Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy

Important features of the new Australian national program "Caring for our Country" include that:

• it will set clear national priorities
• it will set benchmarks and report on progress annually, to improve accountability
• delivery of large components of its new package will be contestable, with many organisations potentially able to bid to deliver. This could foster innovation and efficiencies in program implementation.

Overall, there is a commitment to learn from and not to repeat the mistakes of the NAP and the NHT. A number of implications flow from these features that will need to be built into the detail of the new package as it is rolled out. Here we pull together lessons from detailed analysis of the NAP and NHT over the last decade.

Selection of priority investments

Lessons 1 to 5 relate to the selection of priority investments. They also provide criteria that should be used to evaluate plans and proposals put forward by regional environmental managers (CMAs, state governments, NGOs, etc.).

1. Target environmental investments rigorously
2. Account for technical knowledge, including locally specific knowledge
3. Account for known behavioural responses to policy interventions
4. Selection of policy tools is as important as selection of target environmental assets
5. Set realistic targets that are useful for monitoring and evaluation

1. Target environmental investments rigorously

High priority environmental investments should have at least these four characteristics:

(a) particularly valuable environmental assets

(b) facing high threat or high current degradation

(c) with high feasibility of reducing that threat or degradation at reasonable cost

(d) with the required works being reasonably attractive to land or water managers

If even one of these elements is neglected, there is a high risk of selecting poor investments. A good integrated decision framework, such as SIF3 or INFFER.

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2. Account for technical knowledge, including locally specific knowledge

Make sure that investments are based on good knowledge about

(a) the degree of threat or damage to an environmental asset

(b) the extent to which this threat or damage can be reduced by particular changes in management

The second of these is often neglected.

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3. Account for known behavioural responses to policy interventions

If the works or changed practices needed to protect the asset require changes in behaviour by private land or water managers, make sure those changes are attractive enough to be adoptable at the required scale.  If they are not sufficiently attractive, you are better off developing new approaches or technologies, or directing funds to a different problem or region, rather than flogging a dead horse.

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4. Selection of policy tools is as important as selection of target environmental assets

Often we make reasonable decisions about which assets to invest in, but then very poor decisions about which policy tool to use. Should it be grants, economic instruments, regulation, technology development, other R&D, extension, engineering works, or informed inaction? Pannell's 2008 paper on Public:Private benefits framework provides strong advice on this.

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5. Set realistic targets that are useful for monitoring and evaluation

Program targets should be consistent with the known bio-physical information about the asset's response to management, the known behavioural responses of land and water managers to policy interventions, and the resources available under the program. They should lend themselves to measurement, so that progress towards them can be tracked. They should specify desired outcomes, but not be prescriptive about how those outcomes are to be achieved. (However, proponents should be explicit about how they will be achieved, and should demonstrate their understanding of lessons 1 to 4).

The monitoring and evaluation framework should be designed up-front, transparent to all players, and focused on environmental outcomes, not just inputs and activities. For environmental problems with long time lags between action and environmental response (e.g. salinity), the key approach to evaluation on a management time scale is through computer modelling, using the same sorts of analysis tools that were used to plan the investment.

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Relationship with regional or state environmental managers

Lessons 6 and 7 relate to relationship with regional environmental managers (CMAs, state governments, NGOs, etc.) who may deliver specific projects under the program, or who may propose projects to be funded under the program. Outcomes from a national, state and regional perspective can sometimes be different, and for good reasons.

The NRM and environmental market place is maturing.  It expects governments to know what they want, and to be much clearer about what outcomes are desired. It also respects realistic assessments of what can be achieved and is suspicious of programs that over-promise, generate unrealistic expectations (e.g. of widespread grant availability) and under-deliver.

6. Send the right signals
7. Support environmental managers appropriately and build their capacity

6. Send the right signals

In past programs, the accountability of regional environmental managers such as CMAs has focused on budgets and activities. To achieve environmental outcomes under Caring for our Country, bodies funded under the program need to be accountable for the agreed outcomes (e.g. that a particular asset will really be protected). Crucially, the bodies need to demonstrate in advance that they are accounting for lessons 1 to 4 above. Their funding should be conditional on this. Where delivery is contestable, proposals must be assessed with high expertise, and grounds for unsuccessful proposals advised (e.g. on technical grounds).

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7. Support environmental managers appropriately and build their capacity

Policies inevitably involve someone having to make decisions about where and how the public money should be spent.  These are very difficult decisions, and the local decision makers need strong support to make them. They need good data; advice about appropriate decision frameworks and principles; access to appropriate skills; time and resources to consult appropriately; and they need to not be rushed into poor decisions to meet political time lines.

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