Natural Capital
Sustainable land management activities can enable land managers to diversify their income.
Emerging markets and schemes for carbon and biodiversity, natural capital valuation, demand for premium, sustainable produce and increasing interest from the community in the environmental impacts of farming are driving opportunities for realising economic returns from the adoption of NRM practices.
Local Land Services is committed to supporting landholders to continue to manage natural capital on their land.
What is natural capital?
Natural capital refers to the world’s stocks of natural assets, which include soil, air, water, and all living things, and the services that flow from them. Building, preserving and managing natural capital can improve the productivity and sustainability of land use and build resilience to climate change impacts.
Natural Capital Statement of Intent
The NSW Government’s Natural Capital Statement of Intent sets the ambition for, and approach to, sustainably managing natural capital in NSW.
The Natural Capital Statement of Intent provides a framework for economic recognition and valuation of the State’s natural assets. It clarifies how government can help to create the conditions for natural capital markets that will be additional to our other roles in protecting and improving the environment and supporting economic development.
For land managers in NSW this means that the actions that they take to build and manage natural capital may have a dollar value for an investor who also wants to protect natural capital. Land managers may be able to get a return through environmental markets (for example by selling carbon and biodiversity credits, or through stewardship payments). Land managers can also add the natural assets that they manage to the balance sheet through natural capital accounting methods.
View the NSW Government’s Natural Capital Statement of Intent.
Helping land managers get a return from NRM
Carbon farming allows land managers to earn Carbon Credit Units by adopting land management strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or capture and hold carbon in vegetation and soil.
The Environmental Markets Leadership Program supports land managers and farmers to achieve a return from sustainable land and natural resource management. Launching in September 2022, this program helps identify, market and benefit from natural capital.