Capacity and Capability (Stream three)
Victorian Environmental Partnerships Program (VEPP)
The cost-effectiveness of our investment
efforts relies on how well our actions
deliver the changes we want at the least
cost. VEPP sets a new benchmark for the
evidence used to target investment funds,
improve return on investment and
demonstrate outcomes.
VEPP is a pilot program designed to deliver a comprehensive,
transparent and least-cost way of investing in the highest
priority natural resource outcomes for Victoria. It will allow the
Government to effectively document changes in the
environment and monitor the status of a range of threatened
species.
Project 1: Strategic direction
Setting strategic directions for investment requires identifying
where action to manage high value environmental assets and
protect against threats is likely to be most beneficial for native
vegetation management and threatened species
conservation.
In the past, multiple views of strategic biodiversity and
approaches to setting environmental priorities have been
applied within various natural resource investment programs.
This project supports the development of an integrated
landscape context approach by developing and testing
methods to reconcile priorities and link change models for
native vegetation and threatened species.
VEPP Stream Three
Stream Three is an integral part of the VEPP approach. It
supports the delivery of Streams One and Two as it will
improve the scientific evidence underpinning strategic
decision making; develop systems and process to collect
and manage VEPP related information; and report on the
impacts and outcomes of VEPP investment through the
following projects:
Project 1: Strategic direction
Project 2: Investment decisions and delivery recording
Project 3: Testing models and assumptions
Project 4: Environmental economic accounts and reporting.
ENVIRONMENTAL OUTCOMES
Streams One and Two
Market process
Value for money
LONG TERM
Stream 3
Project 4
Environmental
economic accounting
Project 3
Testing models and
assumptions
Project 2
Decision support
Project 1
Strategic direction
Figure 1 VEPP Stream three projects contribution to environmental
outcomes
Figure 2 NaturePrint combines flora and fauna models, vegetation
groupings and condition data
This includes further refinement of and support for the
application of the NaturePrint approach to spatial
identification of environmental values and priorities for
action. NaturePrint has been informed by analyses that
have been peer reviewed by external scientists and
described as ‘at the cutting edge of scientific practice’.
As well as developing a landscape context approach, the
project also provides delivery partners with access and
support for the use of relevant systems and decision
support tools including NaturePrint, EnSym and the Actions
for Biodiversity Conservation (ABC) database.
Capacity and capability
(Stream Three)
Project 2: Investment decisions and delivery recording
Project 4: Environmental economic accounts and KPIs
Investment decisions are choices made about how to allocate
investment funds to achieve best value for money. Both
Streams One and Two have used market based approaches
that involve assessing return on investment of funding bids.
Delivery recording is the capture, storage and reporting of
information on the delivery of VEPP funded management
actions. Delivery recording is critical for confirming what has
been delivered and is used for due diligence purposes,
program reporting and the design of monitoring to assess the
on ground impacts of management actions (see Project 3).
DEPI is working collaboratively with the Australian Bureau
of Statistics, the United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD)
and a range of agencies in Australia and internationally and
leading the world in the development of environmental
economic accounting.
DEPI currently has separate information systems and tools to
assess return on investment and capture, store and access
delivery data for native vegetation and threatened species.
As we move to a landscape scale approach, there is a
need to align these systems and tools for native vegetation
and threatened species information management.
Project 2 focuses on aligning relevant information
management systems. This includes modifying systems
to comply with the recently introduced output data standard
and enabling data exchange between systems, so that
VEPP data collected across Streams one and two is held
in a central repository that can be consolidated and used
for a range of purposes.
Project 3: Testing models and assumptions
Quantitative conceptual models are increasingly used to
estimate the extent of change likely to occur from investment
options. Conceptual models are used to apply assumptions
and data to predict and quantify the changes that are likely
to arise from interventions. To reduce uncertainty in the
models, these assumptions need to be tested and the
models validated.
Project 3 focusses on testing and updating assumptions
that underlie the relationships between management actions,
threat mitigation and asset condition contained within these
conceptual models.
Data to test these models and assumptions will be collected
via monitoring of the on ground impacts of management
actions implemented through Streams One and Two.
Previous monitoring data will also be consolidated and
analysed where relevant.
This project is developing and applying a scientifically sound
research methodology to assess the on ground impacts of
investment and apply research findings to refine the models
that inform investment decision making.
© The State of Victoria Department of Environment and Primary Industries 2014
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A state-wide set of regularly updated resource condition
assessments are highly desirable both for reporting and as a
foundation for identifying priorities, threats and opportunities.
Performance reporting for VEPP is focussed on reporting
against key performance indicators (KPIs) that document the
environmental change resulting from VEPP investment and
will be used to prepare environmental accounts.
Environmental economic accounts provide a means to
measure a project’s cost effectiveness. In the case of natural
assets, rather than a dollar return, the outcomes sought are
increases in quality of those assets. An estimate is made of
the change in the condition or status of the asset and the
relative importance of the asset.
Change
Change in
in condition
condition or
or status
status
of
of asset
asset from
from expenditure
expenditure
xx relative
relative importance
importance of
of asset
asset
Cost
Cost Effectiveness
Effectiveness ==
Expenditure
Expenditure
Figure 3 How cost effectiveness is measured for environmental economic
accounts
The change in condition or status is measured by predicting
the difference in vegetation condition due to maintenance and
improvement actions against a ‘do nothing’ scenario, and the
reduction in threat for threatened species. Having calculated
the change, the second step is to determine an asset
importance score. In VEPP this is based on the NaturePrint
approach (see earlier). The higher the score of these features,
the higher the relative environmental benefit.
Expenditure is made up of operational costs (project
administration costs, delivery costs, field assessments, etc)
and the costs of works on the site (fencing, labour, plants etc).
The production of the VEPP environmental economic
accounts, guided by the international standard, requires
a range of analytical inputs. This process will build
understanding, and demonstrate the benefits, of
environmental economic accounting for policy
development and strategic planning.
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