Restoring Natural Capital
What is Restoring Natural Capital?
Restoration of natural capital (RNC) involves any activity that invests in the
replenishment (improved quality) of natural capital (native flora & fauna, biodiversity, water, soils, air
and sustainable land use) and as a result improves the flows of ecosystem goods
and services for the benefit of people and the environment.
RNC looks at losses of
Natural Capital
at a regional or landscape level. And identifies affordable
and achievable projects which can be run with the local community to reverse these losses.
What is the RNC Allinace?
The RNC Alliance is an international network of environmental practitioners, scientists, economists,
not-for-profit organisations, communities and individuals - all interested in volunteering
their knowledge and expertise for the benefit of our local environment.
The RNC Alliance recognises that the natural environment is crucially important for sustaining
economies. The natural environment has already undergone
severe degradation from development, worldwide. Only by restoring the natural
environment and rehabilitating production systems on a regional or landscape scale
can this degradation be stopped and reversed. The underlying commitment of the RNC Alliance
can be summarised in one line:
economics in which nature matters and ecology in which people matter.
Restoring (RNC) Workshops, lectures, talks and advice.
Our land can never be taken back to a time before man however we can improve its function
for the benefit of man, production and nature.
Members of the RNC Alliance around the world work with communities to identify affordable
and achievable projects by running workshops or lectures that look at local natural capital and
facilitate the identification of a Vision that the community can work
towards achieving. Visions might be cleaner water, fresher air, improved soil health, more native habitat,
improved productivity of farm land, increased number of pollinators, a closer community ......
the possibilities are endless. And we help identify affordable and achievable projects.
RNC applies to urban, agricultural and natural areas, everyone can be involved. For some ideas
about what a community might do
click here.
For more information send an email to [email protected]
An example of an urban RNC community project
In May 2008 we won an Envirofund Round 9 grant
from the Australian Government which helped us develop the Habitat Network project in Sydney Australia.
This project is about "Restoring Natural Capital for Community and Landscape Level Benefits".
See Habitat Network
website.
By running RNC workshops it was identified by the local community that the local community:
* doesn't know the local native plants or how to use them in their gardens
* doesn't know most of the weed plants or how to control them, and
* noticed that we are losing the small native birds from the area and they felt something should be done.
The vision identified: "to improve habitat for our small native birds".
And so now we are running the Habitat Network project which will, by focusing on small native bird habitat,
improve local knowledge of native plants, animals and habitat, extend habitat and start to create habitat
connections and corridors.
The Habitat Network is also a great way of networking families, schools, businesses, aged care facilities and
so on in the local area as well as other habitat projects in other areas.
Visit the RNC Alliance website at
www.rncalliance.org
to view projects, research and activities from around the world.
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