Market Based Instruments, Ecosystem Services and Development in Mission Beach, Far North Queensland

Background Report 1:  Impacts of Urbanisation on Ecosystem Services

Research Report

Anthea Coggan¹ and Stuart Whitten²

¹ CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, St. Lucia
² CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Gungahlin

ISBN 9781921359262
Published March 2009

MTSRF Project 4.9.6 - Strategic Natural Resource Management and land use planning [Task (c) Implementing ecosystem goods and services]

Introduction

Ecosystem services are the natural processes that transform natural assets into things that we as humans value. Humans are generally attracted to areas that possess high quality natural assets and well-functioning ecosystem services. However, infrastructure development and other human actions have the potential to damage natural assets, altering the provision of ecosystem services and affecting human wellbeing.

Mission Beach, located in the Wet Tropics of Far North Queensland (FNQ) is an area that has abundant natural assets and healthy ecosystems. Up until fairly recent times this area was relatively untouched by people other than Indigenous populations. However, the pristine, natural features of and improved access to the area is resulting in an increase in tourism and residential development, which is jeopardising the capacity of the natural system to provide ecosystem services  Statistics indicate this trend is only going to increase into the future.

With the Wet Tropics region containing two of Australia's World Heritage listed environs, the Wet Tropics Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef, the management of development in the Mission Beach area is extremely important.

The Australian Government's Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility (MTSRF) implemented in North Queensland by the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre (RRRC) is a part of the Australian Government's $100 million Commonwealth Environment Research Facilities (CERF) commitment. The vision for the MTSRF is that North Queensland's public environmental assets – particularly the Great Barrier Reef and its catchments, tropical rainforests including the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, and Torres Strait – are sustained in their health through the generation, transfer and sharing of world-class research and knowledge (Department of the Environment and Water Resources 2005).

The goals of the MTSRF (Department of the Environment and Water Resources 2005) are to improve our understanding and the delivery of knowledge related to:

• Status of the ecosystems - condition, trend and interdependencies;

• Risks and threats to the ecosystems;

• Halting and reversing the decline of water quality; and

• Sustainable use and management of the natural assets.

The objective of the implementing ecosystem goods and services component of MTSRF Project 4.9.6 Strategic Natural Resource Management and land use planning is to "refine, tailor and apply the concept of market based instruments (MBIs) for implementing ecosystem goods and services". The project objective highlights offsets as an MBI to manage environmental conservation in developing areas. It is likely that offsets will be explored in detail, however other MBI options may also be considered as part of this research.  Due to the importance of ecosystem services and the development pressure placed on these, Mission Beach was chosen as a case study area in which to explore the development of an MBI.

The first step to designing any incentive scheme – whether it is market based or other – is to understand the problem and determine the objectives of the project (see Coggan et al. 2006). This document, the first in a series of Background Reports, explores the use of an MBI to manage ecosystem services and development. In this report we present an understanding of the key ecosystem services of importance to the Mission Beach region and the threats these services face. Ecosystem services of importance have been arrived at through review of literature.

This report is structured as follows: In the following section, ecosystem services are defined and discussed and a framework for determining ecosystem services of importance is presented. This is then followed by an introduction to the Mission Beach case study, and the key land uses and economic drivers for the region. We then explore the ecosystem services important to Mission Beach and provide a discussion on the likely impacts of development on ecosystem services.  A conclusion is presented at the end of the document.