The information provided in this guide applies to catchments and regions across Australia. It applies in particular to the 56 Natural Resource Management (NRM) regions (Figure 1) that are used as a basis for the accredited regional management plans developed as part of the NHT and the NAP. The guide focuses on terrestrial native vegetation and refers to environmental, economic and social outcomes. Riparian systems, and research on broader elements of biodiversity such as fauna, are referred to where relevant but it is beyond the scope of this guide to cover these topics in detail. Native vegetation has many definitions, with each State having its own set of defining criteria for mapping and/or legislative purposes. For this report, the definition agreed to by all governments at the State and Commonwealth level in the National Framework for the Management and Monitoring of Australia’s Native Vegetation has been adopted. The framework defines native vegetation as ‘all vegetation that is indigenous to Australia’, with indigenous referring to an organism belonging naturally to a region. This definition is broad enough to include scattered trees within agricultural landscapes that have often lost their associated understorey. Figure 1: Interim Natural Resource Management Regions used to guide natural resource management activities and investments through the extension of the Natural Heritage Trust
Source: Environmental Resource Information Network (ERIN) (2005) Interim Natural Resource Management Regions. Department of the Environment
and Heritage. Canberra ACT.
It is important to note that while regions and catchments are increasingly used to define our land management areas, the size of these areas may vary considerably depending on local geography and conditions, and existing government arrangements. In southern and eastern Australia, management is commonly based on catchments or bioregions and these areas may be relatively small. In contrast, the NRM regions used in the broad expanses of the rangelands and tropical savannas of Australia as part of the NHT process are often relatively large, and may encompass a number of distinct regions. Several National Land & Water Resources Audit projects use bioregions for analyses, assessment and reporting on natural resource management issues. The Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) is a bioregional framework developed in the 1990s that has become well established in conservation planning. IBRA regions represent a landscape-based approach to classifying the land surface from a range of continental data on environmental attributes. In the most recent classification, 85 bioregions have been identified across Australia, each reflecting a unifying set of major environmental influences, which shape the occurrence of flora and fauna and their interaction with the physical environment (See Figure 2). The bioregions are different, but complementary, to the NRM regions used in the NHT/NAP. The Audit’s Landscape Health in Australia and Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity 2002 projects developed 384 sub-regions, which overlay the IBRA regions. Bioregions are a particular focus of the Audit reports, as well as the Australian Native Vegetation Assessment, and hence are frequently referred to in this report. Bioregions are also used for some of the State of the Environment reporting themes at a national level, and for conservation planning in many States and Territories. The assessment of native vegetation and biodiversity at bioregional scale provides critical information for its management in broader planning processes. Figure 2: Interim Biogeographical Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) version 6.1. Representing a landscape based
approach to classifying the land surface. Specialist ecological knowledge combined with appropriate regional and
continental scale biophysical data sets were interpreted to describe 85 IBRA regions across Australia
Source: Department of the Environment and Heritage 2004) Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation of Australia (IBRA Version 6.1). Developed through the cooperative efforts of the Australia Government Department of the Environment and Heritage and State/Territory land management agencies. Canberra
ACT
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