Making the most of Caring for our Country

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Making the most of Caring for our Country
David Pannell ARC Federation Fellow
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What is the most?

• Highly valued environmental outcomes
• With high confidence
• With high cost-effectiveness

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Plan

• Lessons from history
• Differences in Caring for our Country
• Are the changes sufficient?
• Suggestions
• Investor, not funder

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Objects of the programs

• Various asset types
• Vegetation, water, land, species
• Various threats
• Erosion, habitat fragmentation, nutrients,
  grazing, soil degradation

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Lessons from history ? Natural Heritage
Trust ? National Action Plan for Salinity and
Water Quality
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The evidence

• Government reviews
• Australian National Audit Office
• Senate Committee
• House of Representatives Committee
• Commissioned Consultancies
• Research and engagement
• Focus groups and surveys
• Development and application of tools, piloted
  with regions
• Extensive policy engagement

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Targeting of actions

• Budgets small
• 1-2 of level needed to solve issues
  comprehensively
• Actions often not attractive
• Prohibitive cost of management options over
  sufficient areas
• Huge spatial heterogeneity
• Values, threats, feasibility, adoptability

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Targeting was weak

• Lack of evidence about links between actions and
  outcomes (cause and effect)
• ANAO results lt 1 of targets
• Naivety about behaviour change
• No consistent investment framework
• Needed to clarify information needs
• To guide selection of SMART goals for projects
• To integrate the information
• But each CMO did their own thing

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Catchment Management Organisations (CMOs)

• Responsible at regional level for
• prioritisation
• planning
• community consultation
• delivery
• monitoring

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The regional CMO system

• Issues
• Community involvement but not natural resource
  outcomes
• Lack of evidence basis for decisions
• Getting money spent financial accountability,
  not cost-effectiveness
• Need incentives, guidance, support and training

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Caring for our Country
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Positive changes

• Emphasises a business approach and value for
  money
• Greater willingness to target effort
• The desired outcomes have been specified
• Much improved project assessment criteria

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Suggestions

• Modify proposal template
• Require SMART target
• Demonstrate technical socio-economic
  feasibility
• Present evidence
• Need expert review of the evidence presented
• Require phase 1 clarify goal, feasibility
  assessment (technical, socio-economic)
• Strengthen move to larger projects

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Suggestions

• Fund some projects about which there is very high
  confidence of outcomes
• demonstrate success
• influence evolution of future programs
• Still relying on CMOs, but need to tackle
• Mindset, cultural issues, incentives, capacity
  issues
• Need a good investment framework
• Rethink 5-year time frame

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Suggestions (long term)

• Commence analysis of priorities years in advance
  of next program
• establish a specialist unit
• develop technical skills, tools, databases
• Invest in essential research for particular
  assets
• Cause and effect
• Adoptability of actions
• Investor, not funder

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Filling the investment framework gap
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INFFER (Investment Framework For Environmental
Resources)

• Asset-based
• Cost-effectiveness
• Multiple threats
• Multiple asset types
• Comprehensive information set
• A vehicle to integrate other tools/info
• Transparent decision-making process

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INFFER regional partners

• South West (WA)
• Avon (WA)
• South Coast (WA)
• Northern Agric (WA)
• Rangelands (WA)
• Perth (WA)

• North East (Vic)
• North Central (Vic)
• Corangamite (Vic)
• West Gippsland (Vic)
• East Gippsland (Vic)
• Goulburn Broken (Vic)
• Lachlan (NSW)

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• www.inffer.org

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Public private benefits framework(for policy
mechanism choice)