2024 Highlights
Unpacking the Global Nature Positive Summit
Held alongside the world-first Global Nature Positive Summit, the 2024 ALCA Conference helped to elevate private land conservation in national and international discussions. It grounded the high-level policy and finance talks from the Summit in real, actionable steps that will help realise national ambition for a healthy, prosperous, resilient future for all Australians.
Global and national conservation leaders interrogated the Summit’s contributions to driving action and investment into conservation, restoration and land management, and reflected that whilst the Summit was a good start, we need to pull as many levers as possible, with urgency. There were calls for better funding, embedding Indigenous and community knowledge and involvement, and blended finance for both nature and climate goals. Panellists reflected that the Government does best when it doesn’t pretend it has all the answers and listens to innovative ideas that might initially feel uncomfortable. We heard that there is no lack of money for the transition we need, but we need to do it with integrity, and speed; which sparked essential discussions on the opportunities for Australia to position itself as a global conservation leader.
“When one nation steps back, others must come forward.” – Gary Tabor, CEO, Center for Large Landscape Conservation
30 by 30 Roadmap launched
Minister for the Environment and Water The Hon Tanya Plibersek released the National Roadmap for Protecting and Conserving 30 per cent of Australia’s Land by 2030. The Roadmap recognises the important contribution of private landholders and conservancies and will inform an investment strategy for the nature repair market. The Minister indicated that together with a method for permanent protection, the investment strategy will help channel investment towards projects that will help meet a 30 by 30 target that is comprehensive, adequate, and representative.
Leaning into leadership potential
The need for leadership was a consistent theme. We heard that industry and business must go beyond what’s required by legislation, or customer demand, and play a genuine leadership role when it comes to putting nature on the agenda. We also heard that landholder leadership is driving significant expansion of private land conservation uptake and this is poised to scale up immensely – if enabled with the right policy settings and investment.
Another clear message coming through both the Summit, and PLC24, was the critical role of First Nations leadership. Again and again we saw powerful examples of what can be achieved for nature and people when First Nations peoples and communities are empowered to lead. Throughout the conference, First Nations land managers, finance experts, and researchers indicated that to see this leadership grow, we need to do things differently; we need to move beyond the fear of failure – to not let “perfect” get in the way of “better”. We heard that First Nations should, rightfully, be seen as rightsholders not stakeholders, that successful partnerships must be built from trusted relationships, and that positive intent must translate to doing the hard work on the ground.
“We have to go at the pace of trust.” – Jamie Woods, Nari Nari Tribal Council
Accelerating nature investment
Accelerating nature investment and bridging the mammoth nature finance gap is a non-negotiable. PLC24 analysed the progress of environmental markets, the lessons of the carbon market, and highlighted current cases where markets are leveraging private investment and driving real outcomes.
There was robust discussion about the need to integrate nature-based solutions into corporate investment strategies, and how we cannot address the climate crisis without this. Corporate investment in nature-based solutions is growing, but there are challenges around regulatory frameworks and scaling up projects. Nature must be understood as is an investment class, and there is a need for consistent, aggregatable metrics to value nature's services. Emphasis was placed on the need for protecting existing natural assets, before restoration, and developing financial models that recognize and fund these efforts, especially for landholders.
As a formal side event to the Global Nature Positive Summit, ALCA hosted an investment-focused breakfast to showcase our sector’s proud history of delivering high-integrity, high-quality projects, with investment partners. Bush Heritage Australia, Bupa, Nari Nari Tribal Council, FEAT, GreenCollar, and INPEX Australia shared powerful examples of what investing in nature looks like today and discussed how these approaches can be replicated and scaled. ALCA also released Nature Now: Why Investing in Nature Can’t Wait, a report highlighting mechanisms for scaling private land conservation and recommendations for government, the private sector, and philanthropy to boost investment in nature action.