Transcription Audio

Hello and welcome to the show. Today we’re talking about a shift that’s quietly rewriting how conservation gets done across Australia—and it’s moving faster than most teams are ready for. If you work in policy, land or sea management, philanthropy, or you’re a Traditional Owner leading on Country, this is your moment. Cross-jurisdictional conservation isn’t a nice aspiration anymore—it’s the operating reality for 2025 and beyond. Why now? Three signals in the past six months changed the game. First, national environmental law reforms are moving from theory to legislation, with a clearer mandate for coordination between the Commonwealth and the states. Second, climate is forcing species and systems to move across borders. Managers are thinking in “problemsheds”—basins, bioregions, flyways that ignore lines on a map. Third, funders now expect traceable, investor-grade outcomes—standardized data, governance, and reporting across jurisdictions. Put those together and you have a new operating environment. Single-jurisdiction projects aren’t just inefficient—they’re becoming obsolete. Partnerships that retool now will attract the lion’s share of funding and deliver outsized impact. If you’re stitching together the Great Eastern Ranges, coordinating water recovery in the Murray–Darling, or securing sea-country outcomes along the East Asian–Australasian Flyway, your effectiveness now lives or dies on how well you share authority, data, and financing across governments and with Traditional Owners. Parallel, loosely coordinated efforts won’t keep pace with climate, won’t meet policy expectations, and won’t pass funder due diligence. The policy signals are clear. The Nature Positive Plan calls explicitly for landscape-scale conservation and coordinated action across all levels of government. That’s a funding signal. Expect grants and investment to prefer initiatives with cross-border governance and shared performance indicators. If your partnership structure shows that up front, you’re already ahead. Let’s take stock. Australia is shifting from short-term, project-led collaborations to more durable bioregional partnerships—formal agreements, common metrics, shared dashboards. This maturation is essential. The State of the Environment report was unequivocal: ecosystems are in poor and deteriorating condition, and we need coordinated action across jurisdictions. Australia has also committed to 30 by 30 under the Kunming–Montreal framework. CAPAD 2022 shows strong coverage on land and sea. But coverage is not connectivity. You can’t deliver climate resilience or species recovery at scale without linking protected areas across borders. That coverage–connectivity gap is a huge opportunity. The good news: we’re not starting from scratch. The Australian Alps National Parks Co-operative Management Program shows ACT, New South Wales, and Victoria managing the Alps as one ecological unit through an MOU—shared fire protocols, coordinated pest control, aligned visitor management. It’s practical and it works. The Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan is co-governed by the Australian and Queensland governments, backed by a billion-dollar federal investment over nine years. Land-to-reef coordination across multiple catchments, joint steering committees, and common targets offer a template for other cross-border efforts. And the Murray–Darling Basin Plan—our most complex cross-jurisdictional arrangement—covers roughly 14 percent of the continent. The Restoring Our Rivers Act of 2023 extended timeframes and broadened tools to recover environmental water. The lesson: rivers ignore borders. The deeper lesson: adaptive governance, independent oversight, and transparent trade-offs are non-negotiable. Crucially, Indigenous co-governance is moving to the center. Indigenous Protected Areas now cover more than 80 million hectares and are a major part of the National Reserve System. Ethical and effective partnerships are guided by the AIATSIS Code of Ethics and the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance. That’s more than an ethical must—it’s a practical advantage. Traditional Owners bring knowledge and leadership indispensable at landscape scale. The Firesticks Alliance is a clear example—operating across multiple states to restore cultural fire at bioregional scales, influencing state strategies, and opening a path for cross-border alignment that blends ecological restoration, risk reduction, and cultural revitalization. So, how do you pivot in practice? Start with governance. Build a cross-jurisdictional architecture that’s explicit about who decides what. That usually means: - A formal MOU or intergovernmental agreement. - A joint steering committee. - An independent secretariat to coordinate delivery without being captured by a single agency. Embed Traditional Owner leadership from the outset—at governance level, in program design, in data collection and use, and in how benefits flow. Next, shared data and measurement. Funders expect investor-grade monitoring, reporting, and verification. Use common indicators across jurisdictions, a shared data dictionary, and open standards wherever culturally appropriate. Build on CAPAD, the Atlas of Living Australia, and TERN, overlayed with local knowledge and Indigenous data protocols. Agree up front on access, update cycles, and audit pathways. On financing, diversify. Blend public funding with private capital, and align with emerging mechanisms like the Nature Repair Market framework. Build a pipeline of investable projects showing additionality, durability, and how cross-border coordination de-risks delivery. If your case doesn’t explain governance, data integrity, and long-term stewardship, it won’t pass due diligence. Operationally, plan for the problemshed, not the postcode. For rivers, that means joint environmental watering plans across state boundaries. For terrestrial systems, connected corridors that cross tenures and jurisdictions. For migratory species, align with flyway-scale governance and monitoring, and link local actions to that bigger architecture. If you need practical corridor options, use evidence-based habitat connectivity measures for Australia—think of it as a tested menu. Don’t ignore the human side. Cross-border partnerships live or die on trust. Invest in a shared secretariat, a clear conflict-resolution pathway, and genuine time for relationships. Bake in adaptive management as a principle. When climate extremes hit, you want pre-agreed protocols for joint incident response, communications, and rapid data sharing. Legally, map your toolset early: MOUs, joint management plans, data-sharing agreements honoring Indigenous data sovereignty, and aligned procurement rules. Name statutory differences and design around them before they stall you later. Be transparent about trade-offs. Cross-border work almost always involves competing land uses and different community priorities. Independent science panels and community reference groups help keep processes credible. Clear public reporting on what’s being achieved, where, and for whom builds legitimacy—and it’s exactly what funders and communities expect. Zooming back out: the convergence of law reform, climate reality, and investor expectations is not a blip. It’s the new normal. If you lead an NGO, a government program, a ranger group, or an investment fund, you’ll outperform by designing for scale from day one—governance that crosses borders, data that stands up to audit, financing that blends sources, and benefits that flow equitably, including to Traditional Owners co-governing Country. If you need a practical starting point, try a ninety-day sprint. Convene your cross-jurisdictional core team and invite Traditional Owner leaders in as partners, not stakeholders. Co-design three things: - A shared outcomes framework with five to seven indicators everyone will report against. - A data and MRV plan with roles, standards, and an audit pathway. - A governance protocol that spells out decision rights and dispute resolution. In parallel, map your financing: public budgets, private co-investors, and the credits or incentives you can realistically access. Finish with a one-page narrative that ties it all together—problem, partnership, plan, proof. That’s your funder-ready pitch, your internal rallying point, and your accountability document in one. If you’re already operating cross-border, ask the hard questions now. Do you have shared authority, or just regular meetings? Are your indicators aligned and independently verifiable? Are Traditional Owners leading in design and decision-making, with data governance reflecting CARE principles? Can you adapt quickly when climate throws a curveball? And can you show a funder, at a glance, that you’re built to deliver across boundaries? Australia is better positioned than many countries to get this right. We have working models in the Alps, on the Reef, and across the Murray–Darling. We have national datasets and a reform agenda pushing in the right direction. We have Indigenous-led knowledge and governance that can anchor landscape-scale stewardship with integrity. The window is open. The partnerships that step through it now—confidently, transparently, and together—will set the standard for conservation in a changing climate. Thanks for listening. If this sparked ideas, share it with a colleague across the border—literally—and start that ninety-day sprint. The future of effective conservation in Australia is cross-jurisdictional, and it’s already here.