MANAGEMENT AND CO-ORDINATION OF THE REGIONAL TRIALS “Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history (and) this has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth”. 1 Millennium Assessment, 2005 i Introduction The Regional Environmental Accounts Trials are building on the Accounting for Nature 2 model developed in 2008 for the purposes of developing a national environmental accounting system. It is intended to, in an economically effective way: 1. Provide annual national, state/territory-wide and regional (catchment) scale reports which measure the health and change in condition of our major environmental assets; 2. Underpin the long-term catchment management and land use planning decisions by Commonwealth, state/territory and local governments, and regional authorities; and 3. Improve the cost effectiveness of public and private investments in environmental management and repair. Further background information is available in the Accounting for Nature document, available on the NRM regions website http://nrmregionsaustralia.com.au/nrm/?page_id=201 and online http://www.wentworthgroup.org/blueprints/accounting-for-nature If our policy objective is to ‘conserve, protect and restore the health of maintain our ecosystems’, then condition accounts also need to be constructed at the scale those ecosystems function – at catchment, landscape and bioregional scales. These environmental asset condition accounts are therefore based on the regional scale – a scale which has 56 bodies across Australia chartered to manage the environments within their boundaries through community and landholder engagement. Ten regional natural resource management (NRM) groups across Australia have volunteered to trial the development of environmental accounts for their regions during Stage 1 (Figure 2). These ten regions reflect the wide variety of landscape types and environmental pressures across rural and urban Australia. They also reflect diverse levels of institutional capacity and data availability, from the relatively well resourced and data rich urban regions, to the less well-resourced and data poor remote regions. Monitoring, evaluation, and reporting is an integral part of their charter, and the quality of their decisions is dependent on the quality of information they have to inform those decisions. Management of the trials is under the direction of two groups, the Steering Committee and the Management Committee. More than 20 experts have also agreed to assist the NRM groups undertake these trials. These experts are involved in two committees established to develop guidelines and standards for
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MANAGEMENT AND CO-ORDINATION
OF THE REGIONAL TRIALS
“Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history (and) this has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth”.1
Millennium Assessment, 2005
i Introduction
The Regional Environmental Accounts Trials are building on the Accounting for Nature2 model developed in 2008 for the purposes of developing a national environmental accounting system. It is intended to, in an economically effective way:
1. Provide annual national, state/territory-wide and regional (catchment) scale reports which measure the health and change in condition of our major environmental assets;
2. Underpin the long-term catchment management and land use planning decisions by Commonwealth, state/territory and local governments, and regional authorities; and
3. Improve the cost effectiveness of public and private investments in environmental management and repair.
Further background information is available in the Accounting for Nature document, available on the NRM regions website http://nrmregionsaustralia.com.au/nrm/?page_id=201 and online http://www.wentworthgroup.org/blueprints/accounting-for-nature
If our policy objective is to ‘conserve, protect and restore the health of maintain our ecosystems’, then condition accounts also need to be constructed at the scale those ecosystems function – at catchment, landscape and bioregional scales.
These environmental asset condition accounts are therefore based on the regional scale – a scale which has 56 bodies across Australia chartered to manage the environments within their boundaries through community and landholder engagement.
Ten regional natural resource management (NRM) groups across Australia have volunteered to trial the development of environmental accounts for their regions during Stage 1 (Figure 2). These ten regions reflect the wide variety of landscape types and environmental pressures across rural and urban Australia. They also reflect diverse levels of institutional capacity and data availability, from the relatively well resourced and data rich urban regions, to the less well-resourced and data poor remote regions.
Monitoring, evaluation, and reporting is an integral part of their charter, and the quality of
their decisions is dependent on the quality of information they have to inform those decisions.
Management of the trials is under the direction of two groups, the Steering Committee and
the Management Committee.
More than 20 experts have also agreed to assist the NRM groups undertake these trials. These
experts are involved in two committees established to develop guidelines and standards for