Response to Draft National Wildlife Corridors Plan – March 2012
From: The Statewide Advisory Group for Conservation Management Networks in Victoria
August 2010
The Statewide Advisory Group (SWAG) for Conservation Management Networks (CMNs) in Victoria
welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Draft National Wildlife Corridors Plan – March 2012.
The Statewide Advisory Group is an independent group that brings together representatives from
the thirteen CMNs around the state.
Managing and connecting native vegetation in fragmented agricultural landscapes has been
described as one of Australia’s greatest environmental challenges, especially as appropriate
management is required across tenure boundaries.
Conservation Management Networks are a response to that challenge.
A CMN is an umbrella group of public and private land managers and other interested individuals
who work together to build networks of remnant native vegetation for biodiversity outcomes across
land tenures. CMNs are, with small exceptions, the only network specifically focusing on integrated
conservation management of remnant vegetation across land tenures.
The Statewide Advisory Group for CMNs commends National Wildlife Corridors Plan Advisory Group
on the production of a plan that recognises the importance of building connectivity at a national,
regional and local level, and seeks to restore and manage ecological connections in the Australian
landscape.
Our main responses are:
1. SWAG supports the vision outlined in the draft plan. The SWAG notes that there is little detail of
how the plan will be implemented, which will be central to the success of the plan.
2. CMNs are a tried and successful model for building a collaborative, cross tenure, landscape
approach to biodiversity conservation. The Plan highlights the need for a ‘collaborative, whole-oflandscape approach to biodiversity conservation that is based on voluntary cooperation and the
existing efforts of communities, landholders, governments and industry.’ The SWAG suggests CMNs
are the perfect model for delivering this sort of project, and strongly recommend its further
deployment and resourcing across Australia.
DRAFT Statewide Advisory Group for Conservation Management Networks in Victoria: submission on Draft National
Wildlife Corridors Plan Page 1 of 2
3. The SWAG suggests in the designing of the Wildlife Corridors Act you should be aware of
existing leases and licences on public land in the proposed corridors, so that corridors on public
land can be properly recognised as valuable ecological linkages.
4. SWAG suggests that the implementation of the plan, in particular the Wildlife Corridors Act,
needs to be adequately flexible to take into account future research and learnings in wildlife
corridor creation and biodiversity conservation.
5. Finally the SWAG would like to emphasise the importance of groups and networks such as
CMNs having on-going co-ordination and facilitation support to be active and flourish. The plan
outlines the importance of community groups and network to contribute to the National Wildlife
Corridor plan. Many of these groups struggle to secure consistent funding for co-ordination costs etc,
as most funding programs focus on the ‘on-ground’ activities. SWAG encourages the Advisory
Group and the Federal Government, as part of the implementation of this plan, to consider investing
in the on-going costs of these groups and their coordinating bodies to ensure these groups maintain
their capacity to deliver and contribute to projects such a wildlife corridors.
ABOUT SWAG & CMNS

Key aspects of CMNs that differentiate them from other projects include their multi-tenure
approach, their emphasis on active management of native vegetation, their support and
encouragement of sustainable farming, their voluntary nature and their focus on native
vegetation types that cannot be adequately reserved. CMNs focus on management regimes
that maintain, enhance and protect these ecological communities in the long term.

There are thirteen CMNs in the state: Gippsland Plains, East Gippsland Rainforest, Northern
Plains, Wedderburn, Mid Loddon, Broken Boosey, Whroo Goldfield, Longwood Plains,
Volcanic Plains, Otways, Kara Kara, Strathbogie Ranges and Lower Goulburn.

In 2008 CMNs in Victoria produced a Strategic Plan that suggests a number of actions for
CMNs to focus on individually, but also some important integrating tasks – under the
stewardship of a collective body (the Statewide Advisory Group). The Plan was developed
and supported by some key CMN partners: Trust for Nature, Parks Victoria, DSE and East
Gippsland, West Gippsland, North-Central and Goulbourn-Broken CMAs.

Already CMNs are helping Victoria meet not only state but national biodiversity objectives.
DRAFT Statewide Advisory Group for Conservation Management Networks in Victoria: submission on Draft National
Wildlife Corridors Plan Page 2 of 2