Governance and Markets

Breaking through the Equity Barrier in Environmental Policy

The main hypothesis underlying this study was that judgments of equity or fairness are sensitive to context, but not in a random way. We designed a two-pronged approach for equity judgments regarding water allocation policies in Western Australia.

Achieving Coordinated Landscape-scale Outcomes with Auction Mechanisms

This project will apply recent advances in auction theory together with CSIRO’s experience of conservation tenders around Australia to develop principles for auction design that are capable of delivering efficient, coordinated outcomes across landscapes

Encouraging Participation in Market-based Instruments and Incentive Programs

The project outlines how to improve the design, delivery and communication of Market Based Instruments (MBIs) and incentive programs to increase the participation of landholders.

Building Regional Australia's Capacity to Initiate Markets for Ecosystem Services

Building Regional Australia’s Capacity to Initiate Markets for Ecosystem Services

Extending Audit outcomes to enhance rural local government environmental capacity

Extending Audit outcomes to enhance rural local government environmental capacity

Policy integration for sustainable NRM: joint research and policy learning

Sustainable natural resources management requires the integration of economic, social and environmental considerations in policy and decision-making. For example the economic and social advantages of land clearing and irrigation need to be balanced with environmental costs such as salinity and soil erosion.

Changing the ownership-management paradigm in broadacre farming

Anecdotal and survey information reveals that a growing proportion of farmers feel time-pressed. The population of farmers is ageing, farms are getting bigger, rural labour is more scarce and the technological complexity of mixed enterprise farming is increasing. These factors are leading some farmers to opt for convenience-style management of their less important enterprises. In some low and medium rainfall zones this means that some farmers understandably concentrate on crop production rather than (more)...

New paradigms to find solutions to intractable NRM problems

When natural resource management (NRM) policy and practice do not address the root causes of targeted problems, they fail and the resource becomes degraded.

Improving private sector conservation using tax-effective instruments

The study examines the taxation aspects of a conceptual model for a farmer-led regional conservation program that combines philanthropy, voluntarism and market-funded investments. It considers an integrated approach to eco-services trading as part of a total landscape scale conservation approach. This project provides actionable approaches based on two case-study areas. It also looks in some detail at international markets and international taxation incentives and support programs. (more)...

Investigating adoption processes for sustainable farming practice: Potter Project casestudy

The Australian community makes multiple and conflicting demands of rural land. As a result there has been an increasing awareness of environmental issues associated with the practice of agriculture. Programs designed to support and encourage farmers to improve their farming practices to ameliorate and minimise their impact on the environment have been a feature of natural resource management in Australia since the 1980s. Progress has been made toward understanding the factors involved in the adoption of (more)...