Banking on an endangered parrot

“It’s not often you see such disparate groups sitting around a table and talking about fire. But it’s the thing that brings us all together.” – Dr Steve Murphy, Conservation Partners.

What makes the Shephards so unique is their passion for their land and their commitment to a highly endangered bird called the Golden-shouldered Parrot that lives there.

Once common across the Cape York Peninsula, the Golden-shouldered Parrot’s habitat has been reduced to a 3,000 square-kilometre area which includes the Artemis Station. Estimates of the parrot’s total population hover at 700 to 800. On Artemis itself, it’s perhaps as low as 50.

The next part of this story involves Conservation Partners and Dr Steve Murphy, whose partnership with the Shephards has helped restore and protect the Golden-shouldered Parrot’s natural grassland habitat, including the use of savanna fire management on Artemis land.

This method is also known to help lower carbon emissions by reducing the frequency and severity of uncontrolled late-dry-season fires, which are high risk in the Cape York region. When done correctly, this kind of land management can qualify businesses for Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs), a “tradable financial product” aimed at encouraging projects that reduce emissions.

That brings us to the final part of the story – ANZ.

ANZ purchased ACCUs generated at Artemis to offset a portion of its carbon emissions. Jeff Elliott, Environmental Sustainability Change Lead at ANZ says: “While ANZ’s primary aim is to reduce carbon emissions where possible, we also purchase certified carbon offsets. We particularly liked that Artemis’ project also delivered biodiversity benefits.” Conservation Partners share of proceeds from the ACCUs were invested “back into the management of Golden-shouldered Parrots,” Dr Murphy says.

It’s not often you see such “disparate groups sitting around a table and talking about fire,” Dr Murphy says on video. “But it’s the thing that brings us all together.”

You can watch the video and learn more about the Artemis story below.

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Early collaboration

Dr Murphy says Conservation Partners’ work on Artemis is the “continuation of work that began 30 years ago.” The Shephards are fourth-generation graziers who are “so authentically cattle people of Cape York.”

“Sue, very early on, collaborated with some scientists within the state government to collect extensive, foundational ecological information about this bird,” Dr Murphy says. “Thanks to that early work, they were able to put together a conceptual model of what was driving the decline in this species.”

Conservation Partners is a non-profit organisation that works on land with significant conservation values. Instead of acquiring land for restoration, they work collaboratively with existing landholders and custodians to develop practical conservation programs.

In 2019, Dr Murphy and the Shephards entered a partnership, which has over time evolved into Conservation Partners. That partnership sought to address the root cause of the parrot’s decline.

“The crux of the matter is [Artemis station has] lost all these tiny pockets of natural grasslands through a long history of grazing pressure and changed fire management,” Dr Murphy says. As a result, “parrots have lost much of their food and it’s also made it much easier for parrot predators to hunt.”

In response, Dr Murphy says Conservation Partners is “using a combination of restoring those natural grassland pockets and also implementing a suite of emergency actions to boost the parrot population in the short term.”

The use of controlled savanna burning is “enacting and facilitating genuine landscape change,” he tells bluenotes.

And the work is already paying off. In 2023, Artemis saw the biggest flocks of juvenile parrots the property has seen “for several years,” according to Conservation Partners.

Several layers

Dr Murphy says ANZ’s role in the Artemis project is “multi-layered.”

The bank has carbon trading capability and was attracted to the biodiversity elements at Artemis, according to ANZ commodity expert Chris Lambourn.

“The project delivered biodiversity benefits, including conservation of the Golden-shouldered Parrot habitat,” Lambourn says. “We’ve worked closely with the Shephards and the Artemis team to transact their carbon credits.”

The benefits of the ACCUs are twofold, he tells bluenotes: they help “with habitat restoration and maintenance in addition to the carbon element.”

Dr Murphy says the ACCUs are critically important for Artemis.

“It's a diverse alternate income stream, which is obviously really important,” he says.

 ANZ’s involvement also brings the benefit of scale and credibility, Dr Murphy says.

“For an organisation that is so small and so young, to be doing work that a major institution like ANZ acknowledges and also values, is just such a huge shot in the arm.”

As the importance of biodiversity grows in the finance sector, the work of the Shephards and Dr Murphy will inspire more partnerships and innovation around carbon credits.  

Integrated operation

Even with all the conservation work at Artemis, it is integrated with the beef production and does not seek to replace the farming which has happened there for generations.

It’s critical to maintain existing streams of food production, Dr Murphy says, as well as the “heritage of primary production in regional and remote Australia, which extends to maintaining healthy and vibrant communities.”

It’s about acknowledging the value of mixed land use, like at Artemis, Dr Murphy says. Finding common ground in all the “challenges we're facing and working together.”

On Artemis, and the Golden-shoulder Parrot, Dr Murphy is in for the long haul. But Conservation Partners has already expanded its successful Artemis model to other locations and other endangered species.

“We're very careful about where we get involved because we want to be there forever,” he says. “Most conservation management projects in Australia aren't going to be solved with five or even 10 years of action.”

“We're talking about long-term, permanent management.”

Nancy Wang is the Director of the Sustainable Finance with Institutional at ANZ.