Environmental performance reporting

Sustainability Report 2005-2006

Department of the Environment and Water Resources, 2007

Parks Australia Environmental Performance

Environmental management

EM2: Environmental performance improvement process

Goals 2005-06
Performance 2005-06 and trends

Parks Australia operates in accordance with a divisional plan which includes the long-term outcomes and annual operating plans for the agency, and reflects the Director’s responsibilities under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). It identifies specific objectives for the current year, strategies to achieve those objectives, and the performance indicators to be used to measure success. The plan is reviewed and revised annually.

To assist in measuring performance, seven Key Result Areas (KRAs)-natural heritage management, cultural heritage management, joint management, visitor management and reserve use, stakeholders and partnerships, business management, and biodiversity knowledge management, and a set of indicators to report against the KRAs-have been identified at the agency level. It is the responsibility of each individual park to develop a set of park-level performance indicators, which are both relevant to the specific park and aligned with the agency-level indicators. All parks are continuing to develop monitoring programmes to provide a report against these indicators each year in a State of the Parks Report. Additional indicators are currently being developed to assist monitoring efforts.

Parks Australia operations in Commonwealth reserves are governed by each reserve’s management plan that is adopted under the EPBC Act. Management plans provide procedures for addressing environmental risks such as procedures for assessment of infrastructure development, fire management, storage and handling of fuels and hazardous chemicals.

Parks Australia uses a risk management system that is based on a comprehensive risk watch list. This is reviewed and updated quarterly and covers safety, biodiversity, cultural heritage, community relations and business risks. Biodiversity knowledge management is a key risk. The risk watch list addresses identified risks of direct concern to the people, stakeholders, programmes, projects, activities and interests of the various parts of the agency.

The full list of risk categories monitored by Parks is:

  1. safety
  2. natural heritage management
  3. cultural heritage management
  4. biodiversity knowledge management
  5. community and government relations
  6. visitor management and park use
  7. business management

Measures to mitigate potential impacts are reviewed regularly. And the list for each reserve is incorporated into the management planning process including formal management plans. Current management plans are available at www.deh.gov.au/parks/publications/index.html

Commentary

The Director of National Parks (DNP) also maintains a system of incident reporting that covers the areas outlined in the risk lists. This information is fed back into the quarterly review of the risk list.

When the DNP has been managing a park for up to 30 years, the incremental improvement in reduced risk year-to-year is often very small. A comprehensive incident reporting system has been in place since 2002. As the reporting system improves, the number of incidents reported has increased (in some cases), but this indicates better reporting rather than poorer risk management.

The DNP has received Comcover awards over the past three years for the risk management system, with associated reductions in annual insurance premiums. The agency rates highly in Comcover’s annual risk management benchmarking survey for medium-sized agencies: scoring 7 in 2005-06 (two points above the median), with the risk management system rated as “comprehensive”.

Goals 2006-07

Related Indicators

Parks Australia Indicators

Other Indicators

Contents

  • TBL Report 04-05
  • TBL Report 03-04

    • Key

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