BiodiversityMid Lachlan LandcareClimate ChangenatureEnvironment1+

Imagine yourself, bruised and exhausted after another day battling whistling winds & sheeting down rain while trudging through boggy paddocks. You’re out at it again, attempting to put right all the fences that have buckled, pinged and tumbled after yet another big storm. But then, over the hills your eyes catch a ray of light as it penetrates through the clouds and in that triangle of calm, radiant hope rises an accountant, donning, not in their usual beige and grey but in a super-suit (that’s a reference from the kid’s movie The Incredibles). Welcome to accountant age, it’s time to get out your tape measures, meters and probes because we’re going to be measuring everything…

I was working as a consultant chemist when I first got introduced to Natural Capital accounting after attending a book launch by author Jane Gleeson-White (6 Capitals: The Revolution Capitalism Has To Have). It was around 2014 and at that time, I was deeply engaged in investigating the Palm Oil supply chain and in particular, the relationship between this key chemical feed-stock crop and the cosmetic industry.

My interest in palm oil sustainability pre-dated my professional involvement and was instead sparked by my deep love of Indonesia – a key palm oil producer – and the life changing experiences I had there when I visited with a scientific research trust in my early 20’s (that’s me in the checked shirt on the right).

During the 2010’s, palm oil was getting a very bad wrap on social media due to land use changes and its alleged impacts on Orang Utan populations. I was being asked by my cosmetic industry clients to take ingredients made of palm out of formulations. At the same time, the data I was getting from the palm oil supply chain showed palm to be the most efficient vegetable oil on the market. The dichotomy both troubled and intrigued me.

I began by trying to validate the efficiency data that I was seeing but the more I dug into the numbers, the more I noticed that the high yields we were relying on to justify this best-case-scenario crop were only as good as the soil they grew in and at that time, optimal soil health was being taken as a given and not factored into the equation. Jane’s book came at the right time for me and suddenly I had language and context in which to frame my concerns.

Fast forward to 2024-2025 and Natural Capital events and resources are everywhere. As a Landcare coordinator I’m motivated to understand this space from a new perspective. Can I understand this space enough to coordinate, facilitate, support and develop meaningful connections and conversations in my own community? How many Natural Capital dollars are there for us as Landcare groups and members and do the values of the Natural Capital market and Landcare even align?

Getting to Grips With Natural Capital.

1. Understanding the basics.
   • I found the Natural Capital resources from my Local Land Services team very helpful in getting me orientated in this space as it applies to my work. Other than that, workshops such as the Central Tablelands LLS event I attended at Eugowra were very helpful, both in fleshing out this space and in helping me understand how this type of accounting will work in our landscape and for our land stewards.
2. Engaging with the Market
   • Landcaring folks tend to engage with the Natural Capital market in one of two main ways. First as a producer looking to have their product and/or natural assets valued through this lens or second, through a conservation lens, looking for help protecting and managing the natural asset we already care for. It’s much easier to navigate the open market provider side of the natural capital market once we’re clear on what we want to achieve and have a framework, or ‘to-do’ list to work through.
     • For producers, the CSIRO have a fantastic and very thorough PDF that can be downloaded here. Their ‘practical guide to corporate natural capital accounting, assessment, risk assessment and reporting’ helped me understand how a landscape is valued and how it all fits together in a balance sheet. That, in turn, helped me understand where things such as carbon credits, biodiversity offsets, emissions reduction schemes and water saving initiatives come into play.
     • For those looking to protect high quality parcels of land that can be set aside, the NSW Government committed more than $350 million over 5 years from 2019–20 to fund the Biodiversity Conservation Trust to deliver its private land conservation programs. This investment is guided by the Biodiversity Conservation Investment Strategy 2018.
3. Values Alignment
   • I’ve noticed both in myself and in others I’ve talked to, a feeling of un-ease (dis-ease maybe) around the idea that nature and whole ecosystems could or should be assigned a dollar value. Should nature be given the full capitalist treatment? I’m still not sure whether Landcare as an organisation is best placed to answer that but feel the conversation is definitely worth having. The Australian Earth Laws Alliance has some great food-for-thought in this space.
4. Can I have a worked example please?
   • The over-the-fence experiments carried out by Peter Byck in his recent ‘Roots So Deep’ documentary series are great for helping anyone still a bit confused by the whole Natural Capital space. Not that this is a long-form advert for this way of accounting, more that it helps really bring to life all the different tools and processes involved in building value back into a natural system. Whether people watch this and then jump into the Natural Capital market or run completely in the opposite direction is irrelevant. Just seeing how all the things these accountants want to measure come together in a way that tells a compelling story of life, beauty and sustainability is inspiring.

Final Reflections

Natural Capital Accounting does feels like a significant step in the right direction given the game-of-life we are playing. Sure it’s casting a net around nature and yes, that means some things will be missed but that doesn’t mean it’s catch won’t have value. This will be the first time we have a system of accounting that has the capacity to consider factors such as soil carbon & microbiology, water cycling, biodiversity, ecosystem chemistry, biomass, water quality and salinity, not only ‘at-all’ but ‘in-one-place’ which could both create a way of valuing land that’s more elegant and representative of its true form.

In the context of the game we are playing (western world capitalism) I feel accounting for nature is a significant step in a positive direction.

I feel it’s still worth holding in mind that Natural Capital Accounting is something, but not everything. It’s a tool that helps us find a solution for a practical, objective problem that exists within our status quo. In the words of Simon and Garfunkle, I see Natural Capital Accounting as a bridge over troubled waters.

The views expressed in this blog post are personal rather than representative of Mid Lachlan Landcare.

Can accountants save the planet? Adventures in Natural Capital Accounting.