New South Wales Consolidated Acts

BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION ACT 2016 - SECT 5.3

5.3 Content of Strategy

(1) The Strategy is to comprise--

(a) principles that guide the identification of priority investment areas for biodiversity conservation, and

(b) principles that guide investment in those priority investment areas, and

(c) a map of identified priority investment areas.

(2) The Minister may include the map of identified priority investment areas with the map of existing public and private land areas whose biodiversity is protected.

(3) The first Strategy may be made before priority investment areas are fully mapped.

(4) In preparing the Strategy, the Minister is to consider the following--

(a) the purpose of this Act,

(b) the role of the Strategy in complementing--

(i) established principles for establishing land conservation areas, including comprehensiveness, adequacy and representativeness, and

(ii) other government mechanisms for biodiversity conservation, including environmental planning instruments,

(c) the importance of having good samples of the least protected ecosystems,

(d) any other matter prescribed by the regulations.

(5) Priority investment areas may include (without limitation)--

(a) core areas--being large remnant native vegetation areas whose management will contribute the greatest benefit to the conservation of biodiversity within a bioregion, and

(b) State and regional biodiversity corridors--being linear areas that link core areas and play a crucial role in maintaining connections between animal and plant populations that would otherwise be isolated and at greater risk of local extinction, and

(c) areas containing the least protected ecosystems of public or private land, and

(d) areas required to increase the comprehensiveness, adequacy and representativeness of biodiversity in protected areas of public or private land.