Sydney, NSW – 7 October 2016
GreenCollar is pleased to announce that the QLD Regional NRM Groups Collective has joined the Catchment Conservation Alliance (CCA) between GreenCollar and the Queensland state Government.
The expanded CCA’s purpose is to facilitate collaborative arrangements related to design, proposal, and implementation of landscape-scale carbon projects and to share the combined natural resource management objectives of the QLD Regional NRM Groups Collective and GreenCollar’s financial leveraging capabilities.
Under the CCA GreenCollar has already successfully mobilised over $200 million to be invested into the Queensland economy in the next 10 years. This investment is for the purpose of undertaking carbon projects with a focus on catchment scale conservation however GreenCollar hopes to leverage this investment 10 fold through collaborations with the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection, NRM regional bodies, local government and related agencies and organisations across the state to maximise the co-benefits to the environment.
GreenCollar CEO and co-founder, James Schultz said “This expansion of the CCA is a key plank in our strategy to leverage collaborative partnerships to maximise investment in environmental management projects. We plan to bring together a range of partnerships in the coming months that will see the income from our carbon projects used to underpin a larger scale of investment and realise the full benefits to biodiversity, water quality and ecosystem protection.”
“We are extremely excited to be working with QLD Regional NRM Groups Collective on key priority areas of both state and national significance such as the Reef Catchment. We are looking forward to continuing our partnership with the government and other organisations to achieve positive outcomes for Queensland graziers and the environment” he said.
The QLD Regional NRM Groups Collective was formed in 2002 to improve state-wide delivery of regional NRM outcomes in partnership with industry, community and government. It has as its member base the 14 regional natural resource management (NRM) bodies in Queensland.
Chair of the QLD Regional NRM Groups Collective (RGC), Andrew Drysdale, said “The RGC and QLD NRMs more broadly recognise the benefit of storing carbon in the landscape and are delighted to work with GreenCollar as they have a clear commitment to ensuring that their projects realise landscape scale environmental benefits not solely carbon storage”
The QLD Regional NRM Groups Collective will support GreenCollar and the EPH as they implement the CCA across Queensland. The aim of the Collective is to assist regional NRM groups to deliver sustainability outcomes through collaborative projects such as the CCA.
GreenCollar Director and Co-founder Lewis Tyndall said “Our vision has always been to show that environmental markets can bring about financially viable land management practices. This collaboration allows us to focus on leveraging GreenCollar’s innovative financing solutions and market leading project design to ensure that co-benefits are incorporated into all proposed project sites setup under schemes such as the ERF and where possible, such benefits can be monetised for the benefit of the landowner.”
“Todays announcement is a true example of a public-private partnership in action. Working with the QLD Regional NRM Groups Collective can only strengthen and enhance the impact of the ERF both on tackling Australia’s emissions targets but furthermore protecting areas of key environmental significance. We are making a huge investment in Queensland’s rural economy and we are aiming to scale it up in the coming years” he said.
GreenCollar General Manager Dave Moore explained “The CCA provides the perfect platform to implement these shared objectives at a catchment level and presents real opportunities for the private sector to deliver on State and Federal environmental objectives through environmental markets”.
“GreenCollar continues to set the standard for innovative solutions to meet the challenges of climate change, at present expanding our operations into environmental impact investment, sustainable agriculture, collaborative research and the renewable energy markets”.
The signing on to the CCA by the QLD Regional NRM Groups Collective will ensure that positive environmental and sustainability outcomes are implemented at a regional level with a shared long term focus on catchment level conservation.
Background
The CCA is a public-private collaboration between GreenCollar, QLD Regional NRM Groups Collective and the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection (EHP). The CCA aims to ensure Catchment Conservation is a key priority for projects implemented under incentive based mechanisms such as the Commonwealths Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF), with a particular focus in the Great Barrier Reef and Morten Bay Catchments.
The purpose of the CCA is to share the combined natural resource management objectives of GreenCollar and the QLD Regional NRM Groups Collective for the purpose of implementing incentive based projects to achieve environmental co-benefits in four specific target areas. These objectives of the CCA include; sequestering carbon in the landscape through protecting and restoring ecosystems, improving catchment water quality and land stability, protecting and restoring high conservation value areas and integrating sustainable agriculture practices across project sites, to ensure resilience and productivity.
The EHP will aim to assist the alliance in reducing technical and other barriers that may restrict project implementation and help identify priority sites, which may be suitable as project areas.
Media Contact
James Schultz – CEO GreenCollar Group
Ph: 0422 948 056
Email: [email protected]
