Conservation of such on-farm remnant native forests patches
and increased functionality through connectivity of these remnant
patches could be supported by a scheme similar to Reducing
Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation of tropical rainforests
in developing countries (REDD; Gullison et al., 2007). Even
though the REDD scheme is devised for tropical rainforest conservation,
a local version of REDD-styled framework could be
developed in the Australian context aimed to reduce and eliminate
emissions from deforestation and degradation of remnant native
forests and securing their permanent protection, legally and ecologically.
In addition, studies have shown that benefits of REDD
based schemes will sharply increase by explicitly incorporating biodiversity
values into carbon payments (Venter et al., 2009) which
can be a justification for attracting higher incentives for conserving
more diverse remnant vegetation with greater conservation
value.