Australia is rich in natural assets, our coasts, bush, deserts and waterways include world famous icons such as the Great Barrier Reef, Bondi Beach and Ayers Rock (Ullaru) and our unique native animals and plants are draw cards to international visitors. Koalas, kangaroos, platypus and gum trees are all uniquely Australian. Through our national parks and other conservation tenures many of these national treasures are protected for future generations. However, conservation is only one of the potential uses for these assets.

Australia’s natural resources are also used in industries such as manufacturing, farming, mining, construction and urban development, just to name a few. For every use there is sometimes a cost involved, such as pollution, soil degradation, salinity, pests, loss of biodiversity and habitat, declining water quality and quantity. These impacts are not always obvious for many years and often it is the next generation that will suffer the consequences of poor natural resource management.

As impacts are not often immediate, markets for goods and services sometimes fail to adequately consider the impacts of production on the environment. The forces of supply and demand in these circumstances have failed to prevent environmental degradation of our natural assets, which is termed ‘market failure’.

The Australian, state and territory governments are implementing a wide range of policy responses including the Natural Heritage Trust and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality to help to prevent environmental degradation of our natural assets.

These two programs are being implemented through 56 regional NRM groups (regional NRM bodies and catchment management authorities) who have developed regional NRM plans which outline targets for management of key natural assets in each catchment. The Designer Carrots program has been developed to build the capacity of these regional NRM groups to implement market-based approaches to meet the target within these plans.