Nature-led Resilience Project

This project contributes to a longer term NRM Regions Australia vision where: Community resilience and preparedness to climate and disaster risks in Australia is strengthened through active participation and implementation of nature-based solutions.

In support of this vision, the project will use the direct on-ground delivery of nature-based solutions (NbS) in onground trials to address disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation. These trials will provide evidence, knowledge, and frameworks to support greater uptake of NbS in Australia, particularly in relation to fire and flood risk mitigation. 

The project will strengthen the capability of regional NRM organisations to design and implement NbS for disaster reduction. It will also establish a national evidence base and indicator framework that can be used to inform new investment pipelines for NbS, and to support effective policy frameworks that enable the expansion of NbS for disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation.

Nature-based solutions (NbS) are actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore ecosystems to address societal challenges like climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction, food and water security, and biodiversity conservation.

Delivering NbS is core business in the NRM sector, particularly with a focus on outcomes for biodiversity and ecosystems. Delivering NbS with a clear focus on their climate and disaster risk reduction benefits is less common, and this presents an opportunity for the NRM sector to expand its impact for communities, business, and nature.

There are several barriers slowing the wider uptake and expansion of NbS for climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction including:

• NbS are not yet considered a core approach for disaster preparedness and climate adaptation in Australia. There are only minor mentions of NbS in signature policy documents such as the National Climate Adaptation Plan and Commonwealth Disaster Funding arrangements. However, their implementation will support the delivery of numerous local, state and national policy commitments and climate adaptation strategies.
• Currently 97% of government disaster funding is spent on response and recovery activities, not resilience investments. Very little of this work is nature-based or delivered by regional NRM organisations and their partners.
• Only limited, robust evidence is currently available about the economic benefits and social impacts of NbS. This lack of evidence inhibits the development of a robust pipeline of nature-based investments towards resilience. It also means that ‘grey’ infrastructure is used in most cases, even where NbS could play a significant role.
• There is an absence of clear definitions, guidelines and methodologies to track, quantify, and value NbS and there has not been a consistent framework to collate and compare projects across the country.

A shift in the policy landscape is starting to occur, which is likely to rapidly drive the demand for effective NbS with demonstrable measurable outcomes.

Australia’s regional NRM organisations are well placed to play a key role in the coordination and delivery of disaster and climate resilience while also supporting biodiversity targets through the implementation of NbS.

This project provides the opportunity to intentionally design trials and enhancements to showcase the work of the NRM sector and highlight the broader benefits of NbS that can be delivered by regional NRM organisations and their partners in the Australian context.

This is a national program to support outcomes for all Australian regions. To ensure that the program has the desired impact at a regional and national level, it will consistently take a collaborative, community-centred, place-based approach that raises the profile of regional voices and First Nations leadership wherever possible.

The Nature-led Resilience project will support an increase in evidence, knowledge and frameworks that support regional NRM organisations to expand NbS for disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation by:

• Partnering with regional NRM organisations to establish onground trials of NbS, with a focus on reducing flood and fire risk
• Establishing a Community of Practice for national knowledge sharing
• Curating a knowledge hub and developing useful communication materials
• Demonstrating the benefits of NbS for disaster risk reduction
• Developing a national indicator framework to measure impact of NbS
• Identifying policy and planning reform and investment mechanisms for greater uptake of NbS in Australia

Read below for more details on each of these activities.

Onground trials of NbS

We are working with regional NRM organisations nationally to implement a series of trial NbS projects and enhancements to existing projects. These are designed to reduce landscape-level fire,  flood and climate risk and deliver multiple co-benefits for nature and people. Importantly, these pilots also help to demonstrate the capability and raise the profile of regional NRM organisations as national infrastructure that can support the scaling up of NbS.

Community of Practice

Regional NRM organisations work with a wide range of partners across Australia and are key enablers with connections into the broader Australian community across all sectors, and in both rural and urban centres.

We will establish and facilitate a Community of Practice of staff from regional NRM organisations and their partners to build their knowledge and understanding of NbS and its role in addressing disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation. NRM practitioners will share knowledge and experience, to better understand:

–      what NbS means

–      how NbS benefits can be measured

–      how this knowledge can be applied in other regions to improve disaster and climate resilience

–      how to better attract investment from new funding sources.

Knowledge hub and communication

There is little aggregated, accessible, transferable, relevant and practical information available for NRM practitioners to support the use of nature-based solutions for disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation in the Australian context. We will compile resources in an online searchable hub to support an increase in access and awareness of their use and benefits. We will also synthesise knowledge from existing projects to demonstrate transferable tools for NbS project design. This will support the translation of NbS to many parts of the country, and increase understanding of limits and considerations when adopting NbS.

Demonstrating NbS benefits

The trial projects and project enhancements will help to strengthen the evidence base for the effectiveness of NbS. This can inform investment decisions by the government and business. The process of evidence collection will also help to drive the emergence of a diverse community of allies and advocates and greater knowledge within the NRM sector, partners and regional communities of NbS benefits. 

National Indicator Framework

Most projects delivered by the NRM sector have not included the opportunity to measure broader benefits such as risk reduction to built infrastructure, the local economy, and people, or improved community resilience. Similarly, there has not been a consistent framework to collate and compare projects across the country.

The Nature-led Resilience program will help to create a practical, low-cost impact indicator framework that draws on existing tools and data sources. This will support the consistent measurement of NbS benefits that are important to private and public investors. 

Policy, Planning and Investment

To get the most out of NbS, we need to ensure we have effective policy and investment frameworks in place for the long-term. Using practical examples from the NRM sector and this project, we will prepare a report that identifies opportunities for a greater role of NbS in addressing existing policy commitments, and recommendations for investment mechanisms.

NRM Regions Australia will drive the following short-term impacts through this project: 

o   Investment in NRM sector: Recognition of, and investment into the NRM sector and its partners to enable innovation and scaling of NbS for disaster risk resilience and climate adaptation to deliver genuine impact.

o   Broader awareness of the benefits and opportunities: Knowledge and understanding of the role NbS can play to address disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation issues is widely known and Australian solutions well understood.

o   Improved decision maker understanding: Decision-makers have ready access to both a strong body of evidence on the benefits of NbS and the policy and planning reforms needed to support greater investment and delivery of NbS in Australia.

In addition, the project supports progress towards the following longer term impacts:

• Investment in Nature-based Solutions (NbS): There is a shift in national investment from disaster recovery to at least 10% invested in nature-based solutions for disaster and climate risk resilience and preparedness.
• Collective, mainstream advocacy for NbS: A diverse community of champions, allies and advocates (including investors) are confident, and motivated to advocate and invest in nature-based solutions to address disaster and climate risks.
• NbS embedded into planning and policy: NbS are central to, and embedded into planning, preparedness, disaster response and climate adaptation strategies and policies at all levels of government.

NRM Regions Australia is working with many partners to deliver this project including:

• 54 regional NRM organisational members and their regional partners, 
• First Nations organisations,
• University and research groups,
• Environment and conservation organisations,
• Special interest groups,
• Expert contractors,
• Finance, banking, investment and insurance sectors, and
• Government agencies.

Strategic Advisory Group

A Strategic Advisory Group has been established to leverage the collective knowledge, expertise, networks and perspectives of key stakeholders to inform the design and delivery of this national project. Membership of the strategic advisory group includes senior leaders from Climate-KIC, Minderoo Foundation, Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Australian Local Government Association, Landscape Finance Lab, Investor Group on Climate Change, Responsible Investment Association of Australia, Australia Sustainable Finance Institute, Engineers Australia, Green Cross Australia