The Australian Government introduced the Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship Market Bill in February 2022. The legislation aims to establish a framework to underpin a national voluntary agriculture biodiversity stewardship market.
The legislation will support:
- new income streams for farmers
- improved biodiversity
- private sector investment in credible biodiversity outcomes.
The legislation:
- creates a nationally consistent framework to describe and verify biodiversity benefits
- creates a new form of tradeable personal property, a biodiversity certificate
- establishes assurance and compliance systems to provide certainty to the market that projects will be carried out as proposed.
The legislation ensures that farmers can be recognised for delivering environmental services and provide a means of earning a drought-proof income from less productive areas of farmland.
The legislation will build on the success of the Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship program.