What are Biodiversity Stewardship Agreements and how are they funded?

If you’re a landholder looking to improve biodiversity on your land, you may be wondering what Biodiversity Stewardship Agreements are, how they are funded, and how they are monitored. In the following article our Senior Environmental Consultant Dean Woods provides a quick overview.

A Biodiversity Stewardship Agreement (BSA) is a legal agreement between landholders and government to establish a biodiversity stewardship site for the purpose of generating biodiversity credits under the Biodiversity Offsets Scheme (BOS). Under the BOS, landholders can generate biodiversity credits by enhancing or maintaining biodiversity on their land. Credits are then sold to developers that need to offset their environmental impacts.

For more information on generating and selling biodiversity credits please click here.

What is the difference between a BSA and Biodiversity Offsets?

The key difference between a BSA and a Biodiversity Offset is that BSA’s are voluntary agreements, while biodiversity offsets are often a regulatory requirement for developers. BSA’s focus on enhancing biodiversity, whereas biodiversity offsets focus on compensating for biodiversity losses due to development.

To read more about Biodiversity Offsets please visit our guide here.

How are BSA’s managed?

Management plans are required for BSA’s that outline all management actions required under the agreement. Management actions can include:

• fire management
• grazing management
• native vegetation management (supplementary planting, weed control, etc)
• threatened species habitat management and enhancement
• integrated feral pest control
• fencing
• rubbish removal, and
• ongoing monitoring.

Landholders are required to submit annual reports and are subject to regular site compliance audits.

How are management actions paid for?

A Total Fund Deposit (TFD) is used to cover the costs of management actions. The TFD is the present value of future payments for land management actions under a BSA. This is the amount of money that needs to be invested now to fund all the management actions required under a BSA into the future.

Here is how the process works:

1. Creation of Biodiversity Credits: When a BSA is established, biodiversity credits are created based on the conservation value of the site. These credits can be ecosystem credits or species credits, depending on the biodiversity values present on the land.
2. Sale of Credits: The landholder can sell these biodiversity credits to developers or other entities that require offsets for their environmental impacts. This sale generates revenue for the landholder.
3. Payment into the Biodiversity Stewardship Payments Fund: A portion of the revenue from the sale of credits is used to fund the TFD. The TFD is paid into the Biodiversity Stewardship Payments Fund, which is managed by the Biodiversity Conservation Trust (BCT).
4. Ongoing Management Payments: Once the TFD is fully funded, the BCT makes annual payments to the landholder to support the management actions required under the BSA. These payments ensure that the site is managed according to the agreed management plan.

How can we help?

As discussed above, landholders are required to submit annual reports detailing the management actions undertaken on the site. These reports are complemented by annual site audits that verify the management actions are being implemented as specified in the agreement.

If you need help staying on top of you BSA, our team at Atlantech are experienced at biodiversity site inspections, monitoring, and completion of management plan actions. Our team is also able to review compliance status for these agreements. Please reach out to Atlantech for a confidential discussion about how we can help.

Sources

• NSW Government (Biodiversity Conservation Trust BSA Information Session)
• NSW Government (Framework for reviewing the Total Fund Deposit discount rate)
• NSW Government (Generate and sell biodiversity credits)