The Federal Government announced this week the establishment of the world’s first Nature Repair Market making it easier for business, philanthropists, and others to invest in projects that restore and repair nature across Australia – without greenwashing.
Investment in the Nature Repair Market means landholders, including farmers and First Nations groups, will get paid to improve the environment on their properties with programs such as the repair of damaged riverbeds, replanting critical habitat of threatened species or removing invasive species such as feral cats and weeds.
The Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek said, “Our Nature Repair Market will make it easier to invest in restoring nature. It will support landholders to do things like replanting koala habitat, excluding livestock to repair natural marshland or eradicating feral species. This is an exciting chance to see extra investment in protecting our environment.”
Eco Detection’s platform provides an accessible and affordable fully automated tool to collect robust data to directly measure and monitor projects under the Nature Repair Market.
The Nature Repair Bill 2023 underpins the market. This legislation establishes a transparent framework, issuing Australian landholders with tradeable biodiversity certificates.
The Bill will provide the rules that ensures integrity, enforcement, and genuine environmental benefit.
The Bill establishes an expert technical committee – the Nature Repair Committee – to review proposed methodologies. These will set the rules for projects. The committee will advise the Minister whether they comply with biodiversity integrity standards as defined in the Bill.
The standards will ensure projects deliver genuine improvements in nature. Biodiversity certificates contain reliable information about these improvements.
Each project will have a single tradable certificates. Owners can sell these certificates to buyers under commercial contracts.
Certificates will provide standard information to enable the market to confidently compare and value projects. Regular project reports will describe and verify the environmental outcomes.
Certificates, their status and ownership are trackable via a public register. This will help certificate owners show how they are supporting nature repair.
The government will work with the ACCC and ASIC to make sure claims about certificates are accurate and are not misleading.
Aligning carbon and biodiversity markets
The market will operate alongside carbon markets. Landholders can get certificates from carbon projects that create biodiversity. The Clean Energy Regulator will regulate the market to help align carbon and biodiversity markets. This will make participation in both schemes easier for landholders.