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Project-level environmental-economic accounting of coastal blue carbon ecosystems
As part of the 2021-22 Federal Budget, the Australian Government announced $30.6 million for practical action to conserve, restore and account for blue carbon ecosystems in Australia and the region, and to share Australia’s expertise with international partners (the Blue Carbon Restoration, Conservation and Accounting Program).
Blue carbon ecosystems form a landscape continuum on coastal land and floodplains and can include seagrass, mangroves and tidal marshes. These ecosystems are among the most efficient natural carbon sinks, capturing and storing carbon up to 30-50 times faster than terrestrial forests. They also provide other ecosystem services to communities and businesses such as fish nursery grounds, tourism, and coastal protection, and are critical to biodiversity including threatened species and migratory birds.
Private sector interest in the conservation and restoration of blue carbon ecosystems is high, including from businesses seeking to offset their emission through carbon credit purchases or to meet corporate social responsibility goals, philanthropic funders looking to contribute to benefits for biodiversity and people, institutional investors interested in coastal resilience, and local businesses gaining financial profits from fishing and nature tourism.
The multiple benefits achievable from blue carbon ecosystem restoration present opportunities for cross-sector participation and funding. To make use of private sector funding interest and improve management decision making, we need credible measurement leading to trusted information of the value of blue carbon ecosystems for climate change impact risk reduction, climate change mitigation, biodiversity and for people.
Environmental economic accounting (EEA) collects and presents information on ecosystem extent and condition, stocks of species, and estimates the financial value of ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration, the productivity of fishery and tourism operations, and savings due to protection of coastal infrastructure from the impacts of sea-level rise and storm surges. Ecosystem extent and condition and species stocks information collected for EEA can also be used as indicators for tracking biodiversity changes across time.
The Blue Carbon Restoration, Conservation and Accounting Program (the Program) will help pave the way for scaling up investment in coastal blue carbon ecosystems, support management decisions, and contribute to global goals for climate and the environment. A key component of the Program is the application of project-level EEA as a trusted approach for measuring, valuing and verifying benefits to climate, biodiversity and people resulting from coastal blue carbon ecosystem restoration and conservation and establishing this approach for underpinning decision-support tools and financial instruments.
The Supplier will be required to deliver:
-A Guide on how to develop project-level environmental-economic accounts for coastal blue carbon ecosystems, and
-Environmental-economic accounts of two restored coastal blue carbon ecosystem sites. The restored sites include the Hunter River Estuary (Tomago Wetlands), and East Trinity Inlet.
The approach is to be based on EEA, aligned with the United Nations Systems of National Accounts and SEEA.
There are no conditions for participation
28 April 2022 to 30 June 2023