Valuing the provision of ecosystem services on private land

Project Status: Current

Background

Tāne’s Tree Trust is part of a collaborative, inter-agency project valuing the provision of ecosystem services on private land. The goal is to develop valuation frameworks specific to New Zealand, which assess ecosystem quality and ecosystem services, i.e., the economic benefits of improving the condition of ecosystems harbouring indigenous biodiversity. Ultimately, this will provide land managers with both the means and incentives to quantify economic values associated with sustaining and improving the condition of natural ecosystems on private land.

The project was initiated largely due to increasing interest in Green Loans and other financial incentives for landowners to conserve, protect and restore natural biodiversity on private land – and the need for robust assessment systems.

The project addresses critical knowledge gaps. It aims to (a) assess the relative quality of selected ecosystems (e.g., wetlands, indigenous forest, and streams) and (b) quantify the monetary value provided by ecosystem services across several Pāmu (Landcorp) farm units in Northland; and ultimately (c) develop a robust, but readily usable web-based tool to assist land managers in their assessments. This will allow land managers (or outside agents) to assess sites and translate environmental data into tangible, on-farm actions for improving ecological integrity – to satisfy financial lending organisations.

Objectives

To develop a methodology and framework for assessing the relative quality of selected ecosystems.
To develop a methodology and framework for quantifying the ecosystem services values provided by selected ecosystems.
To apply the ecosystem quality and ecosystem service valuation frameworks across selected Pāmu Landcorp pilot study farm units.
To implement activities which improve the condition and quality of natural capital assets and quantify the benefits provided by such activities on Pāmu Landcorp pilot study farm units.

Progress to date and next steps

Rapid Assessment Forms (RAFs) have been developed for wetlands, indigenous forest, and streams. They are designed to help land managers assess ecological quality of ecosystems, and provide a ‘benchmark’ to gauge progress over time. These RAFs will form the basis of the web-based tool.

Nearby reference sites with as close to pristine ecosystems as could be found locally, have been identified and assessed as benchmarks. The RAFs have been tested to see how well they correlate with more rigorous ecological assessments. Management activities (fencing, pest and weed control, etc) have been, or are being, implemented to improve the condition of selected ecosystems. The degree to which this enhances ecosystem services will be quantified in economic terms.

It will be a fine line between developing an assessment tool that is robust enough to correlate well with the more rigorous ecological assessments developed by ecologists, and having a tool that is readily usable by land managers.

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