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https://theconversation.com/can-the-governments-new-market-mechanism-help-save-nature-yes-if-we-get-the-devil-out-of-the-detail-218713>
"Australians woke up this morning to discover they had a nature repair market,
after the legislation passed late last night.
Except it won’t be called a market, after amendments by the Greens, and it
won’t include biodiversity offsets.
Many experts have been highly sceptical of using market forces to reverse the
damage we’ve done to nature. There is some truth to this. Markets seek to find
the point of exchange between sellers (here, farmers and landholders) and
buyers (fund managers, government and philanthropic organisations). When a
government invents a market, it can try to make it appealing to politics,
principles and buyers, while buyers work to drive prices and standards down,
and volumes up.
But as someone who has run nature-based market mechanisms in Australia for 20
years, I regard the passing of this legislation as a tentative step forwards.
Market mechanisms can work, if done right. The sheer scale of what we have done
to nature means we need large-scale action. Giving nature repair projects a
tradeable value and government-backed quality assurance could help – if it
works for both nature and investors.
Even though the bill has passed, there is much detail we are yet to see. And as
we all know, the devil is in the detail."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
