An alliance of more than 20 organisations and companies has urged the Australian government to design a national restoration plan with targets and funding mechanisms to turn the tide as the nation’s ecosystem degradation and decline continue at scale.

The Restoration Decade Alliance, a group of 21 non-profit organisations working in the field of restoration, delivered the statement at the 10th World Conference on Ecosystem Restoration, which wrapped up in Darwin over the weekend.

“Members of the Restoration Decade Alliance share the concerns of many Australians about the ongoing degradation of ecosystems and the negative implications for future generations,” it said.

“Conservation alone is not enough. In response, the Alliance calls for the development of a National Restoration Plan to repair degraded and/or damaged ecosystems across Australia to achieve nature-positive outcomes and benefit the health and well-being of people.”

It listed a number of reasons for why natural restoration projects in Australia remain disconnected and relatively small scale, including absence of large and sustainable funding, poor resourcing and integration of First Nation knowledge, cumbersome approval processes, and a lack of consistent criteria and procedures for assessing restoration projects across the various levels of government.

“The total scale of our member organisations’ collective efforts, even when combined with the substantial efforts of federal, state, and local governments, is inadequate to match the scale of current ecosystem degradation and decline,” the alliance said.

A national restoration plan should come with targets, priorities, and principles, as well as avenues for securing the required funding, the group said.

MONEY

When it comes to nature and biodiversity, Australia suffers from poor policy coordination, motivation, and integration, as well as a lack of nature valuation, according to the alliance.

However, the shortage of available funding as well is a major factor for why efforts to restore nature in megadiverse Australia are falling short, according to the statement.

The Labor party government is trying to push a (mostly) voluntary biodiversity credit market through parliament, but that process has been delayed amid parliamentary scrutiny, and the government’s draft has attracted a diversity of criticisms from conservationists, analysts, and potential market participants.

“Despite programmes being in place in Australia to support ecosystem restoration since the early 1990s, biodiversity has continued to decline. The available funding for ecosystem restoration is inadequate and needs to be increased, along with the development of a range of new funding mechanisms with clear design principles,” the Restoration Decade Alliance said.

A funding strategy would need a base that is separate from annual and political funding cycles, to ensure long-term funding so that desired outcomes are guaranteed, and incentivise private landholders to participate in projects, it said.

“Diverse funding mechanisms are required to ensure all potential sources are accessed. Funding needs to include non-market approaches (such as grants programmes and natural capital accounting), as well as market-based mechanisms (such as biodiversity certificates and green sovereign bonds).”

The alliance also said the government should set up an advisory panel to contribute to the plan, as well as review and comment on any new nature-related legislation and regulation, provide traditional knowledge, expert science, and practitioner advice, and advise on an appropriate funding programme.

Next, the alliance will release a discussion paper titled “Towards a National restoration Plan” to consult with a wider group of stakeholders, it said.

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