Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority (GB CMA) response to
‘Draft National Wildlife Corridors Plan March 2012’.
Thank you for the opportunity to make a submission to the ‘Draft National Wildlife Corridors Plan’.
The Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority (CMA) is a peak NRM strategic planning body
within Victoria. Many of our projects, funded by both Commonwealth and State Governments have a
landscape linkage focus, and we continue to strive for healthy and resilient landscapes. We work
closely with landholders and other agencies to ensure that on-ground works are strategic and costeffective.
General comments
The Plan contains important information about the role of corridors in planning landscapes. However,
there are no citations and this makes it difficult to understand which information is opinion and which
information comes from peer reviewed scientific journals, etc. The lack of citation reduces its value as
a scientifically based document.
There is a lack of detail about how the Plan will be implemented, apart from some reference to putting
corridors into legislation through some assessment process. It is difficult to comment on its value
when implementation is unclear.
The “Corridors Plan’ implies that corridors are to be seen as the panacea to ecological problems.
Particularly as they will be put into legislation. What are the benefits of legislating certain corridors? A
range of systems approaches are required if we are to better manage biodiversity conservation. For
example, there is some evidence that it may be more important to increase native vegetation extent,
rather than prioritise changing the configuration of landscapes. That is, configuration is only one part
of how we can manage landscapes to better manage wildlife and there are many other considerations.
Landscapes should ideally be seen as systems where a range of interventions are required, to achieve
both ecological and social outcomes. How does the Plan fit within the range of other plans and
policies to ensure a wide variety of interventions are used to strategically change current land use
where required?
Although there are some definitions in the glossary, these are general definitions, and it would be
good to see consistent and well defined words used consistently. For example, you use ecological
connections, linkages, links, corridors, etc. Are these all the same thing? Similarly the use of the term
landscape is not well defined. Can you put an approximate size on what you mean by landscape?
Corridors can imply a contiguous strip of native vegetation, whereas it is more likely that stepping
stone linkages could be achieved.
There are still many questions about the value of corridors to wildlife. An adaptive management
approach that includes long-term monitoring of actual outcomes (eg. increase in bird species richness
and other indicators) would be of benefit. Similarly, the potential detrimental effects of movement of
invasive species and edge effects need to be considered, and scientifically monitored over the long
term. This research requires specific funding. Other questions include:
 should we be planting corridors much more densely than would occur naturally (eg. forest
structure in woodland areas)?
 how wide do corridors need to be and does that vary between vegetation communities?
 when is natural regeneration a useful tool instead of planting?
 how can we get a range of community members involved?
The issue of scale is important, as discussed in the Plan. The large scale of corridors, depicted spatially,
could be seen as either you are ‘in’ or ‘out’ of the broad-scale National Corridors, but we know that
there are many other important ecological communities that would benefit from decreasing isolation
that can only be determined at the regional or local scale. The important point is that corridors need
to be strategically placed within landscapes and defined at a range of scales. If the scale is too large
there is a danger that the linkages are not meaningful, and all that occurs is a scattergun approach
where no linkages are achieved.
Scale needs to be considered in terms of human interest as well. If the corridors are too large it may
not be seen as part of local landscapes, and it may be difficult for people to relate to the vision of the
‘corridor’. How can we ensure that the community feels involved in the decision making process?
How will regional priorities (as defined by CMAs such as ourselves in our Regional Catchment
Strategies) be considered in this plan? Potentially, instead of being descriptive about where corridors
occur now, and may occur in the future, the corridors Plan could clearly outline general principles for
deciding where corridors would be of most benefit at the regional and local scale. In the Goulburn
Broken CMA, our Biodiversity Strategy (2010) outlines where our priority, key linkage pathways occur
(which are in ecologically similar regions that are fragmented: defined as 10-30% native vegetation
cover) (see Figures 1 and 2). It is in these areas that we can potentially achieve the greatest benefit for
the least input. In addition, there is in Victoria, data available that help to achieve prioritisation of
linkage areas. For example, the landscape context tool (see Victorian Department of Sustainability and
Environment website www.dse.vic.gov.au, interactive maps) is a size and distance model that help
identify where corridors may be of most benefit (see Figures 1 and 2). Similarly, a land use map may
assist in identifying areas of high production value where there may be more resistance, and perhaps
where it is not desirable to implement corridors (from either a social, ecological and/or economical
perspective).
Specific comments
Figure 3 is somewhat unclear: It does not identify where the corridors may be at each of the scales
depicted. There appears to be no principles attached to why some areas would be chosen over others.
We attach the priority maps at the regional and landscape scale developed by the Goulburn Broken
CMA (see Figures 1 and 2 below).
Section 1.6: The Plan would benefit with some clear definitions about what fragmented, relictual and
intact means in terms of percentage native vegetation cover. In some areas the native vegetation is
contiguous but that doesn’t mean that it is of similar quality and increasing quality along corridor lines
may be of benefit.
Page 27: Existing corridors. Are there any reviews being carried out so that we can learn from the
development and implementation of these large biolink projects? Is there going to be potential for
agencies and community to comment on the assessment process, and criteria and guidelines that will
allow the corridors to be put into legislation? Why is it necessary to legislate for the development of
corridors?
Page 28: Second paragraph. These seem to be very broad statements and do not seem to be a very
strategic approach to identification and prioritisation of where corridors need to occur.
Page 29: How will monitoring occur given that it requires robust scientific experiments for any
knowledge to be gained about the real value and outcome of investment, not just the delivery of
outputs through a MERI (Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and Improvement) plan?
Glossary: where do the definitions come from? References would add value. For example,
‘Landscape’ includes the terms sub-catchments and environmental domains. These are words that
also require definition to make the term ‘landscapes’ make sense. For example, how many
subcatchments? What if the subcatchments are 100’s km2?
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Compiled by:
Steve Wilson, Program Manager, Land and Biodiversity (GB CMA)
Jenny Wilson, Biodiversity Strategy Manager (GB CMA)
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Figure 1: Map of Goulburn Broken Catchment showing priorities for improving connectivity. For
details see www.gbcma.vic.gov.au and search for biodiversity strategy.
Figure 2: Within the high priority regions, identified in Figure 1, we have identified landscapes
(approximately 10 km x 10 km) where we will prioritise incentives within an experimental framework.
Here, one landscape is overlain with the landscape context tool, where red is the highest priority areas
for linkages because they are associated with large patches and existing native vegetation.
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