Last month the Pastoral Partners Australia (Pastoral Partners) team welcomed Bush Heritage Australia on site to prepare for the Accounting for Nature NV10 Integrated Vegetation Condition Method accreditation process by facilitating training sessions.
The Accounting for Nature Framework provides a scientifically robust and independently verified way to measure changes in environmental condition over time.
Under this framework, Pastoral Partners Australia will develop an Environmental Account using the NV10 Integrated Vegetation Condition Method, which produces a standardised Econd score for each property’s carbon area. The score measures habitat condition, tracks ecological improvements, and guides land management decisions.
This process helps to ensure regeneration work supports not only carbon sequestration, but also promotes healthier, more resilient ecosystems – allowing land managers, investors, and independent auditors to track ecological improvements with the same level of confidence and repeatability expected in financial accounting.
Pastoral Partners CEO, Ben Sawley explains what this means for carbon project land:
“By adopting this framework, Pastoral Partners Australia is aligning its biodiversity reporting with one of the most credible natural capital standards available in Australia. It’s an important step towards formally quantifying the biodiversity restoration we’re already seeing on the ground,” said Sawley.
Eleven out of the 12 Pastoral Partners properties will be surveyed with initial planning of the ground truthing and plot mapping for the surveys underway.
Over the coming months the team will undertake the following:
- Conducting GIS analysis to collect a range of data sets including land types, regional ecosystems, vegetation groups and more
- Utilising these data sets to randomly allocate 93 field plots in these areas for intensive study
- Collecting on ground and aerial drone data in and around the plots
- Conducting benchmarking activities of remnant sites to enable the scoring of each plot
- Undergo the rigorous analysis and audit process to finalise the Econd score for each site and property carbon project
“Bush Heritage Australia’s training sessions have been invaluable, and they have strengthened our technical capability in ecological monitoring. Their guidance on survey design, species identification and data quality assurance ensures our field assessments meet the scientific standards required under the NV10 method. This collaboration is helping us build long-term ecological expertise within our team, which is essential for accurately tracking landscape recovery across our properties,” explained Pastoral Partners Australia’s, Senior Environmental Field Officer, Johnelle Stevens.
Bush Heritage’s Agricultural Partnership Lead, Joel Fitzgerald, said they were proud to support Pastoral Partners Australia “as they make science informed biodiversity improvements across their portfolio.”
“Pastoral Partner’s efforts to measure and monitor the ecological health of their land, and the science-led efforts to improve these scores, demonstrate a shared belief in the value of science and its role in managing nature on all land tenures.”
“We are mentoring Pastoral Partners through the self- performance of their own Environmental Account utilising the Accounting for Nature framework. It’s the first time that Bush Heritage has taken the lead in this way. Currently, we are focusing on baselining native vegetation health and composition, as well as developing targeted strategies for monitoring and controlling pests that pose material threats ecological and productive assets.”
The plots for the field surveys are 5 hectares and on average 8 sites are mapped on each property to ensure diversity and widespread coverage of the assessment for accuracy of biodiversity accounting. 93 survey plots in total will be analysed.
The Pastoral Partners properties included in the Accounting for Nature process are:
- Kanowna
- Kulki
- Leawah
- Myong
- North Kulki
- Oratara
- Sunset valley
- Tippendale
- Weonia
- Wongalee
Contact us to learn more about our projects and the Accounting for Nature process.
