The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP, Minister for the Environment and Water
The Hon Andrew Leigh MP, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, Assistant Minister for Employment
The Albanese Labor Government has today released the first set of National Ecosystem Accounts which will help Australians better understand the value of nature to our economy and our wellbeing.
The accounts will inform the Government's policies and decision-making processes to better measure the impacts of our actions to the environment.
The estimates measured the contribution of some of Australia's land, freshwater and marine ecosystems to the economy in 2020-21. It shows us:
the storage of 34.5 million kilotonnes of carbon in grasslands, native forests, savannas and mangroves, worth over $43 billion
the delivery of 955 gigalitres of self-extracted surface water for agricultural use in production, worth over $125 million
saving more than 4,000 coastal properties from damage worth over $57 million through natural protection by mangrove ecosystems
The accounts track changes in Australia's diverse ecosystems, across almost 1.4 billion hectares. Close to half of our land area is made up of desert or semi desert landscapes.
The estimates found that between 2011 and 2020 feral animal and weed species continued to spread. Feral species such as cats, foxes and goats are a key threat to threatened species, industry and nature.
That's why Labor has invested more than $550 million to better protect our threatened species, such as koalas, northern quoll and Australian sea lions, and crack down on feral animals and weeds including yellow crazy ants and crown-of-thorns starfish.
The accounts will underpin the world's first Nature Repair Market, which will make it easier for business, philanthropists and others to invest into activities that protect and repair nature across Australia.
Today, Environment Information Australia has also published their first dashboard, drawing on this ABS data to show how nature is changing. This is part of Government's commitment to be open and transparent about our progress towards global nature protection goals. The Albanese Labor Government has protected an extra 95 million hectares of land and sea, an area almost four times the size of the United Kingdom.
Quotes attributable to Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek:
"We know Australians love spending time in nature, but this shows us its economic value too.
"After a decade of denial and decline under the Liberals and Nationals, we've worked overtime to protect and restore our precious environment. The more data we have, the better we understand how nature is changing and how to best look after it. That's why our government is releasing this information today.
"We're committed to transparency, unlike the Liberals and Nationals who sat on the State of the Environment Report because they didn't care.
"We want to leave nature better off for our kids and grandkids. We're investing more than $550 million to better protect threatened species and stamp out invasive species, more than $1.2 billion to protect the Great Barrier Reef, have doubled funding to our national parks, and more."
Quotes attributable to the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, Assistant Minister for Employment the Hon Dr Andrew Leigh:
"Australia's natural environment isn't just scenery - it's a workhorse, underpinning industries, livelihoods, and entire ecosystems. Our forests bank billions in carbon, our mangroves stand between coastal homes and disaster, and our landscapes sustain communities in ways we're only beginning to quantify.
"This new platform centralises environmental data - because making sense of nature shouldn't be harder than assembling flat-pack furniture without the instructions. Thanks to the combined efforts of the CSIRO, ABS, and the Department of Climate Change, we're mapping our natural assets with real precision. When we recognise nature's value, we can make smarter choices about how to protect and invest in it for the long haul."
