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Indicator: BD-16 The proportion and area of native vegetation and changes over time

Data

Major vegetation groups

Prior to European settlement native vegetation covered most of Australia but now only 87% of the country is vegetated by native species. Most of the change has been from clearing of forests and woodlands, which originally covered 54% of the country and now covers 42% of the country. The following table provides a more detailed analysis of vegetation remaining.

* except for the NSW component, where most data are from 1997;

Source: Department of the Environment and Heritage 2006, National Vegetation Information System (NVIS) Stage 1, Version 3.0 Major Vegetation Groups, viewed 30 May 2006, http://www.deh.gov.au/erin/nvis/mvg/index.html, National Reserve System Programme Priority Review 2006 (in prep.) Parks Australia, DEH, Canberra.

Replace 20_veg_remaining_figure.xls with 20_veg_remaining_figure2.xls (Chart 1)

Insert map (from Matt Bolton)

Insert map (from Matt Bolton)

Current extent of woody vegetation

Insert map from document 20_veg_remaining_map1

What the data mean

About 87% of Australia’s estimated pre-1750 vegetation remains although clearing has not been uniform across major vegetation types. It is the densely settled coastal, temperate regions (originally mainly native forest and woodland), particularly on the eastern coast of the continent, that have lost most of their vegetation. Of the 13% of Australia’s original vegetation that has been lost since European settlement, most has been forests and woodlands - almost a quarter of Australia’s native forests and woodland has been cleared, mainly in what is now the intensive land use zone. It is generally assumed that more complex and species rich ecological communities are present in forest and woodland areas than in sparsely vegetated arid areas.

Many vegetation types have undergone significant changes since European arrival. ‘Low closed forest and tall closed shrublands’, for example, was uncommon and now is even more so, with only 63% remaining. About 66% of ‘rainforest and vine thickets’, remains. The rarest pre-European vegetation type was ‘Eucalyptus low open forest’ - about 83% remains. The most widespread pre-European vegetation type was hummock grasslands (covering about 18% of Australia) and most of it still remains although its condition and density of hummocks may have decreased due to grazing, weeds and other pressures.

Data Limitations

Methodologies for deriving quantitative assessments of the status of Australia’s native vegetation vary considerably.

The data does not indicate condition of the vegetation.

Woody vegetation is defined as vegetation with at least 20% canopy cover and potentially 2 metres tall.

The woody clearing and regrowth data is 'AGO Version May 2006', and are assumed correct at the time of supply.

The NLWRA reports that native plantings and small native remnants have not been included in its assessment.

The following table shows the NLWRA 2001 assessment of estimated pre-1750 vegetation (by major vegetation type) and the more recent NVIS assessment of estimated pre-1750 vegetation, with the Audit’s 2001 assessment of current vegetation and the NVIS 2005 assessment of current vegetation. The table shows the difficulty showing recent vegetation trends while methodologies for data collection and data interpretation continue to improve.

Further Information

• Australian Native Vegetation Assessment 2001 
• Australia's State of the Forests Report 2003 
• Native Vegetation in Western Australia