and it is hoped that this will continue as people use what they have learned at the training workshops and apply it at work.

Online versions of the training modules and the other MBI capacity building products are also available on the Designer Carrots website*.

* you will need to be logged in as a member to access these areas. Links for the training and forums are located in the navigation list on the left side of the page.

According to a recent Land and Water Australia study, trust, business orientation, information-seeking behaviour and connectedness are among the best predictors of participation in a market-based instrument (MBI) or incentive program.

Designing or delivering MBIs and incentives in the following ways were found to be helpful:

• use Landcare, local catchment management authorities, regional bodies or industry groups to deliver the programs

• provide technical assistance, particularly for identifying potential management actions and ongoing technical assistance
• provide help writing applications if possible
• indicate the probability of success with past grants
• for payments, landholders generally prefer to receive a larger upfront payment with the residual paid in equal yearly payments or payment after each stage has been completed, rather than receive equal yearly payments
• for ongoing projects, contracts of 3–5 years with an optional extension are preferred to projects of fewer years in length
• for monitoring, include site visits half way through and at the end of the project rather than just at the end of the project, or sending in photos at key stages.

Those most likely to participate in MBIs and incentive programs are those with the highest socio-demographic status, which raises concern about efficiency and equity. It was found that age was negatively and education was positively related to participation.

The researchers found there was evidence that if landholders hear about a program via a direct contacts (e.g. through extension officers) they are more likely to participate. The most effective communication messages emphasise the benefits to landholders and how the program will improve the management of their property and their business.

Learn more about the Encouraging Participation in Market Based Instruments and Incentive Programs project, using this link.

Use this link to download the Encouraging Participation in Market Based Instruments and Incentive Programs final report.

The Queensland Government has moved to ensure that environmental values aren’t lost as a result of development across the state.

The Queensland Government Environmental Offsets Policy, which took effect from 1 July 2008, will assist the Government and the public to protect Queensland's environmental values.

Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation, Andrew McNamara, said the policy is a milestone for Queensland environmental protection.

“It provides an overarching framework for the transparent and consistent use of environmental offsets,” Mr McNamara said.

“The policy will help achieve ecologically sustainable development to improve our quality of life now, and preserve the unique environmental values of Queensland for the future.”

“Environmental offsets will be required from developments approved by state decision makers after all avenues have been utilised first to avoid and then to minimise the environmental impact,” Mr McNamara said.

The Environmental Offsets Policy is available on the EPA website.

South East Queensland is set to become one of Australia's hotspots for carbon sequestration following the new partnership between South East Queensland (SEQ) Catchments and Australia's leading not-for-profit carbon trading organisation, Landcare CarbonSMART.

SEQ Catchments has appointed the state's first 'super assessor', farm forestry officer Paul Daly, who will be responsible for assessing and registering carbon sinks based on biodiverse landcare revegetation plantings on private land.

"We believe the Landcare CarbonSMART model of assisting rural landholders to regenerate land parcels not being used for agriculture is excellent," Mr Daly said.

"It not only delivers the landholder an income stream from carbon credits, it also delivers the inherent benefits of revegetation including stock and crop protection, improvement of erosion and soil salinity problems and invigorated biodiversity, all of which promotes greater productivity on the land."

Landcare CarbonSMART provides financial incentives for landholders to maintain eligible carbon credit vegetation on their land. The amount of carbon absorbed by vegetation is calculated and sold to individuals and businesses to help them take responsibility for carbon emissions.

Landcare CarbonSMART operates as a carbon pool with a majority percentage of sales paid to the landholder, a percentage to a recovery fund (in case of vegetation failure or unavoidable destruction cause by fire or disease) and a percentage to the management and operation of the pool.

Landholders receive annual payments and when the price of carbon rises, so too will payments to landholders with the value of carbon trading estimated to be worth US$3.1 trillion by 2020.

For more information about the Landcare CarbonSMART contact SEQ Catchments on 07 3211 4404.

Catchment Detox is a new online game about catchment management which is a lot of fun and can be quite addictive.

The game puts people in charge of their own catchment where they can decide what activities to undertake; options include planting crops, logging forests, building factories and setting up national parks. The aim is to fix environmental problems and provide food and wealth for the population.

The model behind the game was developed by Nick Marsh, Sylvain Arene and Stuart Minchin in collaboration with the CSIRO Division of Land and Water and the eWater Cooperative Research Centre. It is based on an original idea by NRM advisor Tim Stubbs and consultant Lucy Broad.

In August the ABC local radio ran a special radio series about the real life issues modelled in Catchment Detox. The show detailed how different communities across Australia are grappling with managing our most precious natural resources. At the end of each piece, Tim Stubbs gave extra hints and tips on the game.

Check out the Catchment Detox game online to try to repair a damaged river catchment and create a sustainable and thriving economy.

For some years, natural resources management (NRM) officers in South Australia (SA) have enquired about the range of mechanisms and processes required to effectively engage Aboriginal stakeholders in NRM. Queries have often been about:

• how to start the process of engagement
• cultural considerations and information about working with Aboriginal communities
• clarification of community representatives to approach
• native Title, Indigenous Land Use Agreements, heritage and other relevant legislation.

Questions about these concerns, and more, are answered in Engaging South Australian Aboriginal Communities in Natural Resources Management: A Practical Resource Manual. The user-friendly guide has been produced  to inform and guide people on effectively engaging and working with Aboriginal communities in the regions.

The document aims to provide NRM officers with a greater level of understanding of Aboriginal issues, available support networks and tools for engagement. It will be a very useful resource to assist in including Aboriginal people in market-based instrument projects in South Australia.

Download the Engaging South Australian Aboriginal Communities in Natural Resources Management - A Practical Resource Manual from the SA Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation website.

Land and Water Australia's Social and Institutional Research Program have recently published a number of reports on Indigenous natural resource management.

These are:

Provision for Cultural Values in Water Management: The Anmatyerr Story
Examinines practical ways of identifying, conveying and providing for Indigenous cultural values in water mangement. For more details see The provision for cultural values in water management - The Anmatyerr story.

Healthy Country Healthy People
This project confirms the health benefits tfor Indigenous people who are actively involved in natural and cultural resource management. For more details see the Healthy Country Healthy People paper.

A Cultural and Conservation Economy for Northern Australia
This study examines the suitability of a cultural and conservation economy model for sustainable development in rural and remote Indigenous communities. For more details see the A Cultural and Conservation Economy for Northern Australia paper.

A new website has been set up to provide information on the Australian Government's water entitlement purchases.

The Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong, said the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin Program website contains information on purchases made as part of the government's $50 million water entitlement buy-back to help return Murray-Darling Basin rivers to health.

"The website includes aggregated data about the purchases, including volumes, entitlement type, amount spent and water source," Senator Wong said. "This data will be progressively refined and updated over time as more purchases are concluded. The confidentiality and privacy of sellers will be protected," Senator Wong said.

The Australian Government's initial $50 million buy-back has secured entitlements to 35 billion extra litres of water for Murray-Darling Basin rivers from willing sellers. This was the first ever direct purchase of water by the federal government for the Murray-Darling Basin.

"Purchasing water from willing sellers is a crucial step in supporting healthy rivers and tackling the effects of climate change – priorities under the Australian Government's Water for the Future plan," Senator Wong said.

"A stakeholder consultative committee has been appointed to assist in evaluating the success of the $50 million purchase, and to provide feedback on the design and implementation of the government's water purchase program into the future."

"Our water purchase program will mean that rivers in the Basin will get a greater share of water as it becomes available," Senator Wong said.

North Queensland cane farmers have become increasingly aware of the important role they can play in sustaining the long-term health of the Great Barrier Reef.

As part of the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries’ (DPI&F) Reef Extension Project, more than 100 cane farmers from Cairns to Home Hill have been engaged over the past three years.

The project puts in place a dedicated team of extension specialists tasked with assisting producers in the voluntary adoption of management practices capable of supporting profitable sugar production systems, while also improving the quality of water leaving farms and entering the Great Barrier Reef.

Project manager Adam West said, “We worked to showcase how environmentally sensitive management measures could be incorporated into farming systems without having to compromise profitability.”

“Working in partnership with regional natural resource management bodies and industry, the project delivered a range of services including on-farm demonstration trials, workshops and economic assessments," Adam West said.

Senior project officer Rob Milla teamed up with FutureCane and BSES officers to promote relevant farming system components including best practice nutrient, soil health and irrigation management, controlled traffic, legume crops and computer based software tools to enhance record keeping and decision making.

The project assisted the development of an agreed set of Best Management Practices tailored to the Lower Burdekin sugar sector, with a specific emphasis on reducing nutrient, sediment and agri-chemical loss.

For more information, contact the DPI&F Business Information Centre on 13 25 23.

The New South Wales (NSW) Government has acted to free up more water for drought-stricken Murray-Darling farmers.

The NSW Minister for Water announced the relaxing of water trading rules to allow water from the Lower-Darling River to be temporarily traded into the Murray and Murrumbidgee River systems.

The Murray and Murrumbidgee systems remain in the grip of the worst drought on record with many producers in dire need of more water.

The NSW Government has taken this action to make more water available to sustain water-dependent industries, such as permanent plantings.

Under the existing rules, water cannot be traded out of the Lower Darling when the management of the Menindee Lakes is in NSW control. This rule has been relaxed to enable licensed water users in the Lower Darling to trade water from their accounts for the 2008/09 water year.

The Lower Darling water users were allocated some of the flows that reached the Menindee Lakes from the 2007-08 summer floods in northern NSW and Queensland.

However, in many cases the flows came too late for autumn crops and most of this water was carried over to this year’s water accounts.

This rule change gives Lower Darling licensees the choice to use this water to irrigate their crops or to sell to other licensees in the Murray and Murrumbidgee River systems.

This will benefit irrigators in NSW, Victoria and South Australia by immediately increasing the volume of water available on the water market.

The rule change was agreed to by the Murray-Darling Basin Commission and will be in place for one year. It applies only to temporary trades with permanent trades not permitted. Additionally, licence holders will be permitted to trade water into the Lower Darling River, provided trade into the valley does not exceed trade out.

The NSW Government is continually monitoring water resources in the Murray-Darling Basin and will continue to take action to provide as much water as possible to local industries.

Registration is open for the Designer Carrots National Market Based Instruments Forum, which is being held on 30 September and 1 October at Rydges South Bank Brisbane, Brisbane.

Whether it’s carrots or sticks that you use for natural resource and environmental management, the National MBIs Forum will provide plenty of dialogue to help you improve your knowledge and understanding of the right incentives for you.

The forum is the finale of the one-year National MBI Capacity Building Program, which is funded by the Australian, State and Territory governments.

The forum has been specifically designed for policy makers, MBI implementers, and researchers to come together to share ideas and lessons, and to help set the future direction of MBIs in Australia.

The forum will include an interesting mix of keynote speakers, panels, facilitated discussions, workshops and a debate. The forum has two broad themes, each with a number of topics and themes for discussion (subject to confirmation).

The big-picture issues to be covered are:

• MBIs in the broader policy spectrum (what?, why?, when?)
• five things everyone needs to know about the current round of national MBI pilot research projects
• the cutting edge: what next for MBIs

Issues relevant to specific applications of MBIs, or environmental problems

• what’s happening in my neck of the woods (a platform for regional NRM bodies, NGOs and other implementers to share lessons from MBI implementation)
• getting the right people and organisations involved in MBIs: optimising communication and participation
  
• monitoring and evaluation of MBIs
  
• metrics
  
• the use of MBIs in different landscapes (peri-urban, rangelands, Indigenous managed land)
  
• Designer Carrots seed money projects: sharing lessons  
  
• the use of MBIs for alternative environmental problems (reef, coastal management, water quality, water quantity and security, vegetation and biodiversity, carbon)
  
• insights and directions in capacity for MBIs.

Date and location
The forum will be held in Brisbane on 30 September and 1 October 2008 at Rydges South Bank in Brisbane, close to the river and the city centre, and in the heart of the lively South Bank precinct.

Costs
There is no charge to attend the forum. However, delegates will have to cover their own cost of travel and accommodation.

 To register, visit the Designer Carrots website.

For more information about the program contact:

• Sean Marler, on 07 3224 7734, or sean.marler@nrw.qld.gov.au
• Claire Heath, on 07 3239 3875 or claire.heath@nrw.qld.gov.au
• Carl Glen, on 07 3239 3884 or carl.glen@nrw.qld.gov.au

In July 2006 the Victorian Government released a statement called Our Environment, Our Future which outlined the state's efforts to start improving the quality of the environment and the way Victorians live. This statement contained 150 key actions  that were considered necessary to make Victoria a sustainable state by responding to a growing number of environmental impacts that Victorians are faced with.

The ecoMarkets project is a component of Our Environment, Our Future, and uses a comprehensive, market-based approach to environmental policy to achieve a full range of ecosystem services.

The name ecoMarkets has been given to the system of market-based approaches designed to reward landholders for environmental improvements on their properties. These programs include market-based approaches such as auctions and cap-and-trade systems.

ecoMarkets has been developed by the Victorian Government to balance ecosystem health and agricultural productivity. Its purpose is to provide incentives for producing ecosystem outcomes such as clean water and biodiversity.

In the past, markets have focused on agricultural and resource commodities without placing a value on the underlying health of the ecosystem. This economic system has not rewarded investment in the revegetation of land, or accounted for the long-term environmental impacts of land use.

For the past 10 years Victoria has championed the development of market-based programs like EcoTender, BushBroker and BushTender. ecoMarkets will build on these schemes. Please visit the Examples of ecoMarkets page for more information about these programs.

Through ecoMarkets, landholders can enter into contracts to improve ecosystem outcomes such as habitat quality, river health and soil health. Instead of choosing what to grow or graze based solely on commodity prices, ecoMarkets will open up a potential new income stream that pays landholders for improving the underlying health of the ecosystem.

Landholders, with the help of skilled field staff, will be able to see first hand the predicted ecosystem outcomes arising from different land and water use options. This will assist landholders with their property planning and decision-making, and allow them to develop detailed contracts specifying the actions they will take to improve ecosystem health.

The ecoMarkets initiative will finetune these market-based approaches, management systems and ecological science. The aim is to demonstrate how economic decision-making informed by ecological science can deliver the best possible environmental outcomes on private land for all Victorians.

The national Market Based Instruments (MBI) Capacity Building Program (Designer Carrots) has been extended until the end of September 2008. Designer Carrots products are now available and they include the following.

Website
Stage two of the Designer Carrots website is now complete and this brings new online tools to the website, including online versions of the MBI decision support tool, metric tool and training modules.

This website provides an ongoing portal for MBI information. It contains all the Designer Carrots fact sheets, case studies and general information on MBIs, and has useful support mechanisms such as the Little Orange Book (a ‘yellow pages’ of MBI practitioners) and an events calendar.

Case studies and fact sheets
Eight fact sheets and three case studies are available from the Designer Carrots website. They have been tailored to various levels of MBI awareness.

Designer Carrots Seed Money
This service is designed to provide the resources to broker knowledge and build the capacity of regional natural resource management (NRM) bodies to implement and design MBIs. It was announced on 31 October 2007 and is timed so key learnings can be communicated at the regional workshops. There were 10 successful applicants who will soon complete their projects.

Decision support tool and metric framework
These tools help to create a knowledge platform for the consistent national application of MBIs. The decision support tool will provide guidance to assist in determining the feasibility of applying different MBIs. The metric essentials online tool is a framework which aims to communicate current knowledge and recent experience in metric design and implementation.

Practitioners’ network
This network has been developed as a community of MBI practice through face-to-face contact (workshops) and virtual networking, and uses the website to further facilitate interaction. Network members now have access to the Designer Carrots website and Little Orange Book, creating an ongoing resource.

Training package and regional workshops
The first eight of eighteen two-day regional workshops being held nationwide have been a great success. These workshops for regional NRM groups and for government agencies are providing training, practical information, and a forum for discussion on the development, administration, communication, monitoring and evaluation of key MBI approaches. The workshop dates and venues are posted on the Designer Carrots website.

Following the regional workshops the Designer Carrots program will host a national MBI forum.

Please email Carl Glen or the Coordinator Claire Heath or phone on (07) 3239 3875 if you have any questions about the MBI Capacity Building Program.

Learn more about market-based instruments (MBIs) by attending one of 18 free two-day workshops which are being conducted throughout Australia.

The first eight Designer Carrots MBI training workshops have been a great success. Held in Townsville, Perth (twice), Brisbane, Adelaide (twice), Darwin and Alice Springs.

The dates of the remaining workshops are as follows:

• 4-5 August Brisbane
• 11-12 August Sydney
• 13-14 August Wagga Wagga
• 26-27 August Sydney*
• 4-5 August Melbourne
• 6-7 August Melbourne
• 11-12 August Launceston
• 13-14 August Hobart
• 25-26 August Canberra
• 27-28 August Canberra.

* Please note: the location for the workshop on 26-27 August has been changed from Tamworth to Sydney.

Regional group and government staff with an interest in MBIs are invited to attend these two-day workshops which aim to increase the capacity of government  policymakers and regional groups to use MBIs such as offsets, conservation tenders and cap-and-trade mechanisms as tools to assist in the management of natural resources.

The training will provide information on what MBI policy options are available and how to use them.

There will also be practical examples and hands-on activities that explore the design of MBIs. A number of products such as fact sheets, case studies, an online documents library, and support tools such as a decision support tool and a metric essentials tool will be shown, in addition to demonstrating the online MBI community developed for MBIs.

The workshop facilitators will help participants gain an understanding of how to use MBIs in their work and develop an online peer support group, using the Designer Carrots website, to enable participants to continue to gain support as they apply their learnings in their workplace. 

The Designer Carrots website will host additional online training electives which members of the website and workshop participants will be able to access.

Up to 30 places are available at each workshop, so registering for the workshops is essential. To register online or find out more information visit the Designer Carrots website.

A research report is now available on the Designer Carrots website which explores the interest by Northern Territory (NT) pastoralists to engage in conservation covenants (CCs) and conservation management agreements (CMAs) for the purpose of on-farm conservation or ecologically significant features and areas.

The researchers investigated general levels of interest, preferred negotiation avenues and conditions, barrier to the adoption of conservation practices, and other matters. The research was conducted during April 2008 and funded by the Designer Carrots Seed Money initiative and the NT Natural Resource Management Board (NTNRM).

A telephone survey was conducted of pastoralists in the NT, which yielded 63 responses. There was a good spread of respondents across NT bioregions, age categories and farm ownership structures.

The results indicated there is considerable interest by NT pastoralists, which supports the introduction of conservation covenants and conservation management agreements. Generally, CCs and CMAs are most likely to be considered on grazing land of poor grazing quality. However, pastoralists with high conservation and lifestyle motivation are also inclined to consider them on land of high grazing quality.

There is not much difference in the general appeal of different types of CCs or CMAs, although short-term CMAs are favoured over CCs and longer-term CMAs. However, different permutations appeal to different types of pastoralists. For example, CCs with a one-off upfront payment are particularly attractive to economically motivated pastoralists whereas long-term CMAs with regular stewardship payment appeal to pastoralists who are concerned about institutional uncertainty.

This suggests that participation in a conservation program could be boosted by offering a variety of implementation options, as many schemes in other states have done. There is a clear preference by pastoralists to negotiate any CCs or CMAs directly with the NT government (rather than a non-government organisation). While some prefer one-on-one negotiations, preferably in the context of achieving development concessions in return, many pastoralists prefer a group-based approach that involves neighbouring properties. Offering multiple avenues of negotiation could thus greatly increase the appeal of CCs and CMAs.

There are strong indications from the research results that complementing CCs and CMAs with other incentive instruments can increase their effectiveness. Specifically, appropriate financial incentives, property planning, recognition incentives and collaboration of government with grazier organisations can signficantly enhance the likely uptake of a CC or CMA-based conservation program by pastoralists. 

The research is based on a survey of pastoralists in the Northern Territory. Using a database provided by the NT government, the research team attempted to contact 193 potential respondents. The survey activity secured 63 respondents, which represents a response rate of 33%.

The Queensland Government has moved to ensure that environmental values aren’t lost as a result of development across the state.

The Queensland Government Environmental Offsets Policy, which took effect from 1 July 2008, will assist the Government and the public to protect Queensland's environmental values.

Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation, Andrew McNamara, said the policy is a milestone for Queensland environmental protection.

“It provides an overarching framework for the transparent and consistent use of environmental offsets,” Mr McNamara said.

“The policy will help achieve ecologically sustainable development to improve our quality of life now, and preserve the unique environmental values of Queensland for the future.”

“Environmental offsets will be required from developments approved by state decision makers after all avenues have been utilised first to avoid and then to minimise the environmental impact,” Mr McNamara said.

The Environmental Offsets Policy is available on the EPA website.

A workshop to discuss the implication and possibilities of the green offset policy has been organised for 30 July 2008 at Walkabout Creek, The Gap, in Queensland read more below.

People with an interest in learning about market-based instruments (MBIs) gathered in Adeladie in the third week in June to do training on MBIs, including using online tools, such as a decision support tool and metric tool.

The two training workshops were part of the 18 workshops to help regional NRM groups and government staff nationally to determine if MBIs are an appropriate tool to use for designing on-ground project delivery.

The attendees were regional groups and government officers wanting to get involved in MBIs.

The interest in MBis in South Australia was reflected by the high attendances at both the two-day workshops conducted in Adelaide.

The training was an introduction to MBIs as policy tools that encourage behavioural change through market signals rather than through explicit directives. The workshops covered a range of MBIs, including cap-and-trade, offsets and conservation tenders.

Online forums have been set-up on the Designer Carrots website for all the trainees that attended the workshops, so they can continue to stay in touch and share their MBI learnings. Some of the attendees have already added contribution to the forums and it is hoped that this will continue as people use what they have learned at the training workshops and apply it in a work situation.

To book a place, go to one of the 10 remaining workshops visit the MBI website's events section.

Online versions of the training modules and the other MBI capacity building products are also available on the Designer Carrots website.

The Commenwealth Government has provided $8.6 million for a new research project into how changed farming practices can simultaneously improve water use and productivity, while delivering better environmental outcomes.

The Farms, Rivers and Markets Project will develop a ‘how to’ guide for farmers to integrate their farm water needs with broader environmental needs. While the project will be based in Victoria the results will also be useful to farmers in other parts of Australia.

The project will involve farm-scale demonstrations exploring how the latest technology in water measurement and management, combined with better use of water markets, can boost farm profits and productivity, improve delivery of water to the farm gate, reduce leakage, and improve water-use efficiency.

Under the project, researchers in engineering, agriculture and economics will work in close partnership with farmers and water managers to help them choose the best mix of production opportunities according to their individual circumstances.

The project will provide farmers with practical ways to make the most of available irrigation water supplies, including rainfall and recycled water, through better planning, technology and predictive tools. The project will also provide spin-off environmental benefits including improved salinity and water quality management.

The project will run out of the University of Melbourne’s (UM) Dookie research farm and the surrounding Goulburn-Broken River catchment. The project, to run over three years, will be managed by Uniwater (a joint initiative of the University of Melbourne and Monash University).

To read the full media release visit the UM website.

An organic farming cooperative, a carbon-cutting car insurance company, the creators of a solar powered battery, and an ecologically driven supermarket chain are joining 20 other finalists in the running for one of Queensland's top environmental awards.

Twenty-four Queensland-based projects including a carbon offsetting project, have achieved outstanding results in terms of sustainability and are the finalists for the 2008 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Sustainable Industries Awards.

These finalists have been selected from more than 100 entries from small businesses to large multi-million dollar companies, showcasing Queensland's diverse range of sustainability champions.

Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation Andrew McNamara said there are visionary companies in Queensland that are committed to developing innovative products and practices that reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, water, waste and greenhouse gas emissions. The eight category award winners will be announced on 31 October.

Projects include an innovative water treatment process that removes dissolved toxic metals from mine wastewater; a highly sustainable fibre composite building panel for floors, bridge decking, beams and railway sleepers; and a supermarket reducing waste and energy use and lowering greenhouse gas emissions across its operations.

Other finalist projects include reduced water use in the ginger cleaning process, a coal-fired power station reducing its environmental emissions and water use through supercritical boilers and air-cooling technologies, eucalyptus oil extraction as part of an Indigenous community project, and the continuous rehabilitation of land at a sand mining operation.

The recognition of the offset program in this award program will also help to promote the use of market-based instruments in Queensland.

For a full description of finalist projects visit Queensland EPA website or contact the EPA Sustainable Industries Division on 3225 1999.

The Victorian Government has selected the Port Phillip and Westernport catchment as Victoria’s next EcoTender demonstration area.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Gavin Jennings said the Port Phillip and Westernport demonstration is part of a $14 million ecoMarkets initiative. This follows the first demonstration in the Corangamite catchment.

“EcoTender is a world-leading Victorian approach that rewards landholders and improves the health of the environment. It will also place Victorian landholders in an excellent position to capitalise on the emerging carbon emissions trading market.”

EcoTender is a tender based system to allocate funds between land managers, giving individual land managers or groups of land managers the opportunity to competitively bid for funds in return for actions that will achieve a wide range of environmental improvements.

Contracts are voluntary and flexible and are tailored to suit individual landholder needs.

“The Port Phillip and Westernport demonstration will provide at least $1.5 million in payments over the next five years to successful landholders,” Mr Jennings said.

“Building on the model adopted in the first demonstration, the Port Phillip and Westernport demonstration will specifically examine the management of urban fringe areas.

“Through the ecoMarkets program, we are able to recognise and reward urban fringe landholders for the management of ecosystems on their land as a vital service for all Victorians,” Mr Jjennings said.

The demonstration will run in the east of the catchment, covering the Bass Coast and Lang Lang areas.

Expressions of interest from landholders keen to participate in the demonstration will be sought at a later date.

Information on the ecoMarkets initiative is available at the DSE ecoMarkets website.

The much-anticipated draft climate change report from economics professor Ross Garnaut calls for an emissions trading scheme for Australia without delay as the best of the possible options for cutting greenhouse gas output.

The draft report on climate change warns that people will pay with an emissions trading scheme, but without action Australian icons like the Great Barrier Reef will die.

Garnaut says adapting to climate change will test Australians' values and preferences in profound ways and people will have to think whether they are prepared to pay for the preservation of areas like the Great Barrier Reef.

Professor Ross Garnaut's draft report calls for a scheme to start in 2010, but says the first two years would be a transitional period.

In a recent interview with Australian Prime Minister on ABC1’s Insiders discussed the Garnaut Report on climate change. In the interview the Prime Minister gave a plain and simple explanation of what an emissions trading scheme would invovle: a cap is placed on the levels of carbon pollution we emit and it is then important to use allocated permits that add up to the carbon cap and allow a carbon market to operate with this cap kept in place. The Commonwealth Government hopes to have a carbon trading scheme running by 2010.

Professor Ross Garnaut, commenting on the release of his report, said that strong government intervention is required to protect assets such as the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu. He said that although a trading scheme will increase costs for Australian households on a number of levels, the cost will increase over time if action is delayed.

Professor Garnaut says Australia may be more susceptible to climate change than other developed countries due to being naturally hot and dry.

Professor Garnaut said the current exceptionally high prices of gas, coal and oil will result in an easing off of consumption and allow for a longer trading scheme phase in time than would otherwise be advisable.

Vist the climate change website for a full copy of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Green Paper or the summary document.

Visit for the Garnaut review website for a copy of the report.

The Federal Government has released Australia’s greenhouse emission results for 2006 and a preliminary result for 2007, showing that the national emissions are on target to meet the Kyoto Protocol requirements.

The report, Australia’s National Greenhouse Accounts, shows that Australia’s greenhouse emissions in 2007 were estimated to be 585 million tonnes or 106 per cent of 1990 levels which is an increase of 1.6 per cent from only 576 million tonnes in 2006.

The report also showed the largest single source of direct emissions is the electricity, gas and water economic sector, accounting for 35.5 per cent of Australia’s emissions, while Australia’s primary industries (agriculture, forestry and fishing and mining) accounted for 32.7 per cent of direct emissions.

Energy-related emissions grew over the year, increasing by 12 million tonnes to 378 million tonnes.

The trends showed that national aggregate emissions were 4.2 per cent above 1990 levels in 2006. While changes in emissions levels at the aggregate level have been small, there have been significant differences in the trends experienced across various economic sectors.

Emissions from agriculture, forestry and fishing are estimated to have declined by 39.9 per cent since 1990. The strong decline principally reflects the impacts of declining emissions from the clearing of forest cover and increased removals by the forestry industry.

Against that decline, direct emissions have increased in mining (62.5 per cent), electricity, gas and water (50.0 per cent), residential (25.2 per cent), services, construction and transport (21.5 per cent) and manufacturing (6.5 per cent).

Australia’s national greenhouse accounts comprises four annual reports. The National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, the State and Territory Greenhouse Gas Inventories and the National Inventory by Economic Sector report Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions using the accounting rules for the Kyoto Protocol emissions targets. The National Inventory Report is prepared for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change using separate accounting rules.

The reports are available at Climate change website.

Registration opens for the Designer Carrots National Market Based Instruments Forum (29 September & 1 October 2008 – Rydges South Bank, Brisbane).

Whether its carrots or sticks that you use for natural resource and environmental management, the Designer Carrots National Market Based Instruments (MBIs) Forum has the right incentive for you.

The forum is the finale of the one-year National MBI Capacity Building Program.

The forum has been specifically designed for policy makers, MBI implementers, and researchers to come together to share ideas and lessons, and to help set the future direction of MBIs in Australia.

The forum will include an interesting mix of keynote speakers, panels, facilitated discussions, workshops and a debate. The forum has two broad themes, each with a number of topics and themes for discussion (subject to confirmation).

Big picture issues

• MBIs in the broader policy spectrum (what?, why?, when?)
• five things everyone needs to know about the current round of national MBI pilot research projects
• the cutting edge: what next for MBIs

Issues relevant to specific applications of MBIs, or environmental problems

• what’s happening in my neck of the woods (a platform for regional NRM bodies, NGOs and other implementers to share lessons from MBI implementation)
• getting the right people and organisations involved in MBIs: optimising communication and participation
  
• monitoring and evaluation of MBIs
  
• metrics
  
• the use of MBIs in different landscapes (peri-urban, rangelands, Indigenous managed land)
  
• Designer Carrots seed money projects: sharing lessons  
  
• the use of MBIs for alternative environmental problems (reef, coastal management, water quality, water quantity and security, vegetation and biodiversity, carbon)
  
• insights and directions in capacity for MBIs.

Date and location

The forum will be held in Brisbane on 30 September and 1 October 2008 at Rydges South Bank in Brisbane, close to the river and the city centre, and in the heart of the lively South Bank precinct. See: Rydges South Bank Brisbane website

Costs
There is no charge to attend the forum. However, delegates will have to cover their own cost of travel and accommodation.

Forum organisation, registration and contacts

The forum is being organised by the Department of Natural Resources and Water (Queensland) for the Designer Carrots Program, and is funded by the Australian, State and Territory Governments through the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality.

 To register, visit the Designer Carrots website.

For more information about the program contact:

Claire Heath, on 07 3239 3875 or claire.heath@nrw.qld.gov.au
Carl Glen, on 07 3239 3884 or carl.glen@nrw.qld.gov.au

The national Market Based Instruments (MBI) Capacity Building Program (Designer Carrots) products are now available. They include the following.

Website
Stage two of the Designer Carrots website is now complete and this brings new online tools to the website, including online versions of the MBI decision support tool, metric tool and training modules.

This website provides an ongoing portal for MBI information. It contains all the Designer Carrots fact sheets, case studies and general information on MBIs, and has useful support mechanisms such as the Little Orange Book (a ‘yellow pages’ of MBI practitioners) and an events calendar.

Case studies and fact sheets
Eight fact sheets and three case studies are available from the Designer Carrots website. They have been tailored to various levels of MBI awareness.

Designer Carrots Seed Money
This service is designed to provide the resources to broker knowledge and build the capacity of regional natural resource management (NRM) bodies to implement and design MBIs. It was announced on 31 October 2007 and is timed so key learnings can be communicated at the regional workshops. There were 10 successful applicants who will soon complete their projects.

Decision support tool and metric framework
These tools help to create a knowledge platform for the consistent national application of MBIs. The decision support tool will provide guidance to assist in determining the feasibility of applying different MBIs. The metric essentials online tool is a framework which aims to communicate current knowledge and recent experience in metric design and implementation.

Practitioners’ network
This network has been developed as a community of MBI practice through face-to-face contact (workshops) and virtual networking, and uses the website to further facilitate interaction. Network members now have access to the Designer Carrots website and Little Orange Book, creating an ongoing resource.

Training package and regional workshops
The first five of eighteen two-day regional workshops being held nationwide have been a great success. These workshops for regional NRM groups and for government agencies are providing training, practical information, and a forum for discussion on the development, administration, communication, monitoring and evaluation of key MBI approaches. The workshop dates and venues posted on the Designer Carrots website.

Following the regional workshops the Designer Carrots program will host a national MBI forum.

Please email Carl Glen or the Coordinator Claire Heath or phone on (07) 3239 3875 if you have any questions about the MBI Capacity Building Program.

Communities throughout Western Australia can now make lasting changes to the air they breathe by applying for a share of the $100 000 Air Quality Management Community Grants Program.

Environment and Climate Change Minister David Templeman said individual grants of between $5 000 and $10 000 were being offered to support grassroots projects that had the potential to enhance air quality management well into the future.

“We’re encouraging community and resident groups, environment groups and schools, as well as local governments and small businesses working in partnership with the community, to submit proposals that focus on air quality,” Mr Templeman said.

“Projects may focus on researching a particular issue or initiating a management plan to reduce the impacts of or exposure to known air pollution sources.”

“For example, motor vehicles, industrial emissions and development sites all pose air quality challenges, so these are some of the many issues communities might want to address with their projects.”

Successful applicants will be encouraged to use the Community Based Participatory Research approach to develop and implement their projects.

“This type of research involves communities in the whole research process, from developing initial questions to interpreting and releasing results and working out the solutions,” the Minister said.

“This is an excellent way of engaging the community and encouraging them to take an active role in confronting the issues that directly affect them.”

All applications will be reviewed against the assessment criteria by a panel of experts from the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC), the Conservation Council of WA, and the Clean Air Society of Australia and New Zealand.

The Air Quality Management Community Grants Program will initially run for two years. 

For more information or for a copy of the application form, contact DEC on 9219 8724 or visit Department of Environment and Conservation website.

Applications close at 5pm on 27 June.

Tasmanian farmers are accepting the challenge to go online and use communications technology to help their businesses.

Primary Industries and Water Minister David Llewellyn said that the FarmPoint website established under the Tasmanian Government's SMART Farming program has had a very successful first year.

The FarmPoint website was launched in May 2007, with the aim of becoming the website of choice for Tasmanian primary producers.

“FarmPoint offers comprehensive information on all aspects needed to operate a farm business in Tasmania,” said Mr Llewellyn.

"There are about 5000 farm enterprises in Tasmania. FarmPoint already attracts just under 3000 individual users each month. This suggests that the website is achieving good penetration of its target audience," he said.

The first FarmPoint computer and training program will finish next month, with 138 Tasmanian primary production enterprises involved since it began in September 2007.

So successful was the program – delivered by the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries and Water along with TAFE Tasmania, the Department of Education, Tasmanian Communities Online and TOPS – that it will run again later this year.

Successful applicants gained an ex-government desktop computer and six hours of one-on-one computer training at a local Online Access Centre for $250, with up to 65% of that refunded by FarmBis.

Five of the computer and training packages were also given away at this year's Agfest.

Almost 200 people completed the training, and their feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

When surveyed, 94% said that their expectations had been met, 85% would recommend the program to others, and almost all found the training relevant.

All Tasmanians who earn most of their income from a commercial primary production enterprise were eligible. They will also be eligible for a similar program running later this year, details of which can be viewed on the FarmPoint website from July.

"For some producers, this has been their first foray into using cyberspace to find information and interact with others on-line.”

"Some of them will go on to see further opportunities to use new technology for marketing or to assist with on-farm management," Mr Llewellyn said.

South Australia's Environment Highlights – Fifteen Stories of 2007 is a collection of stories revealing the diverse and inspiring work carried out by the talented people of the South Australian Department of Environment and Heritage (DEH).

This is the fourth year that they have produced Environment Highlights and this year’s contemporary design heralds the new direction of the department as outlined in their three year Corporate Plan, launched in July last year.

The stories featured represent the richness of their multi-faceted department and tell of its collaboration and engagement with the community and industry.

Environment Highlights – Fifteen Stories of 2007 can be downloaded from the SA DEH website.

People with an interest in learning about market-based instruments (MBIs) gathered in Townsville on the 29 and 30 May to do a training package for MBIs and use online tools, including a decision support tool and metric tool.

The training workshop was the first of 18 national workshops to help regional NRM groups and government staff to determine if MBIs are an appropriate tool to use for designing on-ground project delivery.

The attendees were regional groups and government officers wanting to get involved in MBIs.

MBIs are policy tools that encourage behavioural change through market signals rather than through explicit directives. There are a range of MBIs, including trading schemes, offset schemes, subsidies and grants, accreditation systems, stewardship payments, taxes and tax concessions.

The training package will be made available to regional groups and government staff through the 18 workshops to be conducted around the nation.

To book a place, go to the MBI website's events section.

The training modules and the other MBI capacity building products will also be made available on the under Designer Carrots website.

The first five Designer Carrots market-based instruments (MBIs) training workshops have been a great success. Held in Townsville, Perth (twice), Brisbane and Adelaide they are the first of 18 workshops to be held around Australia.

These workshops will help build the capacity of environmental organisations to use MBIs as an incentive for land managers to adopt more sustainable practices for managing our rivers, forests, soils and wetlands.

The workshops will provide information on the use of MBIs in the management of natural resources. Participants will develop an appreciation of the breadth of MBI types and their application in tackling a wide range of NRM issues. Participants at the workshops will:

• be introduced to MBIs
• examine how MBIs fit with and complement other policy approaches to natural resource management (NRM)
• work through issues for choosing an MBI
• discuss workshop issues related to designing MBIs

• discuss metric development and use in MBIs
• develop an MBI for NRM change as a practical exercise
• discuss current knowledge about MBI implementation
• access tools for ongoing learning and engagement with MBIs for NRM change.

The series of 18 two-day training workshops are being held nationally as part of the Market Based Instruments Capacity Building Program. Further details of the program and workshops are available at Designer Carrots website.

The workshops are designed for people with little or no experience in MBIs and will be presented by an expert team with broad experience in MBI development and implementation.

Participation in these workshops is open to regional NRM groups, government policy officers and other NRM stakeholders interested in the use of MBIs for the management of natural resources. There is no registration fee for participants but other costs of attending will be at the participant's expense.

The Designer Carrots website will host additional online training electives which members of the website and workshop participants will be able to access.

Up to 30 places are available at each workshop and registering for the workshops is essential. To register visit the events section of the Designer Carrots website.

The program is part of the National MBI Pilot Program, which is funded by the Australian, state and territory governments through the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality program that concludes on 30 June 2008. 

Other products being developed by the Designer Carrots program include fact sheets, case studies and online training modules.

The Queensland Northern Gulf Resource Management Group (NGRMG) recently asked graziers in the region to participate in a duty of care survey conducted by River Consulting.

The response was fantastic with over a third of the graziers completing the questionnaire.
Properties from 60 000 to 607 000 hectares were covered in the survey totaling almost a third of the region of the Northern Gulf (196 000 sq km).

Duty of care for graziers is about looking after the productive capacity of the country and maintaining the biodiversity of a property at a level where native flora and fauna survive happily in a commercial grazing venture.

Managing feral animals, reducing woody weed infestation, protecting endangered habitats, maintaining native flora and fauna, and conserving diversity of pasture species are all specific goals in maintaining a duty of care. This is even more relevant now with the changes to rural leasehold land following the introduction of Queensland’s Delbessie Agreement.

It is vital to the Northern Gulf region as a whole that duty of care is understood and embraced by graziers to ensure the ongoing viability of their properties and to give a future for their children.
For more information contact the NGRMG office on 07 4062 1330.

Learn more about market-based instruments (MBIs) by attending one of 18 two-day workshops which will be conducted throughout Australia.

The dates of the remaining workshops are as follows:

• 16-17 June Adelaide
• 23-24 June Alice Springs
• 26-27 June Darwin
• 4-5 August Brisbane #2
• 11-12 August Sydney
• 13-14 August Wagga Wagga
• 26-27 August Tamworth
• 4-5 August Melbourne #1
• 6-7 August Melbourne #2
• 11-12 August Launceston
• 13-14 August Hobart
• 25-26 August Canberra
• 27-28 August Canberra.

Regional group and government staff with an interest in MBIs are invited to attend these free two-day workshops which aim to increase the capacity of government  policymakers and regional groups to use MBIs such as offsets, conservation tenders and cap-and-trade mechanisms as tools to assist in the management of natural resources.

The training will provide information on what MBI policy options are available and how to use them.

There will also be practical examples and hands-on activities that explore the design of MBIs. A number of products such as fact sheets, case studies, an online documents library, and support tools such as a decision support tool and a metric essentials tool will be shown, in addition to demonstrating the online MBI community developed for MBIs.

The workshop facilitators will help participants gain an understanding of how to use MBIs in their work and develop an online peer support group, using the Designer Carrots website, to enable participants to continue to gain support as they apply their learnings into their workplace. 

The Designer Carrots website will host additional online training electives which participants will be able to access.

Up to 30 places are available at each workshop, so registering for the workshops is essential. To register online or find out more information visit the Designer Carrots website.

Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett has released more details of his government's plan to cut the state's greenhouse emissions.

Former Premier Paul Lennon has previously indicated plans to cut Tasmania's emissions by at least 60 per cent by 2050, based on 1990 levels.

Mr Bartlett has released details of the Climate Change Bill, which will set interim or sector-based targets.
The Tasmanian Premier says these targets will be decided next year, once the impact of a national emissions trading scheme in Tasmania is fully understood.
He says cutting emissions will be this generation's biggest challenge.

To read more visit the Tasmanian Government media releases website.

The first products of the national Market Based Instruments (MBI) Capacity Building Program (Designer Carrots) have been released. They include the following.

Website The Designer Carrots website is live and provides an ongoing portal for MBI information. It contains all the Designer Carrots fact sheets, case studies and general information on MBIs, and has useful support mechanisms such as the Little Orange Book (a ‘yellow pages’ of MBI practitioners) and an events calendar. Stage two is well under way and this will bring new online tools to the website, such as online versions of the MBI decision support tool, metric tool and training modules.

Case studies and fact sheets Eight fact sheets and three case studies are now available via the Designer Carrots website. They have been tailored to various levels of MBI awareness.

Designer Carrots Seed Money This service is designed to provide the resources to broker knowledge and build the capacity of regional natural resource management (NRM) bodies to implement and design MBIs. It was announced on 31 October 2007 and is timed so key learnings can be communicated at the regional workshops. There were 10 successful applicants who will soon complete their projects.

Decision support tool and metric framework These tools will help create a knowledge platform for the consistent national application of MBIs. The decision support tool will provide guidance to assist in determining the feasibility of applying different MBIs.

Practitioners’ Network This network has been developed as a community of MBI practice through face-to-face contact (workshops) and virtual networking, and uses the website to further facilitate interaction. Network members now have access to the Designer Carrots website and Little Orange Book, creating an ongoing resource.

There are a number of other products which will be delievered by the program. These include the following.

Training package and regional workshops Eighteen regional workshops will be held nationwide. They comprise workshops for regional NRM groups and for government agencies. The training to be delivered at these workshops will provide practical information on the development, administration, communication, monitoring and evaluation of key MBI approaches. The workshop dates and venues will be posted on the Designer Carrots website.

Following the regional workshops the Designer Carrots program will host a national MBI forum.

Please email Carl Glen or the Coordinator Claire Heath or phone on (07) 3239 3875 if you have any questions about the MBI Capacity Building Program.

As you are someone who receives the MBI incentive, we would like to extend to you the opportunity to join the member’s area of the Designer Carrots website and create your own profile in the Little Orange Book member’s section.

You can become a member by a simple application process and once completed a Login and Password will be sent to your nominated email account.

Once you are a member you will have access to a protected members area, with discussion forums, the Little Orange Book, RSS news feeds and other resources.

All these great features serve to create a real community around the use of market-based instruments in Australia. The Little Orange Book lets you create a profile, and build a network of professional peers, share images and contribute documents as well as indicate how you are involved with MBIs. Once you are a member you can search the Little Orange Book community to seek assistance, ask questions and connect with a growing group of practitioners.

You can access the discussion forums area, and connect with people striving for the same outcomes in a collaborative, real-time environment.

To become a member simply click here!

If you require assistance with signing up or setting up your profile there are instructions on the website or you can contact the Designer Carrots Communication Officer Carl Glen on 07 3239 3884 or email carl.glen@nrw.qld.gov.au.

The new Designer Carrots fact sheets and case study set is helping to build the capacity of regional natural resource management (NRM) groups to get them involved in carbon credit, environmental offset and other market-based instrument (MBI) programs.

MBIs are incentive tools used by regional NRM groups and government to encourage land managers to adopt more sustainable practices for managing our rivers, forests, soils and wetlands.

The Designer Carrots case studies and fact sheet set is one of a number of products developed as part of the Market Based Instruments Capacity Building Program (Designer Carrots) funded by the Australian Government’s National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (NAPSWQ).

The Designer Carrots program is being coordinated nationally by Community Partnerships in the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water.

The Designer Carrots fact sheets are:

• Market-based instruments—frequently asked questions
• Cap- and-trade mechanisms
• Environmental offsets
• Conservation tenders
• Running a conservation tender
• Market-friction approaches
• Using existing markets for NRM outcomes
• Optimising participation in market-based instruments programs 

The Designer Carrots case studies are:

• Cap-and-trade mechanisms
• Conservation tenders
• Using existing markets for NRM outcomes 

Market-based instruments are policy instruments that use price signals or other economic variables to encourage communities to change the way they go about their business, in this case improving natural resource management.

MBIs such as conservation tenders, offsets, and cap-and-trade schemes are increasingly being used by government agencies and regional NRM groups to achieve better environmental outcomes.

Other products being developed by the Designer Carrots program include a decision support tool, metric tool and training modules which will be delivered through a series of 189 workshops starting in May.

A national Market Based Instruments Capacity Building Program website has also been developed to host all of this material making it easily accessible to all regional NRM groups and government agencies throughout Australia.

The national MBI Capacity Building Program will continue on from the great work which has already been delivered by researchers, regional NRM bodies and government agencies. 

Interest in South West Natural Resource Management's Pasture Recovery Scheme has been both positive and encouraging.

Geoff Edwards, CEO of South West NRM, said expressions of interest had been received from all parts of the region.

Three properties have been approved for Queensland’s South West Natural Resource Management’s (SWNRM) Pasture Recovery Initiative.

The properties’ areas marked for pasture recovery cover 24 991 hectares in total.

A total of $167 500 will be invested across the properties for an average of 36 months.

The Pasture Recovery Initiative sees land managers paid a fee to spell their country.

Many tenders were received and SWNRM during the pilot program.

Some assessments are still being carried out.

For more information on the initiative visit SWNRM’s website.

Experts in market-based instruments (MBI) gathered in Brisbane to work together to finalise a training package for MBIs and a set of online tools, including a decision support and metric tool.

The training package will help regional NRM groups and government staff to determine if MBIs are an appropriate tool to use for designing on-ground project delivery.

The attendees were leaders in the field of MBIs from around Australia. Their input and support for the new products will help to ensure they form a valuable source of information for all regional groups and government officers wanting to get involved in MBI.

MBIs are policy tools that encourage behavioural change through market signals rather than through explicit directives. There are a range of types of MBIs including trading schemes, offset schemes, subsidies and grants, accreditation systems, stewardship payments, taxes and tax concessions.

The training package will be developed and made available to regional groups and government staff through 18 workshops to be conducted around the nation. The workshops will begin on 29-30 May in Townsville.

To book a place go to the MB I website's events section.

The training modules and the other MBI capacity building products will also be made available on the Designer Carrots website.

Trainers and experts in market-based instruments (MBI) gathered in Brisbane last week to work together to participate in a MBI train-the-trainer workshop for delivering a training package on MBIs.

The training package will help regional NRM groups and government staff to determine if MBIs are an appropriate tool to use for designing on-ground project delivery, and how they might go about this.

The attendees were the two training groups which will present 18 MBI capacity building workshops around the nation starting on 28-29 May in Townsville. Their trainers and MBI experts' input into, and support for, the new product will help to ensure it is a valuable source of information for all regional groups and government officers wanting to get involved in MBIs.

MBIs are policy tools that encourage behavioural change through market signals rather than through explicit directives. There are a range of types of MBIs including cap and trading schemes, offset schemes, tenders and auctions.

The training package will be available to regional groups and government staff through the 18 workshops and will also be available online.

To register for one of the 18 national MBI training workshops visit the Designer Carrots website event section.

The training modules and the other MBI capacity building products will be available on the Designer Carrots website from the end of May.

CSIRO researchers and Terrain Natural Resource Management invited far North Queensland land managers to attend a workshop in Mission Beach in April, to participate in a research study looking at the use of financial incentives for incorporating revegetation and habitat protection into property management plans.

Conservation tenders (including auctions) are a potential new method for allocating conservation funds among land managers.

The research study aims to adapt these tenders so they can be used for conservation at the landscape scale.

CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems’ Dr Andrew Reeson said, "With the help and participation of farmers and other landholders, we can hopefully design tender processes which are more attractive to them and which also offer better protection to the ecosystems upon which the longer term sustainability of their properties and region relies".

"For example, for large species like the cassowary, it is important to connect conservation areas across the landscape, rather than conserving isolated pockets of habitat,” he said.

"This is made all the more important by climate change, which is predicted to force many species to adjust their range by moving across landscapes,” he said.

CSIRO's research is utilising new advances in competitive tender processes and computer programs that will improve coordination issues, but they need the assistance and participation of land managers to ensure that it is relevant in the real world.

"The workshop will allow our researchers to test a novel form of competitive tender, while landholders will benefit by learning about auctions and how these new methods could apply to them in the future," Dr Reeson said.

For further information email Andrew Reeson, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems or visit CSIRO website.

Cassowaries are often sighted at the forest edge, Mission Beach, North Queensland. Photograph by Miroslav Honsak, Conservation International.

More than 1000 land managers across Australia have enquired about becoming involved in a carbon trading program being run by Landcare.

Under the Carbonsmart scheme, land managers can earn money by agreeing to plant and maintain vegetation on land which is unsuitable for agriculture.

Landcare spokesman Matthew Reddy says the Queensland Government is also supportive of the program because of its environmental benefits.

"A landholder will fill out an expression of interest, and there are eligibility criteria,” he said.

"We will then trade the carbon on behalf of the landholder,” he said.

 "Most landholders won't be able to produce carbon in significant enough volumes to trade on the open market, so we aggregate all of the carbon nationally into a carbon pool," he said.

Mr Reddy says he has already been overwhelmed with the response from Queensland landholders.

" [We've had] so much interest we're struggling to keep up with it at the moment," he said.

" Landholders from the top of Queensland to the New South Wales border have shown a lot of interest in this.”

"We currently have about 3000 hectares of expressions of interest,” he said.

" We're in the process now of helping these Queensland landerholders participate in the carbon market," Mr Reddy said.

For more information visit www.carbonsmart.com.au.

The Australian Government is a step closer to establishing a national emissions trading scheme with the release of a policy paper on mandatory corporate reporting of energy and greenhouse gas emissions data.

The Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong said the release of the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System; Regulations Policy Paper was the next important step in creating a national framework for corporations to report greenhouse gas emissions and actions to reduce emissions.

“ The new national reporting system will provide the data needed to underpin Australia’s national emissions trading scheme, which is a major part of the Australian Government’s commitment to action on climate change,” Senator Wong said.

The policy paper outlines proposed approaches to detailed reporting requirements including the scope of data subject to mandatory reporting, detailed definitions of terms such as facilities and emissions, registration and deregistration information, as well as reporting requirements for greenhouse gas offsets, and actions to reduce or remove emissions.

“ A new streamlined reporting system will be good news for business. Moving to a single system will cut duplication in reporting and reduce the cost burden currently imposed by the patchwork of separate greenhouse and energy programs," she said.

“ It’s also welcome news for the Australian community; providing for the first time, public information on the greenhouse and energy performance of large companies across the Australian economy,” Senator Wong said.

Interested individuals and organisations are encouraged to provide feedback on the proposals. Information sessions will also be held in capital cities before the deadline for submissions.

For more information visit the Australian Government’s Climate Change website.

By Terry Butts

An innovative pilot scheme financed by Townsville- based Burdekin Dry Tropics NRM (BDTNRM) to entice land owners in the Southern Desert Uplands to manage their land with native vegetation and at the same time conserve wild life in their pastures, is being hailed a great success.

Known simply as Landscape Linkages it is a scheme whereby land owners and managers in the region bordered by the shires of Jericho, Aramac and Barcaldine submitted a price to provide the required maintenance of vegetation on the submitted areas on their properties while not increasing the intensity of grazing.

According to Andrea Lingard, the project officer of Barcaldine based Desert Uplands Build Up and Development Strategy Committee (DUC) the first year has seen a 40 percent increase in grass cover over the areas submitted into the project.

Winning tenders were financed by BDTNRM (at an average of around $2 a hectare) but at all times land owners managed and were in control of their own commitment. A total of 15 properties covering 85 207 hectares were involved.

The two- year project is due for completion in October and the DUC will source funding opportunities for the continuation and extension to the project.

Hydro Tasmania has set a target of becoming Australia’s first carbon neutral generator by 2012 as part of its strategic response to the challenges of climate change.

CEO Vince Hawksworth said the announcements formed just part of Hydro Tasmania’s climate change response strategy.

“While Hydro Tasmania has recognised the potential impact of climate change for many years, as the evidence mounted it was important that the business had a clear strategic response," Mr Hawksworth said.

“ Our response plan places Hydro Tasmania at the forefront of world’s best practice in responding to climate change and puts us on the pathway to becoming Australia’s first carbon neutral energy generator.”

“It is also a key strategic issue for Hydro Tasmania as it presents a significant risk to our business as a generator of hydropower with the ongoing drought seeing our storages now standing at less than 19 per cent full.

Recent figures show that Hydro Tasmania emitted 642,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide last financial year, largely through Bell Bay Power Station gas generation.

The task to reduce that to zero will be achieved by a combination of:

• Decommissioning Bell Bay as soon as its critical role in supporting Tasmanian supply is complete – hopefully as early as 2009 with the arrival of the new Tamar Valley Power Station
• Energy reduction and fuel substitution initiatives such as fleet replacement, energy efficiency and Bass Strait Island renewable energy projects, many of which are already under way
• Offsetting emissions from staff flights, the Consulting business and the vehicle fleet.

Mr Hawksworth said achieving the 2012 target would provide Hydro Tasmania with:

• A competitive advantage in green energy markets;
• An influential voice in external policy debates; and
• Capacity to promote the business and the state of Tasmania as a leader in climate change action

Other initiatives being pursued by Hydro Tasmania in response to climate change include:

• Offsetting emissions from staff flights
• Substituting carbon intensive fuels such as diesel on King Island
• The purchase of fuel efficient hybrid vehicles
• Internal programs to increase car sharing and pooling among staff
• Pricing carbon into investment decisions and purchasing practices
• Conducting energy audit and efficiency improvements in existing office buildings
• Installing renewable energy on the Bass Strait islands
• Continuing to provide policy leadership in national climate change issues, including the design and implementation of the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target and Australian Emissions Trading Scheme.

For more information visit the Hydro Tasmania website.

New draft regulations designed to help make the Murray-Darling Basin water market more efficient have been released for comment by the Australian Government.

Under the Water Act 2007, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has been tasked with developing draft water charge rules and water market rules to apply in the Basin for approval by the Minister for Water, Penny Wong.

The draft regulations released set out the process that must be followed in making water charging rules and water market rules. The regulations include requirements for consulting with stakeholders, and the process for the ACCC to develop recommendations for consideration by the Minister.

The purpose of the water charge rules is to promote efficient water pricing in the Murray-Darling Basin. The water market rules are intended to free up the trade of water access rights in the Murray-Darling Basin.

The draft regulations ensure that infrastructure operators, basin states and the public are consulted in the process of making the water charge rules and water market rules, and for subsequent amendments or revocation of these rules.

The draft regulations do not spell out the process by which the ACCC consults during the development of advice on the water charge rules and water market rules. However, if the Minister is not satisfied that the ACCC undertook specified minimum consultations, it is a requirement of the regulations that the Minister undertake a comprehensive consultation process. The Minister may also elect to conduct consultations even if the ACCC undertakes the specified minimum consultations.

The draft Water Amendment Regulations 2008 and related information is available on the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts’ website at www.environment.gov.au/water

Information on the water charge rules and water market rules can also be obtained from the ACCC website at: www.accc.gov.au.

The Victorian Government has released a discussion paper seeking feedback on a new regulatory approach which aims to protect the environment as well as cutting red tape for business.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Gavin Jennings said the discussion paper seeks community feedback on proposed environmental offset approaches that will deliver ‘net’ environmental gains.

“Environmental offsets are about identifying opportunities where governments can work with industry to achieve better environmental outcomes at less cost. For example, a company can offset a discharge of suspended solids to a river by revegetating and stabilising river banks to prevent erosion and reduce the amount of nutrients and other pollutants entering the river.”

“This proposed Victorian offsets system will maintain the tightest environmental compliance standards and invite companies to deliver better environmental outcomes at lower cost,” Mr Jennings said.

Through this program the Victorian Government is cutting unnecessary red tape and allowing companies to use their capacity for innovation to meet their environmental obligations.

The Victorian EPA director of sustainable development Terry A’Hearn said the starting point for all decisions relating to environmental offsets will be to require compliance with minimum standards.

“This new offsets approach will provide us with a way to support business innovation and drive environmental gains beyond compliance standards,” Mr A’Hearn said.

Community feedback is sought on all aspects of the discussion paper, particularly suggestions for decision-making principles, approval processes and activities to which environmental offsets can be applied.

An environmental offset is defined as an action to address an adverse environmental impact of resource use, a discharge, emission or other activity at another location to deliver net environmental benefit.

More information is available at epa.vic.gov.au.

The Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC) recently released several important components of the BioBanking Scheme for community comment in November 2007.

These are:

• Draft Threatened Species Conservation (Biodiversity Banking) Regulation 2007
• Regulatory Impact Statement for the proposed Threatened Species Conservation (Biodiversity Banking) Regulation 2007
• Draft BioBanking Assessment Methodology
• Draft Compliance Assurance Strategy.

The DECC received a total of 149 submissions from a wide range of stakeholders and these have been examined closely by the Department and the Ministerial Reference Group.

The issues raised in public submissions and DECC's proposed changes to the scheme are outlined in the Public exhibition of BioBanking Regulation, Assessment Methodology and Compliance Assurance Strategy: issues raised and proposed changes (PDF, 1191kb).

DECC is still interested in hearing from stakeholders who:

• would like to receive further information about the scheme
• are interested in participating in the scheme and would like to attend information sessions and receive information for potential participants when the scheme commences
• are interested in receiving information about training on the credit calculator.

Please contact DECC via the dedicated email address at biobanking@environment.nsw.gov.au

The first products of the national Market Based Instruments (MBI) Capacity Building Program (Designer Carrots) have been released. They include the following:

Website
The Designer Carrots website is live and provides an ongoing portal for MBI information. It contains all the Designer Carrots fact sheets, case studies and general information on MBIs, and has useful support mechanisms such as the Little Orange Book (a ‘yellow pages’ of MBI practitioners) and an events calendar . Stage two is well underway and this will bring new online tools to the website, such as online versions of the MBI decision support tool, metric tool and training modules.

Case studies and fact sheets
Eight fact sheets and three case studies are now available via the Designer Carrots website. They have been tailored toward various levels of MBI awareness.

Designer Carrots Seed Money
This service is designed to provide the resources to broker knowledge and build the capacity of regional natural resource management (NRM) bodies to implement and design MBIs. It was announced on 31 October 2007 and is timed so key learnings can be communicated at the regional workshops. There were 10 successful applicants who have now commenced their projects.

Practitioners’ Network
This network has been developed as a community of MBI practice through face-to-face contact (workshops) and virtual networking, and uses the website to further facilitate interaction. Network members now have access to the Designer Carrots website and Little Orange Book, creating an ongoing resource.

There are a number of other products which will be delievered by the program. These include the following:

Training package and regional workshops
Nineteen regional workshops will be held nationwide. They comprise workshops for regional NRM groups and for government agencies, and there will be a national workshop. The training to be delivered at these workshops will provide practical information on the development, administration, communication, monitoring and evaluation of key MBI approaches. The workshop dates and venues will be posted on the Designer Carrots website.

Decision support tool and metric framework
These tools will help create a knowledge platform for the consistent national application of MBIs. The decision support tool will provide guidance to assist in determining the feasibility of applying different MBIs.

Please email Carl Glen or the Coordinator Claire Heath or phone on (07) 3239 3875 if you have any questions about the MBI Capacity Building Program.

As someone who receives the MBI incentive we would like to extend to you the opportunity to join the member’s area of the Designer Carrots website and create your own profile in the Little Orange Book member’s section.

You can become a member by a simple application process and once completed a Login and Password will be sent to your nominated email account.

Once you are a member you will have access to a private members area, with discussion forums, the Little Orange Book, RSS News Feeds and other resources.

All these great features serve to create a real community around the use of market-based Instruments in Australia - the Little Orange Book lets you create a profile, and build a network of professional peers, share images and contribute documents as well as indicate how you are involved with MBI's. Once you are a member you can search the Little Orange Book community to seek assistance, ask questions and connect with a growing group of practitioners.

You can access the discussion forums area, and connect with people striving for the same outcomes in a collaborative, real time environment.

To become a member simply click here!

If you require assistance with signing up or setting up your profile there are instructions on the website or you can contact the Designer Carrots Communication Officer Carl Glen on 07 3239 3884 or email carl.glen@nrw.qld.gov.au.

The new Designer Carrots fact sheets and case study series are helping to build the capacity of regional natural resource management (NRM) groups to get them involved in carbon credit, environmental offset and other market-based instrument (MBIs) programs.

Designer Carrots MBIs are incentive tools used by regional NRM groups and government to encourage land managers to adopt more sustainable practices for managing our rivers, forests, soils and wetlands.

The Designer Carrots case studies and fact sheet series are one of a number of projects developed as part of the Market Based Instruments Capacity Building Program (Designer Carrots) funded by the Australian Government’s National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (NAPSWQ).

The Designer Carrots program is being coordinated nationally by Community Partnerships in the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water.

The Designer Carrots fact sheets include:

• Market-based instruments—frequently asked questions
• Cap and trade mechanisms
• Environmental offsets
• Conservation tenders
• Running a conservation tender
• Market friction approaches
• Using existing markets for NRM outcomes
• Optimising participation in market-based instruments programs 

The Designer Carrots case studies include:

• Cap and trade mechanisms
• Conservation tenders
• Using existing markets for NRM outcomes 

Market-based instruments are policy instruments that use price signals or other economic variables to encourage communities to change the way they go about their business, in this case improving natural resource management.

MBIs such as conservation tenders, offsets, and cap-and-trade schemes are increasingly being used by government agencies and regional NRM groups to achieve better environmental outcomes.

Other products being developed by the Designer Carrots program include a decision support tool, metric tool and training modules which will be delivered through a series of 19 workshops starting in April.

A national Market Based Instruments Capacity Building Program website has also been developed to host all of this material making it easily accessible to all regional NRM groups and government agencies throughout Australia.

The national MBI Capacity Building Program will continue on from the great work which has already been delivered by researchers, regional NRM bodies and government agencies. 

The Victorian Sustainable Development Conference 2008 is being held in Melbourne on 22 – 23 April.

The conference will bring together key Victorian Government ministers, industry leaders, local government, scientists, conservationists and others to discuss the current and future directions and frameworks for sustainability in Victoria, and will review how it will affect Victorian local government, business and the community.

Over 30 experts and leaders in sustainability will address the conference, including: Gavin Jennings MLC, Minister for Environment and Climate Change; Peter Batchelor MP, Minister for Energy and Resources; Dr Ian McPhail, Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability; Dr Wendy Craik, Director, Murray-Darling Basin Commission; Timothy Piper, Director, AiGroup; Kelly O'Shanassy, Chief Executive Officer, Environment Victoria; Rob Hogarth, Partner, KPMG; Phil Harrington, Principal Consultant, Climate Change & Sustainable Development, Pitt & Sherry.

It will provide an opportunity to examine progress towards sustainable objectives in a range of key areas such as:

• water
• energy efficiency
• climate change response
• waste and resource recovery
• planning and urban design.

The conference will also feature best practice case studies in sustainable development, including creating a sustainable workplace, addressing challenges of sustainability, and provide advice for how state and local government and business can achieve their sustainable development goals in a cost-effective manner.

The Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment is a strategic partner of the Conference, and the event is also being supported by the Society for Sustainability and Environmental Engineering, Environs Australia, and the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand.

The conference is being held at Zinc, Federation Square, Melbourne. Further information is available from the conference website, or alternatively, contact Denise McQueen on 03 8534 5021.

Experts in market-based instruments (MBI) gathered in Brisbane last week to work together to finalise a training package for MBIs and a series of online tools, including a decision support and metric tool.

The training package will help regional NRM groups and government staff to determine if MBIs are an appropriate tool to use for designing on-ground project delivery.

The attendees were leaders in the field of MBIs from around Australia. Their input and support for the new products will help to ensure they form a valuable source of information for all regional groups and government officers wanting to get involved in MBI.

MBIs are policy tools that encourage behavioural change through market signals rather than through explicit directives. There are a range of types of MBIs including trading schemes, offset schemes, subsidies and grants, accreditation systems, stewardship payments, taxes and tax concessions.

The training package will be developed and made available to regional groups and government staff through 19 workshops to be conducted around the nation. The workshops will begin in the coming months.

The training modules and the other MBI Capacity Building products will also be made available on the Designer Carrots website.

The Federal Government will invest $2.25 billion over five years on a new program to restore the health of Australia’s environment and build on improved land management practices.

The Caring for our Country program will deliver funding to local communities through a ‘one-stop shop’ covering the Natural Heritage Trust and the National Landcare, Environmental Stewardship and Working on Country programs.

The program will focus on the key goals of a healthier environment, which is better-protected, well-managed and more resilient against the challenges of climate change.

It will invest in projects which match six national priorities:

• Australia’s national reserve system;
• Biodiversity and natural icons (including weeds, feral animals and threatened species);
• Coasts and aquatic habitats;
• Sustainable farm practices and Landcare;
• Natural resource management in remote and northern Australia; and
• Community skills, knowledge and engagement.

The program recognises that the previous system was not working efficiently, with funding scattered across the country to individual projects, often working in isolation from each other. The regional natural resource bodies will remain central in delivering the program, and will be supported by $636 million as secure base-level funding to invest in actions that complement and contribute to the Australian Government's national priorities over the life of the program. They will be able to bid for additional funds from the program to undertake activities that will help achieve the Australian Government's desired outcomes.

The program will remove the restrictions imposed on 'national', 'regional' and 'local' level funding and provide the opportunity for non-government organisations, regional bodies, Local Government and State, Territory and Australian Government agencies to access a greater proportion of program funds to help achieve our national priorities.

Caring for our Country will be backed by an annual business plan to ensure the investment is targeted to deliver the best results for the environment, with the first business plan to be released in September 2008. The plan will identify outcomes for the five years of the Program against each of the national priority areas for investment; outline the first series of short-term targets to achieve these outcomes; and invite proposals for activities to deliver investments against these priorities and targets.

The program includes funds to implement election commitments to:

• rescue the Great Barrier Reef
• repair coastal ecosystems
• save the endangered Tasmanian Devil
• improve water quality in the Gippsland Lakes
• fight the Cane Toad menace
• employ additional Indigenous Rangers
• expand the Indigenous Protected Area network
• assist Indigenous Australians enter the carbon trading mark

The program will complement the $130 million Australia’s Farming Future initiative, which will ensure the primary industry sector has a sustainable future in a changing climate.

Further information is available at http://www.nrm.gov.au/

A report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)’s into the environmental performance of Australia, found that the capacity of Australian environmental agencies is not adequate to address all their responsibilities.

The OECD’s Environmental Performance Review (EPR) of Australia assesses environmental management efforts at national, state and territory and local government levels. It is the second OECD review of Australia - the first was finalised in 1998.

Overall, the EPR provides an encouraging assessment of Australia's efforts. It makes 45 recommendations for future progress. The conclusions and recommendations are presented against three broad themes:

• Environmental management (strengthening implementation; water; air; biodiversity)
• Towards sustainable development (environment, economic and social integration; agriculture)
• International commitments and cooperation.

The report concludes that to face its environmental management challenges effectively, it will be necessary for Australia to i) strengthen environmental policies and their implementation in the interest of promoting a level national playing field and improving efficiency, where appropriate; ii) further integrate environmental concerns into economic and sectoral decisions and iii) further develop international environmental co-operation.

Key findings and recommendations include several recommendations to further develop market-based instruments:

Environmental Management

• The existence of different sets of environmental legislation at the state/territory level has many benefits, but also requires extensive inter-governmental co-ordination and co-operation, and multiplies regulatory costs. Serious breaches of regulation are inadequately prosecuted in some jurisdictions. The pricing of environmental services is still far from levels necessary for full cost recovery in most cases, despite recent progress.

Water Management

• rationalisation of water allocation in stressed water basins, allocation of adequate share of water savings to environmental flows

• removal of remaining administrative barriers to interstate trading; strengthening of the integrated management of ground and surface waters; wide application of “water sensitive” urban design practices)
• expand the capacity of regional natural resource management bodies to manage river health, and to assure minimum environmental flows

Air Quality

• redouble efforts to cut emissions from the transport sector: for instance, by applying market-based instruments to stimulate cleaner vehicles fleets and to improve the balance of transport modes (e.g. congestion and road pricing, fuel and vehicle taxation, parking charges).

Nature and Biodiversity Management

• ensure that regional natural resource management (NRM) plans give due consideration to biodiversity issues and are co-ordinated with local authority land use plans
• continue to develop and apply market-based instruments to protect biodiversity values on private land, as appropriate; ensure effective off-reserve conservation.

Towards Sustainable Development

• expand the use of market-based instruments to advance ecologically sustainable development, with particular attention to end-user energy prices to promote conservation, to limit emissions to enhance long-term energy security, and (in the case of transport) to reduce land development pressures
• strengthen policies and measures to enhance energy efficiency; reduce the energy sector’s net greenhouse gas emissions, including through more development of renewable energy sources
• in assessing policies, evaluate the contributions of measures against multiple sustainability objectives; for example, ensure that waste management measures are environmentally and socially effective and economically efficient.

Agriculture and environment

• ensure that the 56 regional catchment management bodies develop the capacity (good governance, funding, know-how, training, institutional support) to achieve the outcomes they are expected to deliver, in partnership with the agricultural industry
• further develop and operationalise the economic framework for sustainable agriculture, using market-based instruments (taxes, charges, trading) and economic analysis.

Integration of environmental and social decisions

• monitor the distributional impacts of market-based approaches to environmental management, and take steps to ensure equity (e.g. rural/urban, ethnic minorities, socio-economically disadvantaged)

International commitments and cooperation

• introduce a price on carbon through a national greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme and/or a carbon tax.

The report is available at the Environment website.

The Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong, has announced the Australian Government’s detailed timetable for introduction of emissions trading.

The timetable includes several important stages, including:

• March to June 2008: preliminary consultations on technical issues with industry and non-government groups

• July 2008: public release of a Green Paper on emissions trading design, drawing on preliminary consultations. The Paper will canvass options and preferred approaches on issues, such as which industry sectors will be covered and how emission caps will be set. It will also include ways to address the impacts of emissions trading on Australian households, emissions-intensive trade-exposed industries and other strongly affected sectors. The second phase of public consultation will focus on the Green Paper and will occur from early July to early September 2008. A further phase will follow the release of the emission trading legislation in December 2008.

• December 2008: public release of exposure draft legislation and a firm indication by Government of planned medium-term trajectory of the scheme
• March - Mid 2009: Bill considered by Parliament
• 2009: Consultation on emissions trading regulations
• 3rd quarter 2009: Act enters into force, regulator established
• 2010: Emissions trading scheme will commence.

The Victorian Government has announced $2 million to create seven Eco Living Centres across the state.

Each Eco Living Centre would help Victorian communities take action to live more sustainably and be a local hub for sustainability activities.

Eco Living Centres aim to help communities respond to climate change by showing residents sustainability in action and teaching them how to apply sustainable measures at home.

Each Eco Living Centre will demonstrate sustainable ways to save water and energy in the home, as well as reducing waste and improving biodiversity. Everything from composting systems and indigenous gardens to solar systems and efficient appliances will be on display at centres across the state.

The grants will create Eco Living Centres in Broadmeadows, St Albans, Violet Town, Swan Hill, Brunswick, Bendigo and five neighbourhood houses in North East Melbourne.

The Pepper Green Farm in Bendigo, one of the seven successful projects, showed the importance of Eco Living Centres in educating communities about sustainability.

The Pepper Green Farm is an established centre for sustainability education but will now be developed as a demonstration and education centre for the community.

Bendigo Access Employment (BAE) will use a $296 000 grant to boost understanding and uptake of eco-smart living through a ‘one-stop shop’ approach that promotes the sustainable use of energy, water and materials and encourages biodiversity.

The centre will include practical applications of urban sustainability, with everything from worm farms to solar systems on display.

The Eco Living Centres have been created as an initiative of Our Environment Our Future, Sustainability Action Statement 2006, to help Victorians reduce their impact on the environment.

Expressions of interest for round two of funding will be called for in mid 2008. For more information go to http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/ or call 136 186.

A new program working with landholders to reserve significant habitat on private land is helping to make Tasmania’s reserve system the envy of the world.

The Private Land Conservation Program, which replaced the Commonwealth and State governments Private Forest Reserves Program (PFRP), had built on and enhanced the previous program to further enrich efforts to conserve Tasmania’s rich natural and cultural heritage.

A recently completed independent review of the PFRP had highlighted how much had been achieved while it was in place between 1997 and 2006.

The Tasmanian Government recognises that the most effective conservation is achieved through the wider community and all levels of government working together.
It is that co-operative partnership that led to the success of the Private Reserves Program between 1997 and 2006 – a program that saw 247 perpetual Conservation Covenants finalised that added 38,400 hectares of priority forest to our reserve system.

This includes significant areas of land as well – averaging 155 hectares per agreement – with the largest reserve covering more than 2,500 hectares.

It is not just the size of areas that is significant however, it is the natural values they represent.

With the completion of the PFRP in 2006, it provided an opportunity to review what had been achieved and develop a new program that built on the success of the PFRP.

The key objective of the new program is to secure voluntary conservation agreements over priority conservation assets throughout Tasmania, and to provide landowners support and recognition for their conservation efforts.

A lot of progress in enhancing the program had occurred over the last 18 months with an increasing number of permanent staff working in the area of biological monitoring of the reserves, as well as staff dedicated to stewardship activities.

These officers provide ongoing support to landowners, ranging from advice about land management practices, to assistance in applying for funding.

The program is also actively working with other potential investors, to establish reliable sources of funding to assist with ongoing management expenses, and to enable landowners to generate more income from their conservation efforts.

One of the key factors in the success of both programs was the support and involvement of landholders. Their work in recognising the importance of these areas and entering into the agreements as well as the day to day management activities they undertake to ensure the value of these important areas continues to be conserved cannot be underestimated.

Western Australian Agriculture Minister Kim Chance and Environment Minister David Templeman have congratulated members of South Coast Natural Resource Management (NRM) on their successful partnerships aimed at protecting and conserving the natural environment.

Speaking at the Celebrating Successful Partnerships in Natural Resource Management function in Albany, Mr Chance said productive partnerships were the linchpin of good natural resource management.

The Minister said the State Government’s investment in NRM programs had led to an evaluation of perennial pastures which could play an important part in farming systems in WA because they were one of the most sustainable and profitable land uses.

Mr Chance also praised the South Coast NRM group and the Forest Products Commission for planting more than 4000ha of eucalypt, maritime pine and sandalwood trees in the region under the Strategic Tree Farming project.

Mr Templeman said working together was extremely important in tackling the challenges of managing WA’s natural resources.

“Good NRM results depend on a broad range of organisations working together: Federal, State and local governments, landowners and their organisations, and, of course, local community groups,” he said.

The Minister said two key collaborations between the Department of Environment and Conservation and the South Coast NRM were the Project Dieback and South Coast Threatened Species Projects.

Project Dieback was set up to inform local government and the community about the impacts of dieback and to produce dieback risk assessment maps for each NRM region.

The risk assessment for the South Coast Region has been completed and a dieback management plan is being developed. Ongoing aspects of the project include protecting populations of threatened flora through treatment with ‘phosphite’, and trialling the use of in-ground membranes to contain dieback infestations.

The South Coast Threatened Species Projects, supported by NRM funding through the Commonwealth and State Governments and co-ordinated by South Coast NRM, have included recovery actions for Gilbert’s potoroo, the noisy scrub bird, the dibbler and a large number of threatened flora in the Albany and Esperance districts.

This funding has also supported the reintroduction of the numbat, the State’s faunal emblem, to Cocanarup Timber Reserve, near Ravensthorpe, and extensive surveys that have resulted in the discovery of previously unknown populations of the dibbler in part of the Fitzgerald River National Park.

The WA Government has also provided substantial additional funding for key aspects of these threatened species recovery projects through the ‘Saving our Species’ program.

For more information visit the WA Government’s media statements website.

The third Auction of salinity credits for the NSW Hunter River Salinity Trading Scheme (HRSTS) was held in Singleton on 2 April.

There are 1000 credits in this scheme to manage salt water discharges from mines and power stations to the Hunter River. Every two years 200 new credits are auctioned to replace credits that are expired. This enables new users to enter the scheme and encourage ongoing environmental management solutions.

Thirteen bidders representing mining and power generation facilities competed for credits.  All but one bidder represented organisations that were already participating in the HRSTS. 

A closed multiple round bid auction approach is used. The auction continued for 10 full rounds of bidding which took almost three hours to complete.

The average price for credits at the 2008 auction was $947 and the 200 credits were distributed amongst nine industry participants. The average credit price represents a 68% increase since the last credit auction in 2006. The auction raised $189,442 which is used to offset the participants’ scheme contributions for the 2007/2008 scheme year.

The maximum price paid per credit was $1019 and the minimum credit prices was $869 respectively. 

For more information on this scheme see the Environment NSW website.

The national Market Based Instruments Capacity Building Programme (Designer Carrots) is developing a number of products to help regional natural resource management (NRM) bodies and government policy makers build their capacity to better understand and use market-based instruments (MBIs) as an incentive to encourage land managers to implement best practice NRM.

Products to be delivered by MBI capacity building programme include the following.

Website

The website will be live in early February and will provide an ongoing portal for MBI information. It will contain all the fact sheets being developed during the program, and general information on MBIs, and will have useful support mechanisms such as the Little Orange Book (a ‘yellow pages’ of MBI experts), an MBI decision support tool, training modules and an events calendar containing the dates for training workshops and other MBI events.

Case studies and fact sheets

These will form an important component of the website and the workshops and will be tailored toward various levels of MBI awareness. They are due for release at the end of January.

Practitioners’ Network

This network has been developed as a community of MBI practice through face-to-face contact (workshops) and virtual networking (e-lists), and will use the website to further facilitate interaction. Network members will have access to the workshops, website and knowledge brokerage framework, creating an ongoing resource.

Designer Carrots Seed Money

This is a service designed to provide the resources to broker knowledge and build the capacity of regional NRM bodies to implement and design MBIs. It was announced on 31 October 2007 and is timed to build capacity at the start of the program so key learnings can be communicated at the regional workshops. There were 16 applications, and 10 applicants have been successful and will commence their projects shortly.

Training packages and regional workshops

Twenty regional workshops will be held nationwide. They comprise workshops for regional NRM groups and for government agencies, and there will be a national workshop. The training to be delivered at these workshops will provide practical information on the development, administration, communications, monitoring and evaluation of key MBI approaches. These will commence in April and dates and venues will be posted on the Designer Carrots website.

Decision support tool and metrics framework

These will help create a knowledge platform for the consistent national application of MBIs. The decision support tool will provide guidance to assist in determining the feasibility of applying different MBIs and will be available from late January. The metric framework will be available in March.

Please email Carl Glen or the Coordinator Claire Heath or phone on 3239 3875 if you have any questions about the MBI Capacity Building Programme.

A leading Australian expert on emissions trading warns that a poorly designed emissions-trading scheme might fail to achieve significant emissions reductions, while providing large polluters with windfall profits.

Dr Regina Betz of the University of New South Wales’ (UNSW) Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets (CEEM) studied the experience of the European Union (EU) Emissions Trading Scheme, the world’s first and largest scheme, and said it provides a cautionary tale.

Greenhouse gas emission permits were given to large polluters, who subsequently built the ’cost of carbon‘ into their prices to account for the cost which would be created by buying permits at market price in the future.

“Effectively, EU energy consumers have paid large emitters tens of billions of euros for emissions permits these polluters were given for free," she said.

"Even worse, more permits were given away by governments than were actually required so the scheme was ineffective in reducing emissions significantly.” Dr Betz said.

Global emissions trading experts met at UNSW on 30 November to discuss key design criteria for achieving effective, efficient and equitable emissions trading at the Third Annual CEEM Conference.

The experts, from the United States of America (US), Germany, New Zealand and Australia, drew on their experience in global emissions trading policies to debate key design elements of future emissions trading for Australia. These elements include genuine emissions reduction targets, careful management of offsets and penalty arrangements, and equitable and efficient permit allocation.

One major issue of discussion at the conference was the implications of auctioning permits rather than distributing them to major emitters free.

"Auctioning in emissions trading schemes solves many problems," Dr Betz said.

"The US is set to introduce more auctioning into the various multi-state schemes now being developed. Australian proposals to date, however, still seem to suggest a preference for free allocation that is likely to have adverse efficiency and equity outcomes,” she said.

“Emissions trading schemes are designer markets because governments create and can change rules. Such flexibility poses both opportunities and risks for policy-makers,” she said.

“The policy process is vulnerable to stakeholder pressure and it’s possible to create extremely complex and abstracted schemes that don’t achieve their environmental objectives," said Dr Betz.

The Designer Carrots website will be active from February 2008, and will provide a forums area where further discussion on this topic can occur.

A study on the economic and social effects of water trading has been released by the National Water Commission, finding that it has, on the whole, been beneficial for rural communities.

Focused on case studies in the Victorian Murray Valley, the report, Economic and Social Impacts of Water Trading, said that permanent water trading has been of particular economic benefit and concluded that without permanent water trading there would have been very little large-scale horticultural development in Victoria in the past 10 years.

The report also said that without permanent water trading the Murray Valley wine boom would have been confined to existing irrigators switching away from dried fruit to wine grapes (instead, there have been extensive plantings of wine grapes); the almond boom might not have taken place, since it is an industry heavily reliant on economies of size; and that less water would be available for temporary trading back into dairy areas as current plantings of vines and trees matured.

Despite the positive economic benefits, the report found there was widespread, vehement community opposition to permanent trading out of a district. Some farmers have been ostracised by their community for selling their permanent water entitlements. With persistent drought, though, there is a greater appreciation that many individuals might be selling unwillingly.

Most of the people interviewed were strongly supportive of the principles and practice of temporary water trading.

The report noted that change and adjustment can be difficult. Communities in regions exporting water can experience reduced populations and less spending. Communities in regions importing water can experience increased populations without necessarily having the infrastructure and services to properly accommodate new arrivals.

Key findings in the report included that in order to understand water trading, permanent and the temporary trades need to be considered together. Both types of trade affect water use in a region, and there is often an offsetting direction in observed temporary and permanent trading.

Water trading can have both positive and negative social and economic effects for the local communities. There is strong community opposition to permanent trading out of a district. The social impacts in the regions studied are not merely a temporary phenomenon associated with the introduction of water trading. Rather, they will probably be a permanent feature of regional economies exposed to the rapid shifts, facilitated by water trading, in investment between different types of irrigated agriculture.

Communities can find change and adjustment difficult. The communities in the case study regions that were exporting water experienced reduced populations and less local spending. While communities importing water experienced increased populations but did not necessarily have the infrastructure and services to accommodate the new arrivals.

Additionally, water trading increases the parties’ capacity to react to changes in circumstances and is a catalyst for change which would in any case have happened as a consequence of drought, variation in commodity markets and rural adjustment.

It is difficult to untangle the effects of water trading from the background of drought. Any approach implying that all impacts associated with changes in water use are attributable to or caused by water trading would be misleading and unhelpful for policy development. There is a clear movement of water from irrigation districts to greenfield sites. This trend is away from existing shared channel infrastructure and towards direct river pumping, in other words, a move from public (or collectively owned) infrastructure to privately owned infrastructure.

Trade in permanent entitlements has assisted existing industries such as the wine industry and prompted the development of new horticultural ventures in Sunraysia.Water trading allows more flexible risk management and farm decision making, including the decision to leave agricultural production.

Water trading in an agricultural system which has annual and perennial crops gives farmers greater flexibility in making decisions about their priorities for water use, offers a means of managing risk and cash flow, particularly in dry times, and facilitates business growth and development.

The report is available National Water Commission website

Land managers in Corangamite catchment in south-west Victoria have been encouraged by the Victorian Government to tender for financial support for improving the health of their land under a new EcoTender project.

The EcoTender project is part of a $14 million commitment by the Victorian Government to develop market-based solutions, known as ecoMarkets, to improve the environmental health of land and water.

EcoTender is a tender-based system to allocate funds between land managers, giving individual land managers or groups of land managers the opportunity to competitively bid for funds in return for actions that will achieve a wide range of environmental improvements.

Successful bids will be those that offer the best value for money to the community, based on the amount of change in the ecosystem health, the value of the assets affected by these changes, and the cost.

The Victorian Government will run further ecoMarket demonstrations across Victoria with the aim of rolling out ecoMarket programs state-wide by 2010.

Rural land managers located in the project area have been invited to register their expression of interest with the Department of Sustainability and Environment on 136 186. Land managers who register a formal expression of interest to participate in the project will receive an obligation-free site assessment.

For more information visit the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment website.

Land managers in the southern Queensland Brigalow Belt can access stewardship funding from the Australian Government to help them protect or improve high-quality remnant native vegetation on their properties.

The Queensland Murray–Darling Committee’s (QMDC) ‘Bush Tender 2007’ will allocate Australian Government funding to land owners and leaseholders under the Australian Government’s Maintaining Australia’s Biodiversity Hotspot Programme. The aim of Bush Tender 2007 is to protect valuable intact ecosystems, but not at the expense of productive land.

QMDC’s project coordinator Emma Taylor said that the program had had over 70 enquiries from across the southern Brigalow Belt and there were already seven eligible expressions of interest (EOIs) submitted for assessment.

Ms Taylor said regional body would continue to receive EOIs until 14 March, so she is encouraging people to submit their EOIs soon so they don't miss out on the funding under the stewardship arrangement.

“The Maintaining Australia’s Biodiversity Hotspots Programme will provide funding to offset the costs that are usually borne by landholders in managing important patches of natural habitat,” she said.

Program funding will be available for the management of remnant vegetation already retained for high biodiversity values and mapped by the Department of Natural Resources and Water.

For a full list of eligible vegetation, download the brochure from QMDC’s website.For more information contact Emma Taylor on 07 4623 3478 or visit the QMDC’s website.

Queensland’s State Rural Leasehold Land Strategy has been released to improve the capacity of land managers to adapt to future challenges and emerging issues such as climate change.

Starting early in 2008, the strategy has a number of measures and tenure incentives to continue profitable land use while maintaining land, vegetation and water in good condition.

Farmers and graziers who lease State Government land will be able to get longer leases if they improve the condition of their land, under an innovative environment-focused land strategy affecting nearly 65% of Queensland.

State leasehold land covers about 63% of Queensland, with 99% of this land being used for grazing and agriculture, mostly in the State's north and west.

The environment-focused strategy offers incentives that include allowing lease terms of 50, 40 and 30 years compared with the current maximum of 30 years.

Queensland has around 3000 leases affected by the Strategy, many in marginal areas with ecosystems susceptible to degradation.

Developing the strategy involved input from a wide range of areas, reflecting the complexity of developing effective solutions for NRM.

The State Rural Leasehold Land Strategy was the product of an intensive consultation with the community and a partnership between the Queensland Government, AgForce Queensland and the Australian Rainforest Conservation Society.

For more information, including a copy of the strategy, visit the NRW website.

The first products of the national Market Based Instruments (MBI) Capacity Building Program (Designer Carrots) are about to be released. They include the following:

Website
The website will be live in March and will provide an ongoing portal for MBI information. It will contain all the fact sheets being developed during the program, and general information on MBIs, and will have useful support mechanisms such as the Little Orange Book (a ‘yellow pages’ of MBI experts), an MBI decision support tool, training modules and an events calendar containing the dates for training workshops and other events.

Case studies and fact sheets
These will form an important component of the website and the workshops and will be tailored toward various levels of MBI awareness.

Decision support tool and metric framework
These tools will help create a knowledge platform for the consistent national application of MBIs. The decision support tool will provide guidance to assist in determining the feasibility of applying different MBIs.

There are a number of other products which will be delievered by the program and these are all on schedule for delivery. These include the following:

Practitioners’ Network
This network has been developed as a community of MBI practice through face-to-face contact (workshops) and virtual networking (e-lists), and will use the website to further facilitate interaction. Network members will have access to the workshops, website and knowledge brokerage framework, creating an ongoing resource.

Designer Carrots Seed Money
This service is designed to provide the resources to broker knowledge and build the capacity of regional natural resource management (NRM) bodies to implement and design MBIs. It was announced on 31 October 2007 and is timed so key learnings can be communicated at the regional workshops. There were 10 successful applicants who have now commenced their projects.

Training package and regional workshops
Nineteen regional workshops will be held nationwide. They comprise workshops for regional NRM groups and for government agencies, and there will be a national workshop. The training to be delivered at these workshops will provide practical information on the development, administration, communication, monitoring and evaluation of key MBI approaches. The workshop will commence in April and dates and venues will be posted on the Designer Carrots website.

Please email Carl Glen or the Coordinator Claire Heath or phone on (07) 3239 3875 if you have any questions about the MBI Capacity Building Program.

The Victorian-based Green Graze pilot project delivers incentives and advice to graziers in the Goulburn Broken and North Central catchments using a competitive tender. Initiated under the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) Native Vegetation Regional Pilot program, the Green Graze pilot project encourages improved native vegetation management using a voluntary approach to promote changes in how farming businesses are run.

The Green Graze pilot project has resulted in improved grazing management which has led to an increase in the percentage of perennial plants growing, understorey diversity and natural regeneration. The pilot has generated a number of recommendations to guide future investment in this type of scheme. The approach could be applied across grazing properties from the NSW tablelands to the central uplands of Victoria.

Approximately 18,000ha of grazing enterprises were assessed under the project, of which 35% (6,165ha) was put forward for management under Green Graze, representing areas of remnant vegetation, scattered trees and native pasture. Seventy three per cent of the area covers threatened ecological vegetation classes including grassy woodlands, a major priority for restoration in the Goulburn Broken and North Central Catchments. A total budget of $265,700 was available to participating graziers. These graziers will receive from $22,000 to $98,700 over three years. The Green Graze management plans also captured smaller areas of high quality remnant native vegetation.

The bidding graziers developed management plans designating significant proportions of their farms to be managed for improved native vegetation under Green Graze. Alternative grazing strategies and changes in fertiliser management have been incorporated into Green Graze management plans.

Successful bidders have an average of 48% of their properties managed under a Green Graze plan. The pilot assessed grazing management and native vegetation across the whole property, new investments in fencing and watering points and significant changes to how livestock is managed, were required in most cases.

As a result of the management changes, pastures are expected to improve and support more livestock, so graziers are not likely to return to their traditional management practices.

The grazing strategies included in the management plans were deferred grazing, rotational grazing, crash grazing or complete rest from grazing. Ecologically sustainable grazing practices, including the cessation of fertiliser use over large areas of native pastures, will contribute significantly to regional targets relating to biodiversity, salinity, water quality and river health.

Overall the Green Graze trial worked very well, especially given the short time available for development and implementation. A survey found that satisfaction of participating graziers was high.

Future profitability, cash flow and risks associated with the changes are believed to have been a major consideration for graziers. It is likely that dry climatic conditions made participants more cautious, and risk-averse in structuring their bids. Further recommendations for enhancing the approach are included in the report which is available on the GBCMA website.

Warrill Valley farmers have access to a 5% water allocation while Logan River farmers will see a further 10% increase to their water allocations.

Warrill Valley farmers now have access to some much-needed irrigation water from Moogerah Dam after the dam received major inflows. The dam, which sat at critically low levels for the past six years, has increased to a healthy 40% capacity, after a deluge of more than 200mm of rain fell across the dam's catchment area.

Warrill Valley farmers were recently advised by SunWater of a 5% water allocation. Warrill Valley farmers have struggled for quite some time on zero allocations, however SunWater has advised that further increases are expected to be made as a result of continuing inflows.

The good news was further widespread with SunWater's announcement that Logan River farmers would see a further 10% increase to their water allocations thanks to recent inflows into Maroon Dam. Logan farmers will have more optimism and confidence knowing their water allocations will be 90%.

The weather bureau is predicting more rainfall over the catchment areas so SunWater may have the opportunity to further increase allocations for their customers in that region.

A new land rehabilitation calculator will cut red tape and ensure land rehabilitation works are adequately covered.

Much like residential property tenants, the mining and extractive industry in Victoria is currently required to pay a bond prior to starting mining or extraction works to cover rehabilitation works.

The bond calculator provides an easy-to-use tool for the mining industry and provides reassurance to the community that the cost of land rehabilitation works will be covered following mining operations. The bond calculator provides a series of workbooks which each represent a typical type of mining or extractive operation. The workbooks provide cost calculation worksheets with default rehabilitation rates for various activities.

The new rehabilitation liability calculator and bond guidelines provide a simple, streamlined process for Victorian companies to accurately calculate their bond requirements. Preliminary trials of the calculator have been successful and are now available online for trial use by industry.

The use of the bond calculator will become a requirement for Victorian companies submitting rehabilitation liability assessments from the start of the 2008-09 financial year.

The new guidelines and calculator have been developed to support recent legislative and policy changes requiring the mining and extractive industries to submit to Victorian Department of Primary Industries (DPI) an annual self-assessment of their rehabilitation liability.

More information on the new guidelines and calculator can be found on the DPI website.

A high-level independent council has been formed in South Australia to advise the Premier on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change.

The South Australia Premier's Climate Change Council will advise on achieving energy efficiencies, increasing the use of renewable energy, finding ways to remove greenhouse gases and achieving relevant targets.

Established under Australia’s first legislation to set greenhouse reduction targets, the Climate Change and Greenhouse Emissions Reduction Act 2007, the council features representatives with significant backgrounds in business.

For more information visit the  SA Ministers website.

The Prime Minister and Premiers of South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria signed off on new water-sharing arrangements which commenced on 30 November 2007.

In agreeing to these rules, all states have had to make significant changes away from 'normal' water resource management and sharing policies so that critical human needs can be met during 2008-09 if extremely dry and low inflow conditions continue.

In particular, South Australia must put half its share of all future improvements in available water this year towards correcting the imbalance. The other half of South Australia’s share of any improvements is to be put towards a reserve of water for 2008-09 to ensure there is enough drinking-quality water to meet critical human needs.

Other states are required to put aside enough water to meet their critical human needs from the start of 2008-09.

New South Wales and Victoria have agreed to provide a minimum flow to South Australia of 696 GL for 2008-09 by allocating additional water from their tributaries (e.g. the Goulburn and Murrumbidgee Rivers), if inflows into the River Murray system and storages are not enough. This minimum flow to South Australia will be enough to provide the volume of water to meet critical human needs, although South Australia will still have to secure an additional 200 GL to ensure that quality requirements are met.

New South Wales and Victoria have also agreed to allow South Australia access to Hume and Dartmouth Reservoirs to store enough water to meet SA’s critical human needs and to store irrigator carryover water from 2007-08 for use in 2008-09. The ‘3L’ rules also mean that the water stored by South Australia in Hume and Dartmouth Reservoirs is quarantined from the normal Murray-Darling Basin Agreement sharing rules that would otherwise mean that any unused water must be shared between all states.

The Treasury Department's confidential 'red book' was delivered to the Australian Government when it came to power, as usual, in November. But parts of it have now been made public by the Seven Network.

This brief states that three fundamental drivers would shape the economy’s performance over the next decade – the shift in global weight towards China, India and other emerging economies, the retirement of baby boomers, and the "enormous economic and societal changes that will be wrought by climate change and climate change policies".

"Climate change is the single most pressing environmental, economic and social challenge this country faces," it said.

The report states a national response to climate change would entail "a major transformation" of the economy.

"Over the coming decades, the Australian economy will have to be placed on a clean energy footing, Government policy must set the right frameworks and incentives, in particular through an effective emissions trading system … for this fundamental shift".

In the report the Treasury officials call for an ambitious new wave of economic reform, warn about inflation and identify climate change as the country's most pressing economic and social challenge.

For more information visit the ABC news website.

Burnett Mary Regional Group’s Chief Executive Officer David Brown has announced over $44 000 in funds to support the Nature Assist program.

NatureAssist is the incentive component of Queensland’s Nature Refuge Program. NatureAssist provides financial assistance for land managers who actively manage the natural and/ or cultural assets of their property.

Chief Executive Officer David Brown said “These funds will help five landowners (in the Burnett-Mary region) to protect and manage the natural values of their land.”

“I congratulate them for establishing nature refuges on their land, it makes a great contribution to preserving biodiversity.”

Mr Brown said that the Burnett Mary Regional Group wanted to see more land protected through the Queensland Government’s nature refuge program.

“Each nature refuge involves a perpetual agreement with the Government, which means that even if the land is sold or passed on to children, it remains protected forever,” said Mr Brown.

The funding will be provided to:

• Dilkusha Nature Refuge, Maleny - $10 000 for weed control
• The Point Nature Refuge, Howard - $8 230 for erosion control and revegetation
• Hanging Rock Creek Nature Refuge, Kilkivan - $6 796 for creation of firebreaks and fencing
• Gudjela Nature Refuge, Kilcoy -  $12 940 for fencing and weed removal
• Glider Gully, Rosedale -  $6 479  for property planning, firebreak creation and fencing.

For more information visit the Burnett Mary Regional Group website or EPA Nature Assist website.

By Terry Butts

An innovative pilot scheme, financed by Townsville-based Burdekin Dry Tropics NRM (BDTNRM) to entice land owners in the southern Desert Uplands to manage their lands with native vegetation and conserve wildlife in their pastures, is being hailed a great success.

Known simply as 'Landscape Linkages', it is a scheme whereby land owners and managers in the region bordered by the Jericho, Aramac, and Barcaldine shires submitted a price to provide the required maintenance of vegetation on the submitted areas on their properties while not increasing the intensity of grazing.

Winning tenders were financed by BDTNRM (at an average of around $2 a hectare) but at all times land owners managed and were in control of their own commitment. A total of 15 properties covering 85 207 hectares were involved.

According to Andrea Lingard, project officer from Barcaldine-based Desert Uplands Build Up and Development Strategy Committee, the first year has seen a 40 per cent increase in grass cover over the areas submitted into the project.

"And the biodiversity improvement has also been significant," she added.

The two-year project is due for completion in October 2008 and the Desert Uplands Committee will source funding opportunities for the continuation and extension to the project.

"Of course the drough-breaking rains in December out here benefited everyone, but we are extremely pleased with our results," Ms Lingard said.

Had the drought continued, there would have been less impact on the properties in the scheme.

Long-time land carer Margaret House, of Fortuna station near Aramac, said the Landscape Linkages project had been a break away from the mantra of last century when it was all about the three Bs - bulldozers, buffel, and Brahman.

"Everyone thought you had to be big to survive. So paddocks were cleared, buffel grass planted, and Brahman stock increased," Ms House said.

"At first people made a lot of money, and those who kept grazing smaller herds on spinifex were being left behind."

Until the inevitable drought.

"It was spinifex that pulled them through. Those with large areas of native pastures were going to survive," Ms House said.

She added that the undeniable lesson that Landscape Linkages is bringing home is that "less is more".

"There might be less cattle, but you often get more beef," Ms House explained.

"You don't have to destroy nature to have a viable enterprise."

She did stress the point however, that in good times, in the years without drought, those land managers who chose to clear and run with buffel laughed all the way to the bank. It was in the drought years from 2002 that spinifex proved a saviour for those who stuck it out.

Juliana McCosker, from the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency and an advisor to the Landscape Linkages project, says it is not only cattle that have benefited from retaining spinifex in the Desert Uplands. "The features of native vegetation that make good wildlife habitat are tree, shrub, and ground cover, as well as fallen logs and leaf litter," Ms McCosker said. "These features provide food and habitat for native wildlife such as the black throated finch." "You don't find them in cleared pastures," Ms McCosker said.

For more information visit the Regional NRM website.