Adelaide Festival in South Australia has partnered with developers Wilderlands to give attendees the opportunity to buy voluntary biodiversity credits from a wetlands conservation project, an early example of small-scale community events using the emerging market to help prop up nature protection.
The festival – a theatre, music, and dance event stretching over Mar. 3-19 at a number of locations with New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde as this year’s headliner – said on Friday the partnership will enable it to secure some of the world’s first biodiversity units.
“By purchasing Biological Diversity Units (BDUs) through Wilderlands, Adelaide Festival will provide permanent protection of vulnerable habitat and ongoing management to enhance the native wildlife, tall forests, grasslands, wetlands, and woodlands across Australia,” the festival said in a statement.
Wilderlands, launched last August, is involved in four conservation projects across the country, with more in the pipeline.
To help fund its activities, it sells biodiversity credits that each represent the protection for 20 years of one square metre of project area, available for sale through its website at A$2-7 ($1.37-4.78) each.
Wilderlands has entered into legally binding on-title conservation agreements known as covenants for each project, with those agreements monitored and enforced by state covenanting bodies.
On its website, Wilderlands says the credits are not designed as a direct offset for biodiversity or habitat loss, but instead are a mechanism to support net biodiversity gain and contribute towards the global 30×30 target, set at COP15 in Montreal in December.
The group, which has protected around 50,000 square metres since its launch, holds 20% of the credits in a buffer reserve in the case of reversal through natural disasters, and once bought, the BDUs are not tradeable.
Adelaide Festival is encouraging all its ticket holders to buy credits via the Wilderlands platform, and aims to help protect 3,030 sq.m. of land, in honour of the goal to protect 30% of global land and 30% of oceans by the end of the decade.
The festival will purchase credits stemming from the Coorong Lakes project in South Australia, a wetlands conservation reserve managed in partnership with the traditional owners in the region, the Ngarrindjeri people, which is home to a rich diversity of native plants and animals, including several threatened bird species.
“Conservation priorities for the region include restoring remnant patches of habitat via revegetation of native species in areas that have been cleared through agriculture, as well as ensuring native seed collection and nursery propagation for supplementary planting of rare plants,” Adelaide Festival said.
By Stian Reklev – stian@carbon-pulse.com
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