Landscape painters in Australia like to represent rural Australia with a gnarled gum tree in a paddock of sheep and cattle against a setting sun, often with a wooded mountain range in the distance. This iconic image represents the land, the people, their values and beliefs, their activities and future. Unfortunately, it does not represent an optimistic view of the future for the natural environment. The image also represents loss of biodiversity, salinity, soil erosion, declining water quality and threatened livelihoods.

Conserving and managing native vegetation is central to the maintenance of biodiversity, land rehabilitation and ecologically sustainable production in Australia. Native vegetation is a part of rural infrastructure needing maintenance just like roads, schools and hospitals. We have recently embarked on a bold experiment with 56 regional organisations planning the management of our natural infrastructure. These organisations are tasked with addressing land degradation, water quality and biodiversity decline. They are pivotal in helping communities and land managers move towards a sustainable coexistence of conservation and primary production.

Native vegetation ecosystems are highly complex, living systems that have a powerful influence on the physical properties, interactions and dynamics of a catchment or region. Similarly, the sustainable management of native vegetation is a complex activity involving a diverse range of knowledge, expertise, sophisticated science and technologies. It is therefore essential that we not only develop this knowledge through research and practice, but also ensure that regional managers of native vegetation and natural resources have access to this knowledge.
Greening Australia has produced Native Vegetation and Regional Management to make the job of finding and using information about vegetation management easier. It represents the collective experiences and knowledge of researchers and managers on planning and managing native vegetation at the regional scale.

I therefore recommend this guide to you.

David Freudenberger
Principal Research Scientist
CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems