A NEW national advocacy group has launched to help strengthen Australia’s carbon market, with the ultimate aim of helping producers and traditional owners get the benefit of the opportunities it presents.
Growing Australia’s Nature Economy (GANE) has been established to strengthen public confidence in Australia’s carbon and biodiversity markets, support landholders participating in them, and ensure these systems continue to deliver measurable results on farms, on Country and across regional Australia.
The organisation says it will focus on lifting landholder voices, correcting misinformation, and pushing for a national conversation grounded in evidence, lived experience and results.
It is calling on governments, conservation groups, industry and media to stop treating environmental markets as a culture war and start recognising them as one of Australia’s most powerful tools for repairing nature, strengthening rural economies and meeting national climate obligations.
They say Australia’s environmental markets are already funding nature repair at scale, with more than 160 million Australian Carbon Credit Units issued and billions of dollars flowing from major emitters into land restoration, Indigenous land management and biodiversity recovery. These markets are overseen by the Clean Energy Regulator, independently audited, and delivering measurable results now.
GANE Convener Brendan Foran said Australia could not afford to let ideology block practical solutions.
“Environmental markets are one of the fairest ideas in public policy. Big industry pays. Landholders and tttraditional owners deliver. Nature benefits.
“Some of the loudest voices on environmental markets today don’t focus on this. Claiming to speak for farmers or the environment while effectively blocking income for people on the land or waiting for a perfect system while landscapes collapse is not leadership. It is abdication.”
Conservation leaders are also backing the push to scale credible markets.
Tim Allard, CEO of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, said environmental markets were now essential for scaling up the protection of species and habitats.
“Australia is a global hotspot for extinction. We cannot reverse the decline of nature with grants and philanthropy alone.
“Well designed environmental markets are already funding habitat restoration, cultural land management and long term stewardship. The task now is to defend integrity while scaling what works, not tearing the system down from the sidelines.”
Farmers say the public debate often ignores what is happening on the ground.
Mike Rosser, a farmer from Bourke, said carbon income had helped secure the future of his family business.
“For us, carbon was not about politics. It was about survival.
“The income allowed us to invest in water, fencing and better land management. It made the property more resilient and kept people employed through tough years. The idea that this is anti farming is nonsense.”
Source: GANE