260 Franklin Street,
Adelaide SA 5000
Phone: (08) 7127 4630
Fax: (08) 8231 9773
Email: ncssa@ncssa.asn.au
Website: www.ncssa.asn.au
ABN: 40 538 422 811
GST registered
Director,
Conservation Incentives and Design Section
Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities
GPO Box 787,
Canberra
ACT 2601
20 April 2012
To Whom It May Concern,
RE: Draft National Wildlife Corridors Plan.
Consultation draft
The Nature Conservation Society of South Australia (NCSSA) is a community based, not for profit
organisation with a diverse membership drawn from all parts of the State. The Society's primary objective
is to "foster the conservation of the State's wildlife and natural habitats through effective scientific
research and education".
Since it’s inception in 1963, the NCSSA has taken an active role in the protection of South Australia's
natural resources and the Society continues to run a variety of highly regarded biodiversity conservation
projects. These projects target critical gaps in knowledge and action and include: improving the
understanding of biodiversity within the community; on-ground action towards the recovery of threatened
Flora and fauna; supporting land managers to restore habitat on private and public land; collecting and
communicating high quality scientific and technical information; and contributing to the formation and
review of natural resource management policy.
The Nature Conservation Society strongly supports the overall driving principles of the Draft National
Wildlife Corridors Plan. In particular the Society is delighted that the Plan acknowledges that connectivity
at a landscape scale is a fundamental requirement of healthy, productive landscapes. The Society
celebrates the Advisory Group’s dedication to initiating a collaborative, whole-of-landscape approach to
biodiversity conservation, based on voluntary cooperation and the existing efforts of communities,
landholders, governments and industry.
In addition to the overall driving principles of the Plan the Society also supports the following key
points of the Draft Plan;

The inclusive and flexible nature of the Draft Plan, which will allow for the adaptive management
of corridors as new scientific and ecological research becomes available.

The Plan’s strong focus on stakeholder consultation and making use of community knowledge
through relevant community consultation.

The Advisory Group’s drive to have the Plan recognised as part of a National Wildlife Corridors
Act. The independent assessment procedure allowing the community to nominate future National
Wildlife Corridors for declaration by the Minister for the Environment is an important part of
educating and engaging the community in the importance of landscape connectivity. The Act will
also allow for a more strategic method of monitoring and reporting, and the identification of future
investment needs.

That South Australia’s current conservation efforts are well recognised in the Draft Plan.
The Society has several suggestions that may help to improve the Draft Plan;

Recognising the role of waterways as an important part of landscape connectivity. While the
Draft Plan does not overtly exclude waterways as a part of present and future corridors, we
believe that the Plan would be strengthened by specific mention of the unique means of
connectivity that healthy waterways provide.

Recognition that fire regimes have a key landscape and ecological role South Australia.

The emphasis of the Plan needs to be kept open to include connectivity for both small and large
scale corridors. This will ensure that a range of representative habitats and ecosystems are
available throughout the corridor network and that reasonable amounts of intact vegetation are
included.

The Society is very interested in being involved in the discussion of monitoring, evaluation and
reporting as it is essential that these criteria have a scientific focus and are consistent and
functional at a National level.

A legislative review may be needed to ensure that the guiding principles are successful, as many
forms of State legislation may in fact inhibit the overarching guiding principles of the Plan. It will
be necessary to determine how the new Act will interface with other forms of legislation and how
it will affect landscape planning decisions as opposed to conservation considerations.

The success of this Plan will in part be reliant on funding availability. The Plan needs to pay
further attention to addressing innovative ways of developing regimes for funding and managing
corridors. Including providing investment at a local scale and strategic investment for acquiring
the necessary funds for monitoring, evaluation, reporting and ongoing adaptive management.
Finally The Society would like to be involved in any ongoing consultation for expanding community
knowledge of wildlife corridors and connectivity conservation. NGO’s will be extremely important
organisations in achieving this plan. The Nature Conservation Society in particular would be a great
resource for the Government when looking to develop a community education plan for South Australia,
due to the high level of scientific research we conduct, our on ground work and our strong links to the
community and landholders in South Australia.
For further information please contact the Society’s Conservation Ecologists, Georgina Mollison and
Annie Bond on (08) 7127 4630 or via email at georgina.mollison@ncssa.asn.au or anthelia.bond@ncssa.asn.au
Yours sincerely,
Georgina Mollison
Conservation Ecologist