Environmental Economic Accounting – Developing and trialling approaches for accounting to ensure respectful inclusion of First Nations knowledges

Start date: 01/01/2025
End date: 30/06/2027
NESP funding: $598,898 (GST-exclusive)

This project is exploring First Nations Peoples’ knowledges can be integrated into Ecosystem Accounts prepared using the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA). The SEEA EA is a framework for measuring and reporting on ecosystems and their contributions to economic and human well-being. It provides a structured way to quantify ecosystem services and their role in the economy.

 
A river pool in Tagalaka National Park. Photo: Queensland Government.

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The research will partner with two First Nations groups from different environmental contexts, one from northern Queensland’s savannah and another from the southern coast of Western Australia. Together, they will co-design methods to integrate First Nations knowledges into SEEA EA, ensuring that the resulting ecosystem accounts are both scientifically rigorous and culturally relevant. The aim is for these accounts to be useful not only to the participating First Nations groups but also to broader research and policy audiences. 

In addition to preparing the ecosystem accounts, the project will develop recommendations for incorporating First Nations perspectives into environmental accounting policies. By working closely with First Nations partners and testing the approach with a wider group of First Nations people, the project seeks to identify common themes and assess how frameworks, such as the National Environmental Accounts Program (NEAP), can relate to accounts that reflect Indigenous knowledge. The project will also collaborate with the Nature Repair Market team within the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), aiming to create synergies between ecosystem accounting and nature restoration initiatives. 

11 Mile Beach near Esperance. Photo: NESP RLH

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Key research areas

To support respectful inclusion of First Nations knowledges in ecosystem accounting, this project is:

• co-designing ecosystem accounting methods with Tagalaka and Esperance Tjaltjraak partners
• preparing First Nations-led accounts that reflect connections between people and Country
• exploring how stock, flow, capacity and intervention-benefit accounts can be developed from First Nations perspectives
• identifying common themes, context-specific differences and transferable learnings across partner groups
• developing recommendations to inform future environmental accounting policy and practice.

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Pathway to impact

This project will support inclusive environmental accounting by:

• developing practical methods for reflecting First Nations knowledges and perspectives in ecosystem accounts
• supporting First Nations partners to create accounts that are useful for Caring for Country planning and decision-making
• identifying transferable lessons to guide future national environmental accounting policy
• strengthening links between ecosystem accounting, nature repair and culturally informed environmental management.