Modeling ecosystem futures in support of Australia’s Nature Repair Market

This past summer, ApexRMS embarked on a new collaboration with CSIRO’s Ecological Knowledge System (EKS) team to support Australia’s new Nature Repair Market initiative. Led by the Australian Government, this national program aims to incentivize landowners and investors to restore and protect native ecosystems through a voluntary biodiversity credit market. At the heart of the initiative lies the need for trusted, science-based tools to assess ecosystem change and quantify biodiversity benefits.

To help meet this need, ApexRMS team members Colin Daniel and Sarah Chisholm are working with CSIRO scientists Anna Richards, Suzanne Prober, and Sarah Luxton to transform existing conceptual ecological models of Australia’s ecosystems into fully quantitative state-and-transition simulation models (STSMs). Built using the ST-Sim package for the SyncroSim software platform, these models will simulate how ecosystems are likely to change under different management and climate scenarios. By generating counterfactual projections (i.e. what the landscape might look like without intervention) the STSMs will provide a scientific baseline against which the impacts of Nature Repair Market projects can be measured.

The team is currently piloting this approach in one of Australia’s most ecologically important regions: the Brigalow Belt. Stretching across nearly 400,000 km² from New South Wales to Queensland, the Brigalow Belt is one of Australia’s 15 national biodiversity hotspots. Its unique mosaic of eucalypt woodlands, brigalow forests, and vine thickets hosts a rich array of native flora and fauna. However, the region is also under significant pressure from grazing, mining, land clearing, and weed invasion, challenges that underscore the urgency of effective conservation planning.

Developed with local experts at a Brisbane workshop last month, the Brigalow model demonstrates how STSMs can support transparent, evidence-based conservation decisions in the Nature Repair Market. By combining expert ecological knowledge with dynamic simulation tools, this approach strengthens the scientific foundation for restoration investments and biodiversity accounting.

We’re excited to continue collaborating with the EKS team and explore how STSMs can be applied across Australia’s diverse ecosystems to support ecological restoration, climate resilience, and market integrity.