Biodiversity in Regional Planning
The Australian Government is encouraging planning and action at a region scale through the Natural Heritage Trust and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality. Funding is provided to regions to implement accredited natural resource management plans. A major requirement for accreditation is that plans cover the full range of natural resource management issues, including biodiversity conservation.
Taking a landscape or regional approach enables decision-makers to better integrate biodiversity conservation with a range of other factors. It is an appropriate scale of planning to allow consideration of the interactions of land uses with plant and animal communities, soils and water at an ecosystem level. Regional planning can be effective for protecting natural systems and habitats, rehabilitating degraded landscapes, and managing threats and threatened species.
Land and Water Australia managed a project on behalf of the Department of the Environment and Water Resources on "Integrating Biodiversity into Regional NRM Planning". The project was funded from the Natural Heritage Trust. The results are reported in:
