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PDF files

• Auction for Landscape Recovery - National Market-based Instruments Program Project report (PDF - 4492 KB)
• Auction for Landscape Recovery - appendices (PDF - 1601 KB)

About this report

The Auction for Landscape Recovery (ALR) is one of 11 market-based instrument (MBI) pilot projects conducted across Australia from 2003-2005. The joint funding of these projects by the Australian and State Governments within a first round pilot program signals the interest of the National Action Plan on Salinity and Water Quality in seeking new approaches to address natural resource management and environmental problems. The ALR is a multipartner, multi-disciplinary research project which operationalised an auction-based field trial in the Intensive Land-use Zone of the NEWROC, a highly biodiverse landscape in the northeast wheatbelt of Western Australia that is threatened by salinity and the effects of largescale clearing for agriculture. It is the first biodiversity/conservation auction trial to have been conducted in Western Australia.

• The auction was devised as a simple sealed bid, price-discriminating auction over two rounds, with $200,000 available to private landholders submitting single, multiple or joint tenders for on-ground works focussing on biodiversity conservation measures.
• Three local Community Support Officers, employed part-time for the project, were responsible for communications with landholders, site assessments, data entry and project development with landholders.
• A total of 55 tenders was received from 38 landholders in Round One and 33 tenders from 21 landholders in Round Two, resulting in a total of 21 separate management contracts for periods of up to three years. Management actions focussed on the fencing of remnants and other biodiversity assets such as naturally saline wetlands and granite outcrops, revegetation and associated fencing, rabbit and fox control and corridor construction. Landholders committed to one nature conservation covenant and 14 Voluntary Management Agreements, the latter for periods of up to 30 years.
• Surveys of landholders in the project region indicated that auction participants were more likely to have experience with Landcare-related activities or previous experience with other incentive schemes. A small number of landholders were new to incentive schemes, suggesting that, in relation to the recruitment of landholders, auctions may have a role that complements that of other incentive schemes such as grants. Factors constraining the uptake of conservation-related activities by landholders were time and financial resources.
• The ALR successfully created a competitive market in which landholders tendered to provide biodiversity conservation services. The auction was two to three times more efficient, in economic terms, than a fixed price scheme.
• The ALR showed that the estimation of efficiency gains from an auction depends on the counterfactual with which the auction is compared. The pilot identified that reasonable alternatives generate different estimates.
• The administrative efficiency of the auction was compared to fixed price schemes. Administrative costs were high, but the high costs appeared to be linked to the oneoff status of the project and its research and reporting requirements. Fixed costs appear to be relatively high, but there is no evidence that these are restricted only to auctions, compared to alternative fixed price conservation incentive schemes, and as a pilot scheme, funds for on-ground works was low and relative to total project funds.
• For the tender evaluation process, comprehensive site assessment and tender databases were designed and utilised and an extensive suite of spatial data compiled. A requirement for considerable technical capability in GIS analysis was demonstrated. Some spatial datasets were not available in Western Australia in the appropriate format and scale.
• The ALR tested, for the first time in Australia, two methods of tender evaluation, a Systematic Conservation Planning approach and an Environmental Benefits Index. The project successfully demonstrated that it is possible to operationalise a Systematic Conservation Planning approach within a market-based instrument (auction) setting.
• The project provides a basis for identifying differences between a Systematic Conservation Planning approach and an Environmental Benefits Index. Further review and analysis of the available data is suggested before recommendations can be made regarding use.
• The TARGET software was used to implement Systematic Conservation Planning, allowing the comparison of biodiversity values and costs during tender evaluation.
• Probability of persistence and management benefit analysis are critical components of tender evaluation and conservation planning approaches. The accurate and reliable prediction of response to proposed management actions is an area requiring a dedicated research program to provide workable and meaningful methodologies.
• The high levels of diversity, endemism and species turnover in the Western Australian wheatbelt are a challenge to any schema or metric attempting to account for biodiversity at a regional scale.
• The project successfully engaged a number of stakeholders including landholders, a regional NRM body, government and non-government agencies, local government, a landholder organisation and research and tertiary institutions in a multi-disciplinary project. It was also successfully managed by a non-government organisation.