Improving NRM Investment through a policy performance lens

Choosing a mechanism to encourage landholders to change their land management inorder to deliver environmental outcomes is a complicated process. Careful instrumentselection may count for little if uptake and adoption are insufficient to meetperformance targets. Similarly, investors may require assurance that the proposedinvestment will deliver the stated goals. In order to reduce the uptake uncertaintyfacing policy makers we evaluate and describe several possible methods to guide andframe adoption targets. We conclude that referring to past adoption experience of awide range of mechanisms offers the best approach to setting feasible adoption targetsfor future mechanisms. We call this adoption points of reference. This approach istested by application to mechanisms focusing on delivering water qualityimprovements in GBR catchments. We conclude that the points of reference approachis appropriate and useful but should be supported by processes designed toincorporate the impact of heterogeneity and local knowledge and an emphasis onimproving the accuracy of future data.