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Blueprint for a healthy Country and thriving regions
The New South Wales (NSW) Government has committed to the most significant reform to the state’s land management framework in over 20 years. This reform provides an opportunity to reverse the trajectory of environmental decline and put in place a whole-of-landscape approach that recognises the importance of natural capital in underpinning community wellbeing, supporting rich and diverse ecosystems, improving agricultural productivity, ensuring climate change resilience and respecting Aboriginal peoples’ deep connections to Country.
This blueprint outlines a model for landscape management in NSW, building on the NSW Plan for Nature and opportunities presented by the Commonwealth’s Nature Positive Plan and informed by subject matter experts, land managers and policy experts across NSW. The model places regional communities at the centre, rebuilds trust and offers them greater agency in their future. It provides a collaborative framework for people across NSW to work together to protect and restore ecosystems as a whole.
Restoring landscapes offers significant carbon sequestration potential, and high-integrity carbon projects undertaken strategically in the landscape can help mitigate climate change, generate revenue and deliver outcomes for nature. Mounting evidence that protecting nature is linked to prosperity is motivating action to unlock the value of biodiversity at scale. Improving natural capital has the potential to increase productivity on farms, and provide health and quality of life benefits for communities.
Model components
- Establish an Aboriginal Land and Sea Commissioner to support the important role of Aboriginal people in repairing Country.
- Create an online spatial tool which identifies natural and Traditional ecological values and tracks changes in their condition.
- Develop a NSW healthy landscape strategy that takes an ecosystem approach to managing landscapes.
- Rebuild trust by designing and delivering reforms with communities using an integrated regional approach.
- Implement a Land Stewardship Package to reward land managers for improving outcomes for nature.
- Safeguard NSW’s irreplaceable biodiversity and cultural values through nuanced law reforms that work for people and nature.
- Deliver continual improvement through accountability, integrity and transparency.
