LANDSCAPE APPROACHES
Innovation in Regional and Remote Development
Our Focus Areas
Thinking globally, planning regionally to act locally.
Rationalising laws, policies, and designs for sustainable economic development.
Policy Review & Strategy Development
Practical decision systems for rational outcomes require quality policy frameworks. We have worked at the global stage through to national, sub-national, and local village levels. Getting away from silo approaches requires cross-disciplinary experience, affinity, and empathy to needs, as well as know-how on what works and what needs to be nurtured over time. Vying for systems development rather than process change is a prerequisite. Good policy platforms meshed with rational implementation mechanisms should link actions from local, regional to national levels.
Governance & Implementation
We have developed planning & environmental laws, reviewed regulatory processes, and designed ways to tailor the intersection of development & environmental laws. Operation and implementation is often the weak point of planning, NRM, and tenure laws and governance structures. Providing environmental and social safeguards in governance mechanisms (ESG) is essential to instituting rights-based development. Having multiple jurisdictional experience helps us craft new ways of doing this without threatening the basis of good governance: certainty, consistency, and equity.
Engagement & Facilitation
We have delivered over 600 engagement fora as part of projects and programs here in Australia and overseas. A global model for engagement of communities for the UNCCD, assisted facilitators to deliver a global program in Sustainable Land Management. We have involved empathy and affinity methods in co-design approaches since the late 1990s. We tailor engagement methods to different scales and use a combination of problem analysis and deep-thinking approaches. Successful plans, strategies, and development initiatives can only succeed on basees of faithful community engagement, visioning, empowerment, and ownership. It also honours the key sustainability principal of ‘prior informed consent’ to development entrenched in a number of international charters.
Collaborations & Networks
Forming collaborative frameworks and workable networks is often linked to our community & industry engagement. Corralling those with fire-in-the-belly to get actions on the ground helps with change, at scale. We live within huge regions and varied landscapes where connectivity and transfer of ideas and knowledge are affected by the ‘tyranny of distance’. Instituting collaborative networks that don’t disrupt governance systems, provide equity and reasonable opportunities for participation and direction, and enable the transfer of knowledge among stakeholders. Collective ideas require insights from multiple levels. We promote the quad helix approach to collaborative networks where: businesses, governments, research, and community stakeholders are able to work together to bring about change. Working collaborations bring about the best innovation in development, NRM, and land management.
Design Interventions
We deliver development projects that are consistent with regulatory requirements at the State and National levels. Our planning and design work ventures into building, architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. Designs are assisted by the use of innovative tools such as 3D landscape mapping, erosion & sedimentation apps, water harvesting modelling, effluent reuse models, and bushfire risk algorithms. Our outputs come as Master plans, Precinct plans, Land use, or NRM development strategies.
Due Diligence in Practice
We undertake due diligence assessments for research, program, and project initiatives. This is particularly important when projects have an investment angle, or where activities operate via financial instruments: loans, equity investments, and grants. It is our policy that all our operations are carried out in an environmentally and socially responsible manner, in accordance with ESG principles and with respect of the SDGs. For land use planning and NRM projects due diligence screening is standard practice to ensure all regulatory, and permit & requirements are met:
Compliance with local, state & national planning & environmental laws, regulations & standards
Meeting SDGs especially sustainable use of natural resources
Protection of cultural and natural heritage areas & sensitive ecosystems
Minimising exposure to climate change & natural hazards
Enveloping traditional knowledge & management in sustainable land, catchment & coastal management.
Extending economic diversity & liveability.
Traditional Knowledge Management
Ensuring the protection of indigenous knowledge and practices, consistent with the Nagoya Protocol is a key principle of our work in Australia and overseas with indigenous communities. Indigenous and customary communities here and overseas have a strong respect for the link between healthy ecosystems, healthy production, and the resilience of the landscape to shocks, disasters, and climate variation. The use of ‘tabu’ mechanisms to limit human access and disturbance of environmentally significant areas, especially after times of stress (drought, bushfires, overconsumption) – has informed contemporary protected areas management in many countries. We have assisted communities to establish model protected areas (Timor Leste), to enhance biodiversity conservation areas (Niue Huvalu Forest), and integrate tourism and cultural heritage development within protected catchments (Kokoda Track & Brown River Catchment, PNG). Delivery of our successful carbon work around the globe has involved many customary societies and often relied on their traditional knowledge and practices.
Transforming Informal Settlements to Improve Livelihoods
Environmental & Social Safeguard measures have been used in many P4SD projects, where improving and transforming informal settlements were the focus. In Samoa, a Governance grant secured from the EU was used to establish a Sustainable Development Plan for Vaitele, which in the late 1990s was typified by temporary housing structures, unformed roads, lack of utility services, and squalid conditions during storm events. The Vaitele Industrial Area was formed as well as formalised residential areas separated by sporting and recreation areas. In Vanuatu, Asian Development Bank funds were used to work with Informal settlement residents and the government to provide a structured plan around which utilities, roads, and infrastructure could be based.
Ecosystem-based Adaptation
Indigenous knowledge of nature-based solutions to stem land degradation, and coastal decline and enhance biodiversity is well known here and overseas. The UNFCCC and IPCC recognise the incredible advantage Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) approaches bring to communities to address climate change and natural disasters. EbA done well can increase resilience, via low-cost, low-maintenance measures, as well as stimulate alternative livelihoods. Much of our work involves merging customary practices and the western development process. Mixing adaptation techniques between ecosystem-based (soft) and structural change (hard) is a challenge. We team with indigenous experts and practitioners to ensure we get the right mix of methods to suit the risks at hand.
Integrated Water Management
We work with indigenous communities to ensure water security is high on the agenda and catchments and waterways are enhanced using customary methods of use, protection & management. We help with the use of landscape and/or catchment-based methods such as ‘creek to coast’ approaches. Where traditional knowledge and practice is primary, we partner with communities to mesh contemporary sciences, engineering, and design to achieve desired outcomes. Having worked across jurisdictions in Australia and overseas we are able to enquire and advise on the interface of western and customary laws related to water management.
Carbon and nature-based solutions as part of landscape enhancement and business resilience.
Carbon Farming and Co-benefits
P4SD has been involved in promoting the use of resource accounting and economics to bring about sustainable solutions to communities for 22 years. We believe that systems developed to enable the use of carbon credits and ecosystem and/or biodiversity credits should focus on developing complimentary training and job creation in regions. We undertake technical carbon feasibility assessments, either through remote services (GIS & Remote Sensing, use of NCAT) or through fieldwork, as part of our broader services in Landscape Analysis. P4SD members are technical advisers to international accreditation systems, are past Federal Government Carbon Farming advisers, and continue programs designed to enhance producers and community knowledge of carbon management, greenhouse gas inventories, and net zero approaches.
We have completed carbon assessments overseas and in Australia. Principals have accreditation with the Carbon Market Institute, the QLD Land Restoration Fund, and the World Bank. We ensure that the Protected area strategies and plans we produce, open up opportunities for indigenous communities to enter the carbon and co-benefit accreditation markets. In rural QLD we feel that carbon accreditation should be part of a suite of nature-based solutions to improve production and the health of landscapes and waterways.
Verification, Monitoring & Evaluation (Carbon)
P4SD develops verification and monitoring systems for carbon farming initiatives. We have developed quality assurance systems and controls for verification & monitoring data. We can assist with establishing baselines for the calculation of carbon credits from monitoring data and remote sensing analysis. We manage verification processes and update baselines in accordance with methodologies. Our work enables regular estimates of forward delivery projections for equivalent carbon units.
Landscape Approaches to Carbon Farming
Principals of P4SD were involved in the early promotion of REDD and REDD+ methods promoted by PNG & Puerto Rico in the early 2000s. P4SD has now turned its focus on promoting landscape-scale carbon initiatives, which can have dramatic advantages for production, net zero achievements, catchment & waterway stability, and sustainable land management. Groups of landholders are interested as the approach can provide low-cost entry into the carbon market, carbon initiatives as part of production planning & business enterprise, long-term ROI becomes visible and collaborative efforts improve land & water management across property boundaries. For regional and local governance the approach can: get away from ‘locking up farms’, cluster new job opportunities, and innovation opportunities, as well as provide a vehicle for landscape corridors to stimulate alternative economic investment e.g. agrotourism.
Greenhouse Gas Accounting
We were first involved in GHG inventories in 1999. Linked with our work in carbon and net zero plans, GHG accounting is essential for rural enterprise resilience and growth. We are involved in innovation in GHG and carbon measurements with experience with Australian and International methods. We have used the UNFCCC direct methods, the World Bank GHG tools, as well as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol developed by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
Understanding the landscape: soil, water & vegetation rejuvenated for sustainable production.
Land Rehabilitation
P4SD has undertaken land rehabilitation planning and works as part of Mine closure, urban & rural development, landslip restoration, land remediation, and carbon projects for 20+ years. For large or extensive development GIS, remote sensing, and LiDAR is used to plan land rehab works, in association with the enhancement of waterways, and biodiverse and sensitive environs. We see waterways management, land management, and biodiversity enhancement as interconnected actions. We produce Site Based Management Plans, Construction Environmental Management Plans & Operational Management Plans, including land rehab requirements.
Waterways and Water Quality Management.
We approach water quantity and water quality management from the big picture level (catchments) down to the property-based level to help producers get a return on investments (ROI). This integrated approach to water management can envelop carbon farming, regenerative farming, and holistic land management practices. We have designed and set management plan requirements for constructed water bodies (Sunshine Coast Water Park), used water balance modelling in rehabilitation works to close a mine, generated water harvesting models for tourism developments in remote rural areas, and run capacity-building events to increase knowledge on means to protect our water systems through sustainable land management (SLM).
Soil Capability & Suitability Mapping
We have completed successful Catchment level soil suitability assessments and mapping in the ACT, NSW, SA, and Queensland, as well as in a number of Asia-Pacific countries. P4SD principals worked with the NSW Soils Conservation Service to institute landscape-scale soil suitability assessments for both Rezoning & Development Applications in the mid-1990s. Similar land capability and suitability work has been completed in Niue, Samoa & Timor Leste.
Erosion and Sedimentation Control
P4SD principals first instituted erosion & sediment controls in development projects in the mid-1990s. By 1995 they had assisted the NSW State Dept of Planning, Queanbeyan City, Yarralumla, and Yass Shire Councils to include ESC requirements as part of risk analysis for Rezoning and DCPs (NSW). Changing practices involved inputs from many building companies and landholders. Membership of the International Erosion Control Association has continued since 2005.
Assisted Revegetation Methods
As part of our SLM suite of work, we are involved in large-area rehabilitation including post-mining use of land. For our successes we have included assisted revegetation methods which bring a range of positives: best for large-scale rehab areas; use of local provenance materials; can combine with native foods initiatives; creates new science, local jobs, and businesses, and provides a mutual link between miners and producers.
Mitigation & adaptation to build resilience and coping capacities for drought and other natural disasters.
Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction
Our work here in Australia and overseas benefits from a working knowledge of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015). We are also involved in Climate Adaptation programs of the UNFCCC through National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) across the Asia-Pacific region. We have assisted countries mainstream Climate Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction (CCA & DRR) in decision-making. We have also organised designs for ecosystem-based adaptation and hard (structures) adaptation measures. This has included supervision of on-the-ground measures to help with coastal resilience.
Drought Resilience
We have used UNFCCC and UNCCD guides to map and characterise Drought risk in countries. Through National Action Plans (NAPs) for Sustainable Land Management we have instigated support for better early warning systems; better-characterised data at local levels, expanding awareness of the likely increased incidence of and intensity of droughts; advocating strategic long-term actions. The aim has been to improve resilience, provide assistance to local communities, and help with the coping capacities of growers and individuals. P4SD was engaged by CQU as part of the Regional Economies Centre of Excellence (RECoE – alliance of 4 Qld Universities) to assess the impacts of past droughts across the Fitzroy-Capricornia Region of QLD and engage stakeholders to determine priorities for increasing resilience and coping capacities of communities.
Coastal Adaptation
A 15-year presence in the Pacific through our Samoa office led to many engagements to assist with coastal adaptation projects across countries. We have undertaken rapid post-disaster assessments (Samoa), instituted business resilience capacity programs, provided GIS & spatial analysis of multi-risk elements at a national scale (e.g. geological, tsunami, cyclone, storm, flood & bushfire, etc), and generated best practice guidelines for coastal management.
Capacity Building – Understanding Climate, Coasts, Soil & Water
Many of our international projects are run as capacity development initiatives. We hire local counterparts in countries where we deliver programs and projects. Capacity building, training, and awareness initiatives are either part of project delivery or part of long-term programs. We envelop some of our skillsets through training or capacity development programs run by other NGOs or international organisations such as International Red Cross, TNC, IUCN, UNESCO, Save the Children, etc).
Tech advancements in Drones, GIS, and mapping bases for regional planning & local implementation.
GIS Mapping and Drones
P4SD principals have been producing outputs using remote sensing & GIS since the early 1990s. All land use planning, environmental, NRM, regional & rural development and tourism initiatives involve GIS bases and multi-layer data generation. We are able to use ArcGIS, MapInfo, and QGIS in our work. We have contracts with national & international raw data suppliers to ensure access to high-quality/high-resolution satellite data. We commonly use drones for property-based mapping to ensure base images are of high resolution.
LiDAR, 3D for Spatial Analysis
We often use visual and multispectral layers of data combined with LiDAR capture to assist with 3D and spatial analysis. Whether it be for risk analysis (e.g. tsunami & cyclone wave run-up), biomass assessments (e.g. bushfire risk, fodder production), water management, erosion control, or land development return analysis – we have generated basic algorithms for quantification to suit client needs.
Property Level Land Classification
We have a 25+ history in the use of multi-sources of spatial data for decision-making, land classification & development analysis. This helps with property mapping for carbon, on-farm water management, logistics planning, crop performance, and land rehabilitation planning and management. For larger initiatives like catchment-based NRM initiatives, coastal adaptation, and protected areas management, classification systems are still used and based on spatial parameters.
Training & Capacity Building
We began training in GIS and remote sensing in Niue in 1997 where we developed 1-week and 2-week-based GIS courses. This was rolled out as part of Pacific region-wide training in partnership with SOPAC (Fiji) in 2002. Principals of P4SD still assist Pacific capacity-building efforts in GIS & spatial analysis. With the advancement of microsatellites & multiple sensors for Drones, we are venturing into partnerships with others to address skill shortages in rural Australia.
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