Parks

National Reserve System

Australian Guidelines for Establishing the National Reserve System

Commonwealth of Australia 2002
ISBN 0642214298

PDF file

About the document

The Australian Guidelines for Establishing the National Reserve System have been prepared to assist government agencies, non-government organisations and the community in the development of the National Reserve System (NRS), and to assist stakeholders in the understanding of this process. The Guidelines will be applied in the delivery of the National Reserve System Program (NRSP), a program of the Commonwealth Government’s Natural Heritage Trust of Australia.

The Guidelines were developed by the National Reserve System Scientific Taskforce of the Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council (ANZECC). They build upon the framework provided by the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (Thackway and Cresswell (Eds), 1995), otherwise known as IBRA, and should be read in conjunction with that document.

The Guidelines have been formulated to provide a consistent national approach for developing the terrestrial protected area system. They are not intended to replicate or override existing State and Territory processes.

The Guidelines were developed for application across ecosystems other than forests and some specific woodland ecosystems, which are the subject of Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) processes. The Guidelines for the NRS are not intended to refine the RFA reserve outcomes.