Australian Native Vegetation Assessment 2001
Maria Cofinas, Colin Creighton
National Land and Water Resources Audit, 2001
ISBN 0 642 37128 8
Native vegetation management and the Audit
Red gums on the Murray River
Photo: Murray-Darling Basin Commission
Natural resource managers are dealing with increasingly complex and interrelated natural resource issues including greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity conservation, land degradation control (especially dryland salinity and erosion), riparian revegetation and sustainable forest development. Land managers need access to accurate, consistent and preferably seamless Australia-wide data about the type, extent, change and condition of vegetation. The development of the National Vegetation Information System framework was designed to meet these objectives.
Other natural resource assessments addressed by the Audit-dryland salinity, sustainable agriculture and production, ecosystem health (particularly catchment and river assessment), and social and economic wellbeing (from an amenity or nature conservation value perspective) and rangeland monitoring-have relevance to or reliance on vegetation assessment and monitoring.
Information on vegetation cover and type provides much of the framework for the catchment and river condition assessments.
- The status of river, estuary and catchment condition is presented in the Audit's Australian Catchment, River and Estuary Assessment 2001 report (NLWRA in prep.)
Information on vegetation cover and extent is needed to assess Australia's biodiversity. Arguably native vegetation and its change in extent and condition is a key surrogate for biodiversity. Information compiled as part of the National Vegetation Information System is being built on through further data collection and assessment to complete the Audit's biodiversity assessment.
- Assessment of Australia's biodiversity at the subregional scale uses an assessment of native vegetation with the National Vegetation Information System underpinning this Audit initiative.
Information requirements for better reporting and managing Australia's rangelands include assessments of productivity and indicators for biodiversity monitoring, ecosystem function, extreme climatic events and fire. These require information on vegetation type and extent.
- Many of the components of the Australian rangelands monitoring and reporting program, presented as part of the Rangelands -Tracking Changes - The Australian Collaborative Rangeland Information System report (NLWRA 2001d), rely on information on Australia's native vegetation, facilitated now through the National Vegetation Information System.
Information on Australia's native vegetation underpins natural resource management. Australia needs to build and capitalise on the Audit's native vegetation initiative by:
- continuing development of the National Vegetation Information System, adopting Australia-wide consistent and comparable approaches to native vegetation resources assessment, updating of data sets and monitoring; and
- linking native vegetation type and extent with land use mapping and land management practices, native production forests and plantations, riparian vegetation condition and the assessment of weed invasions providing an integrated and sustainable natural resource information set on which to base recommendations and management.
Access to Australia's natural resource information, including native vegetation information is available through the Audit's Australian Natural Resources Atlas (http://www.environment.gov.au/atlas)
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