Justine Bell

Insuring Mangrove Forests for Their Role in Mitigating Coastal Erosion and Storm-Surge: An Australian Case Study

Mangrove forests provide important ecosystem services, including protecting coastlines from the impacts of extreme weather events, such as storm surge and erosion. Unfortunately, these same extreme weather events also degrade mangrove forests. Currently, there are no comprehensive financial mechanisms in place to ensure that mangroves are rehabilitated following storm damage. This article explores whether there is a legal basis for applying insurance to mangrove forests, to ensure that mangroves are rehabilitated to retain their protective functions. This article uses Australian insurance law as a case study, and first analyses whether the legal principles underpinning insurance can be extended to mangrove forests, and then addresses the practical difficulties involved in developing an insurance product of this type. This article concludes that mangrove insurance is technically feasible, and provides a series of recommendations for policy-makers and the insurance industry.

A Comparative Analysis of the Transformation of Governance Systems: Land-Use Planning for Flood Risk

Abstract This paper seeks to address a deficit in the literature by undertaking a comparative case analysis of two governance systems for flood-prone areas in the state of Queensland, Australia, where flood governance consisted of two different regimes: adaptive and precautionary. We compare the evolution and characteristics of the two regimes, with a focus on each regimes ability to detect change, interact across scales and transform after the 2011 flood disaster in Queensland. We find that the challenges for adaptive governance include ad hoc successes, a lack of overarching guidance and regulation, and limited capacity to exploit results, but the challenges of moving to a precautionary style are also substantial. We argue that an adaptive–precautionary typology has limited utility, and that empirical evidence at the local–regional scale demonstrates a mix of both which are heavily path-dependent. The grand assumption that governance in general should move from precaution and hierarchy to adaptiveness and networks is far more complicated at the local–regional scale. Given the dominant preference globally for incrementalism and softer ways of governing, we call for further research on how adaptive modes of governance might be both reinforced by and scaled up over time to achieve more precautionary overarching strategies.

Implementing an outcomes-based approach to marine biodiversity offsets: lessons from the Great Barrier Reef

ABSTRACT Environmental offsets are widely used internationally, and are becoming a standard feature in project approvals in Australia, including in the Great Barrier Reef (‘GBR’) region. Marine ecosystems are unique, and novel approaches to offsets are needed. The GBR region offers an interesting case study in this regard, with new initiatives diverting offsets imposed on seagrass removal projects into programs aimed at reducing diffuse-source pollution. This article will analyse the offsets framework in the GBR region, and consider whether any safeguards or reforms are needed. It concludes that outcomes-based offset conditions should be used, with impacts on a marine ecosystem only offset by establishing or rehabilitating another marine ecosystem. Reducing diffuse-source pollution is a means to achieve this goal, but it should be merely a vehicle rather than the destination.