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contributing a new narrative

to the RMPS

Dr Richard Mount

Environmental Information Services Branch

Bureau of Meteorology

"SoE reporting assesses Tasmania’s

progression towards achieving the

sustainable development objectives of the

RMPS."

The objectives of the RMPS are:

to promote the sustainable development of natural and physical

resources and the maintenance of ecological processes and genetic

diversity

to provide for the fair, orderly and sustainable use and development of

air, land and water

to encourage public involvement in resource management and

planning

to facilitate economic development in accordance with the objectives

set out in the above paragraphs

to promote the sharing of responsibility for resource management and

planning between the different spheres of government, the community

and industry in the State

State Policies and Projects Act 1993 (No. 65 of 1993) (1) The Commission must, as soon as reasonably practicable after the commencement of this Act and after that commencement at intervals of 5 years, produce a consolidated State of the Environment Report relating to–

(a) the condition of the environment; and

(b) trends and changes in the environment; and

(c) the achievement of resource management objectives; and

(d) recommendations for future action to be taken in relation to the management of the environment.

(2) The Commission must–

(a) submit a State of the Environment Report produced by it to the Minister; and

(b) cause notice to be given, as prescribed, that the State of the Environment Report will be available to the public for inspection and purchase.

(3) The Minister must cause a State of the Environment Report to be laid on the table of each House of Parliament within the first 15 sitting days of the House after the Report is received by the Minister.

"A recurring constraint while preparing this SoE Report has been the lack of knowledge about a number of environmental themes or issues and the lack of consistent data collection.

This constraint has seriously limited the ability to fully report on trends and changes in an informed way. Notwithstanding this limitation the report provides an overall snapshot of the condition of Tasmania’s environment and a number of emerging trends and changes."

2009

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2009

2009

2009

No real sense of progress on sustainable

development – rather issue based analyses of

Pressure-State-Response (PSR)

Exception is the very first (1997) report

Useful discussion of sustainability by sector

Via a 'sustainability framework' =

Get better data and analyses

Get better organised

Get an environmental policy framework

Work with 'everyone'

Implement sustainability reporting (not defined)

plus audit and performance review

Progress of SoE Recommendations

SoE 2009 has no report on previous SoE

recommendations

2003 report has some

1997 report has more detail

Ecosystem - http://amanda7r.blogspot.com.au/2010/09/learner-of-todayusing-connectivism.html Services - http://climateadaptation.tumblr.com/post/4499822904/ecosystem-services-sell-out-or-protection

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Approach

Ecosystem services

Provisioning

Regulating

Cultural

Supporting

Environmental and ecosystem assets

Natural capital and natural resources

Highly spatial

What are environmental accounts?...

what do you see?

… timber, trees, a habitat, a landscape element, a beautiful view, shade, water filtration system, carbon reservoir, gene bank,

iconic forest, weeds, a bushwalking opportunity, fire hazard …

Image: Wolfgang Glowacki

Individual & societal well-being

Benefits SNA & non-SNA

Ecosystem services

ECOSYSTEM ASSET

Intra-ecosystem flows

Human inputs (e.g. labour, produced assets)

Ecosystem processes

Other ecosystem assets

SEEA-EEA Figure 2.2 Stylised model of flows related to ecosystem services

Ecosystem characteristics Inter-ecosystem flows

overcomes (some) inherent human computational and conceptual limitations

increases certainty

reduces risk

increases investment

reduces costs

improves trust and social relations

Mesopotamian tablets Writing

Renaissance

Scientific method

Capitalism

Modern global economy

Simple listing and structuring of inventories and transactions allows us to see what was otherwise too complicated to be seen (profit and loss!), increases certainty, reduces risk, increases investment, reduces costs, improves trust and social relations

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National Carbon Accounting System

ABS

Water Account

Waste Account

Energy Account

Natural Capital

GHG Emission Account

Land Account

BoM

National Water Account

Net Ecosystem Productivity over past 100 years Account

Vegetation Account

Marine Water Quality Account

Experimental Biodiversity Account

Experimental Ecosystem Account

(regenerative capacity and degradation)

Murray—Darling Basin Authority Accounts

Vegetation, water and socio-economic accounts

Table 4 ABS estimation of Australia’s natural capital base, 2013

(chain volume measures, $billions)

Note: Reference year for chain volume measures is 2010–11.

Source: ABS 2012d.

Capital estimate 2000–01 2005–06 2006–07 2007–08 2008–09 2009–10 2010–11 2011–12

Produced Capital 3,088 3,668 3,813 3,978 4,131 4,278 4,438 4,628

Inventories of

plantation standing

timber

10 10 10 12 10 10 10 9

Net financial assets with

rest of the world –463 –604 –677 –702 –727 –789 –797 –861

Natural Capital 4,144 4,368 4,418 4,480 4,538 4,590 4,648 4,718

Land 3,636 3,831 3,869 3,906 3,943 3,981 4,018 4,054

Subsoil assets 485 530 549 581 606 621 640 653

Native standing timber 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Economics

Statistics Ecosystem science

Environmental and Ecosystem

Accounting (spatial & temporal science)

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Joint Perspectives Model

economy-in-society-in-environment

Basic systems conceptual model: Joint Perspectives Model

Joint Perspectives Model. In the cross-section view, vertical dotted lines delineate systems, while the coloured horizontal slices represent the different perspectives from which systems can be viewed. Thus the economic system can be viewed from physical, living and human cultural system perspectives as well as from the economic perspective because it is, in turn, made of each of these systems. Similarly, the living system, being emergent from the physical Earth system, can also be understood from a physical perspective.

human cultural

economic

living

physical Earth

systems

perspectives

overcomes (some) inherent human computational and conceptual limitations

brings discipline and standards to produce (simplified) measures

improves environmental information

stronger links to economic and social systems

increases certainty

reduces risk

increases investment

reduces costs

improves trust and social relations

Regional Environmental Accounting

Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists and

NRM Region Chairs

Peter Cosier and Carl Sbrocchi

Victorian Land and Ecosystem Accounting

EnSym

Mark Eigenraam,

Department of Environment and Primary Industries

Australian Regional Proof of Concept Trials

Environmental Asset Condition Accounts

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EnSym (DSE, Victoria)

Murray—Darling Basin (MDBA-BoM)

Biocarbon (CSIRO, BoM)

Vegetation Connectivity work

Regional Ecosystem Modelling (Tasmania)

Joining the existing ones

National Carbon Accounting System (NCAS)

ABS Land+Ecosystem Accounts

Aggregation of 'analytical units' into land parcels for Land

Account (Eigenraam et al, 2012)

Built with the EnSym 'number machine'

[example table here]

Table 4 SA$-205 – Latrobe – Gippsland

Experimental vegetation (structural) connectivity index

Draft visualisation of the connectivity network in south-west Western Australia, ERIN, SEWPaC

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10 m data resolution (atomistic planning units)

Coverage of entire state

http://www.naturalresourceplanning.com.au/rem/

Biodiversity Management Priority (Immediate & Potential)

Biological Significance Index (Importance = 1)

Landscape Function Index (Importance = 1)

Priority Species Significance*

(Importance = 1)

Vegetation Conservation Status

(Importance = 1)

Threatened species (Importance = 1)

Other priority species (Importance = 2)

Hollow dwelling habitat (Importance = 2)

Old growth Forest (Importance = 1)

Eucalypt forest structure

(Importance = 2)

Other vegetation

(Importance = 3)

Threatened communities (Importance = 1)

Relative reservation (Importance = 2)

Relative rarity (Importance = 3)

Clearing bias

(Importance = 1)

Connectivity# (Importance = 2)

Remnant vegetation# (Importance = 2)

Riparian vegetation# (Importance = 2)

Vegetation condition (Importance = 3)

# Issues derived as a sub-matrix for input to the full matrix for Landscape Function.

Importance is a guide to the weighting given to an Issue in the associated integration matrices.

Where to go for more information

For more information about the Bureau's environmental

information role:

visit www.bom.gov.au/environment

contact environment@bom.gov.au

Dr Richard Mount

Environmental Accounts Lead

Environmental Information Services Branch

Bureau of Meteorology

0427 020 277

r.mount@bom.gov.au

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING

Property and SoE

Stewardship payments

Economic instruments: EcoTender

Legitimacy and credibility

Multiple forms of capital need multiple forms of measurement and integrated measurement Environmental capital needs integrated

measurements: carbon, water, energy, nutrients and biodiversity;

All the capitals are interconnected: natural, social, human and fixed

Image: http://enno-men.blogspot.com.au/2011_07_01_archive.html