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INFFER
(Investment Framework For Environmental Resources)
Background and Overview
Context
 Budgets small compared to the problems
 Environmental protection more expensive
than we’ve often allowed for
 Spatial heterogeneity
 Prioritisation is essential but difficult
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Institutional context
 Concerns about outcomes from regional
investment
 Treasury, Australian National Audit Office
concerns about value for public money from
NRM investment
 Greater focus on outcomes in Caring for our
Country and by some state governments
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What does INFFER help with?
 How to get value for money from NRM
budget?
 What is realistic/feasible?
 Appropriate delivery mechanisms?
 Project design
 Give confidence to funders
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General emphases
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Natural assets
Outcomes
Value for money
Multiple threats
Multiple asset types
Technical & socio-economic (equal emphasis)
Policy tools/delivery mechanisms
Transparency
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Regional testing and use
 South West (WA)
 Avon (WA)
 South Coast (WA)
 Northern Agric (WA)
 Rangelands (WA)
 Perth (WA)
 Lachlan (NSW)
 Central West (NSW)
 Border Rivers/Gwydir (NSW)
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Northern Rivers (NSW)
Namoi (NSW)
North East (Vic)
North Central (Vic)
Corangamite (Vic)
West Gippsland (Vic)
East Gippsland (Vic)
Goulburn Broken (Vic)
Port Phillip & Westernport
(Vic)
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Based on experience
 Builds on lessons from previous frameworks and
from use by 15 regions
 As simple as possible, but comprehensive
 Highly structured and guided process
 Template
 Actively supported
 Help desk
 Workshops
 Regular phone-hookup meetings
 Fully documented
 All documents freely available at www.inffer.org
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Asset types
Wetland
•Listed on register
•Last of its type
River reach
•Intact native veg
•Cultural heritage
•Woodland birds
Threatened species
•Flagship
•Critically endangered
Native vegetation
•Concentration of threatened species
•Near pristine condition
•Important location
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What is the output?
 An assessment for each asset
 Background information about the asset
 A specific, measurable, time-bound goal
 On-ground works that will achieve that goal
 Delivery actions that will result in those works
 Information about asset value, threats/damage,
technical feasibility, socio-economic feasibility,
urgency, cost, risks
 Benefit:Cost Ratio (comparable across projects)
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What sorts of projects?
 Ones that will deliver NRM outcomes for
identifiable natural assets, which can be
 large or small
 degraded or pristine
 localised or dispersed
 any sort of natural asset
 Not
 Untargeted capacity building
 M&E not linked to a specific project
 R&D not linked to a specific asset
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INFFER Pre-Assessment Checklist
Asset focus
1. Can you clearly identify the environmental or natural resource
asset?
2. Will it be possible to define a goal for the asset that is
“SMART”?
Cost-effectiveness
3. Is there evidence to indicate that management actions can
make a real difference?
4. If the desired management actions are mainly on private land,
is it likely that those actions would be reasonably attractive to
fully informed land managers when adopted over the required
scale?
5. If the project requires change by other institutions is there a
good chance that this will occur?
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North Central
CMA
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The INFFER Process
INFFER process
 Can be applied to individual assets
 Run small number of cherry-picked assets
through the process
 Helps with project development
 Helps assess whether it is worth pursuing the
project
 Better to be a comprehensive process
 Community consultation + other info sources
 A more comprehensive look at the project options
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Comprehensive process
1. Develop a list of significant natural assets in the
relevant region(s)
2. Apply an initial filter to the asset list, using a
simplified set of criteria
3. Define projects and conduct detailed assessments
of them
4. Select priority projects
5. Develop investment plans or funding proposals
6. Implement funded projects
7. Monitor, evaluate and adaptively manage projects
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Rationale for the process
 Starts broad, with far too many assets
 Reduce list somewhat with simplified
criteria
 No point in great sophistication at this
stage
 Few enough make it through to make
a good assessment practical
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How long does it take?
 New user: around 5 person-days per asset to
complete Project Assessment Form
 Experienced user: 1-2 days per asset, if
information and experts accessible
 Could be extended to encompass detailed
modelling if desired
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What skills needed?
 Ideally, good knowledge of asset(s)
 Able to engage with experts
 Understand NRM projects – some experience
in implementation
 Capture and interpret technical and socioeconomic information
 Make judgements based on partial
information
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INFFER and knowledge gaps
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Makes the best of the available info
Captures key knowledge gaps
Ratings for quality of information
Possible outcomes
 Project to fill knowledge gaps
 Data collection/investigation within the project
 Feasibility assessment as phase 1 of project
 Captures risks of project failure
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Project Assessment Form
Project Assessment Form
 Completed for every project
 Could be more than one alternative project
for the same asset
 Guided process to collect the required
information
 Detailed instruction manual
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Project Assessment Form
 Web-based
 Instructions hidden until needed
 Automate calculations
 Easy navigation
 FAQs
 Example responses
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1. The asset
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Spatial definition of the asset
Significance/importance of the asset
Key threats
Existing projects
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2. Goal, works
 Setting a specific, measurable, time-bound
goal
 On-ground actions to achieve goal
 Actions by other organisations
 Time lags until benefits
 Effectiveness of works
 Risk of technical failure
 Spin-offs (positive and negative)
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3. Socio-economics
 Anticipated adoption of works by private
land/water managers
 Encompasses community capacity and
knowledge
 Risk of practice changes for the worse
 Approvals
 Socio-economic risks
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4. Budget
 Delivery mechanisms
 Private citizens
 Other organisations
 Works, investigation and management
 Costs
 Up front (3-5 years)
 Long-term maintenance costs
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5. Project info
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Project title
Project summary
Funder’s targets and outcomes
Outputs and intermediate outcomes
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Public and private benefits
and choice of NRM policy instruments
Public: private benefits framework
 Selects the most appropriate policy tool for
a given circumstance
 Relevant to change on private land
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Public and private benefits
 “Private benefits” relate to the landholder
making the decisions
 “Public benefits” relate to all others
 neighbours, downstream water users, city
dwellers interested in biodiversity
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Each dot is a set of
land-use changes
on specific pieces
of land = a project.
Which tool?
• Incentives
• Extension
• Regulation
• New technology
• No action
Lucerne
Farm B
Public net benefits
Possible projects
0
Current
practice
Lucerne
Farm A
Private net benefits
Forestry in
water
catchment
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Alternative policy mechanisms
for seeking changes on private lands
Category
Specific policy mechanisms included
Positive incentives
Financial or regulatory instrumentsA to encourage
change
Negative incentives
Financial or regulatory instrumentsA to inhibit change
Extension
Technology transfer, education, communication,
demonstrations, support for community network
Technology change
Development of improved land management options,
e.g. through strategic R&D
No action
Informed inaction
AIncludes
polluter-pays mechanisms (command and control, pollution tax, tradable permits,
offsets) and beneficiary-pays mechanisms (subsidies, conservation auctions and tenders).
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Simple rules
for allocating mechanisms to projects
A
B
Public net benefit
1. No positive incentives for
land-use change unless public
net benefits of change are
positive.
2. No positive incentives if
landholders would adopt
land-use changes without
those incentives.
3. No positive incentives if
overall costs outweigh
benefits.
F
0
C
E
D
Private net benefit
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Simple public-private framework
Public net benefit
Positive
incentives or
technology
change
Technology
change
(or no action)
Extension
No action
0
No action
(or extension or
negative incentives)
No action (or
flexible negative
incentives)
Negative
incentives
Private net benefit
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How applied
 Project Assessment Form collects info
 Public net benefits
 Asset significance
 Threats, Effectiveness of works
 Time lags, Risks
 Private net benefits
 Adoption of the required works
 Does not dictate mechanisms: you choose
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Benefit: Cost Ratio
The BCR
An index of benefits from the project
Total costs (project and ongoing)
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VW
AB
FPG
1/(1 + r)L
V: asset value
W: effectiveness
of works
A: adoption
B: compliance
F: feasibility
P: socio-political
G: long-term funding
L: time lag to benefits
r: discount rate
Potential
project
benefits
E(prop’n
 of required
adoption)
Risk of
 (1 
failure )
Discount
 factor for
time lags
BCR = ──────────────────────────────────────────────────
Project cost
C + PV(M+E)  G
C: project cost
M: annual maintenance cost
E: polluter-pays compliance costs
PV: summed present value over 20 years
G: long-term funding
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Flexible
 Can compare large and small projects
 Can compare short and long projects
 Allows comparison of projects for different
types of assets
 Waterways
 Wetlands
 Vegetation
 Threatened species
 Agricultural land
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Example BCR ranking
Project
Benefit: Cost Ratio
Budget
4
10.0
$3m
2
8.1
$13m
5
7.2
$1m
1
4.0
$0.5
6
1.1
$1m
3
0.8
$9m
If budget = $17m, preferred projects are 4, 2 & 5
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Advantages of the BCR
 Avoids common problems in metrics used for
ranking environmental projects
 Add when they should multiply variables
 Fail to divide by project costs (e.g. subtract costs,
or just leave it out!)
 Omit key variables (common to ignore adoption
and technical feasibility)
 All three
 Cost of poor metrics is huge
 Benefits of investment roughly halved
 BCR can easily double environmental benefits
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Interpretation and use of
results
Project assessment report
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Title, summary, etc.
Benefit: Cost Ratio
Time lag until benefits delivered
Risks of project failure
Spin-offs
Quality of information
Key knowledge gaps
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Principles
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The info is an input to decision making
BCR is not to be used mechanistically
All-things-considered judgement
Other things may matter
Need a process of QA to give the decision
makers confidence
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Challenges
Challenges
 For many environmental managers it’s a very
different way to do business
 Having to provide comprehensive info
 Particular concepts new to people
 Ideally, need an asset expert with
comprehensive knowledge
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Typical problems for new people
 Difficulties with “asset” and goal
 Poor link between threat and works/actions
 Required land-use changes not quantified
 Tend to stick with comfort zones
 Unrealistic expectations of adoption
 Not adequately costed
 Insufficient detail to judge the project
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Requirements to get through
 Training
 One-to-one support
 INFFER team offers training and one-to-one
support
 Getting to resource limits
 Vic govt planning to provide a training/support
 Clear signals from government that there
will be benefits to those managers who do it
well
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Project Examples
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Example
Upper
Lachlan River
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Upper Lachlan River
 Goal – improve condition and connectivity, protect
fish
 Threats – loss of habitat (riparian and in stream),
sediments –nutrients, sand slugs
 Management – fencing, grazing exclusion, habitat
restoration, sediment slug control, gully control,
groundcover
 Moderate impact on threats
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Upper Lachlan River (cont’d)
 Adoption
 Little/none without incentives
 Standard CMA cost sharing ~50% adoption
 Achievable for some elements, unlikely for larger
management changes (gully, groundcover)
 Overall cost around $3 million
 BCR 3.6 (pretty good)
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Lachlan Ranges
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Lachlan Ranges
 High value, but not a ‘jewel’?
 Goal – high conservation vegetation
 Maintain extent and condition
 Threats – weeds, invasive native species, ag
impacts
 Reduce threat from high to medium
 Management – grazing management, direct
weed/pest control, reveg
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Lachlan Ranges (cont)
 Adoption
 Little/none without incentives
 Standard CMA cost sharing anticipates >50%
adoption
 Analysis recommended
stewardship payments
 7 landholders
 Overall cost $1.81 million
 BCR 4.65
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Patho Plains
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Patho Plains
 Very high value
 Small remnants dispersed over large area
 Goal – high conservation vegetation
 Maintain extent and condition
 Threats – weeds, over grazing, cultivation
 Reduce threat from high to medium
 Management – grazing management, direct
weed control
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Patho Plains (cont)
 Adoption
 Little/none without incentives
 Current MBI payments  25-50% adoption
 100+ landholders
 Overall cost $5 million
 BCR 1.75
100
Positive
incentives or
tech change
Public net benefit ($/ha/year)
Technology
change
(or no action)
Extension
50
No action
No action
0
-100
-50
No action
(or extension or
negative incentives)
0
50
100
No action (or
flexible negative
incentives)
-50
Negative
incentives
-100
Private net benefit ($/ha/year)
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Acknowledgements
 Affiliations of the INFFER team
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University of Western Australia
Department of Primary Industries, Victoria
North Central Catchment Management Authority
Future Farm Industries CRC
 Other key funders
 Australian Research Council (Federation Fellow Program)
 Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the
Arts (CERF Program)
 Department of Sustainability and Environment , Victoria
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