Reports
The NSW Annual Report on Native Vegetation 2010 (110685NVAR2010.pdf, 2.49MB) is the third annual report to be released and combines four major reports relating to native vegetation management in NSW. These are: the Native Vegetation Report Card, the Private Native Forest Report, the NSW Woody Vegetation Change Report 2009–2010 and the Compliance and Enforcement Report Card.
The Native Vegetation Report Card provides the latest information on the conservation, restoration, management and approvals for clearing native vegetation across NSW.
Some 1,025,000 hectares of native vegetation were conserved or improved across the state in 2010. In contrast, only 3600 hectares were approved to be legally cleared where environmental values were maintained or improved through mechanisms such as the use of offsets.
The Private Native Forest Report discusses land managed under Private Native Forest (PNF) Property Vegetation Plans (PVP). Up to 68,595 hectares of land were approved during 2010 to be managed under PNF PVPs.
The NSW Woody Vegetation Change Report 2009–2010 covers losses in woody vegetation due to clearing for agriculture, forestry and infrastructure activities. It also reports losses in woody vegetation resulting from bushfires.
The report does not identify gains in woody vegetation due to planting and natural regrowth. The total net reduction in the area of woody vegetation in NSW over the period 2009 to 2010 was 117,500 hectares or 0.15 per cent of the area of NSW.
OEH is responsible for implementing a credible compliance and enforcement framework to protect the environmental values of native vegetation and to ensure that landholders who comply with the law are not disadvantaged.
OEH undertakes this role through stakeholder engagement, strategic investigations, appropriate enforcement actions and targeted compliance campaigns. The Compliance and Enforcement Report Card provides Information on OEH’s compliance and enforcement activities.
The Annual Report 2010 demonstrates that extensive areas of native vegetation are being actively managed and conserved by farmers and rural landholders who understand the value in conserving remnant vegetation.
Woody vegetation change
For the first time the Annual Report is being released with accompanying data on woody vegetation change (WoodyVegFigures1988to2010.xls, 278KB). Previous Annual Reports only included woody vegetation change data at the state-wide level across two years (the reporting year and previous year). This year the Annual Report provides woody change data for the years 1988 to 2010 at the local government, catchment management authority (CMA) and interim biogeographic regionalisation of Australia (IBRA) region level. The statistics show annualised rates of change from 1988 to 2010 and are available as Excel spreadsheets.
This data enables stakeholders to access information that is used for calculating annual reporting of woody vegetation change.
These figures are derived from the analysis of Landsat satellite woody change data (25m) for 1988 - 2010. More information on access to these and other spatial data products can be found on the Ancillary Vegetation Products: Data Inventory page.
Woody vegetation extent
Woody vegetation extent differs slightly as a measure of vegetation from woody vegetation change. Woody vegetation extent measures Foliage Projective Cover (FPC) which is used across many Australian vegetation classification frameworks. For the purpose of this data FPC refers to the vertically projected percentage cover of photosynthetic foliage from tree and shrub life forms only.
The woody vegetation extent data and FPC 2008 product is published below for each IBRA and CMA region in NSW as Excel spreadsheets. It is not included in the Annual Report, but is reported here as part of the Natural Resource Commission’s auditing of the State’s commitments to natural resource management embedded in the State Plan.
Click on the CMA region below to download the data for that region:
| Border Rivers – Gwydir CMA (NVdataCMABRG.xls, 25KB) | Central West CMA (NVdataCMACW.xls, 25KB) | Hawkesbury-Nepean CMA (NVdataCMAHN.xls, 25KB) |
| Hunter Central Rivers CMA (NVdataCMAHCR.xls, 25KB) | Lachlan CMA (NVdataCMAL.xls, 25KB) | Lower Murray-Darling CMA (NVdataCMALMD.xls, 17KB) |
| Murray CMA (NVdataCMAMY.xls, 17KB) | Murrumbidgee CMA (NVdataCMAM.xls, 17KB) | Namoi CMA (NVdataCMAN.xls, 17KB) |
| Northern Rivers CMA (NVdataCMANR.xls, 17KB) | Southern Rivers CMA (NVdataCMASR.xls, 17KB) | Sydney Metropolitan CMA (NVdataCMASM.xls, 17KB) |
| Western CMA (NVdataCMAW.xls, 17KB) | | |
Click on IBRA region below to download the data for that region:
| Australian Alps (NVdataIBRAAA.xls, 17KB) | Brigalow Belt - South (NVdataIBRABBS.xls, 25KB) | Broken Hill Complex (NVdataIBRABHC.xls, 25KB) |
| Channel Country (NVdataIBRACC.xls, 17KB) | Cobar Peneplain (NVdataIBRACP.xls, 25KB) | Darling Riverine Plains (NVdataIBRADRP.xls, 25KB) |
| Mulga Lands (NVdataIBRAML.xls, 25KB) | Murray Darling Depression (NVdataIBRAMDD.xls, 25KB) | Nandewar (NVdataIBRAN.xls, 25KB) |
| New England Tablelands (NVdataIBRANET.xls, 25KB) | NSW North Coast (NVdataIBRANC.xls, 25KB) | NSW South Western Slopes (NVdataIBRASWS.xls, 26KB) |
| Riverina (NVdataIBRAR.xls, 25KB) | Simpson - Strzelecki Dunefields (NVdataIBRASSD.xls, 25KB) | South East Corner (NVdataIBRASEC.xls, 25KB) |
| South Eastern Highlands* (NVdataIBRASEH.xls, 25KB) | Southern Eastern Queensland (NVdataIBRASEQ.xls, 25KB) | Sydney Basin (NVdataIBRASB.xls, 25KB) |
*Please note the South Eastern Highlands IBRA region file does not include land within the Australian Capital Territory.
Limitations to woody vegetation change data
Woody Vegetation Change data is derived from analysis of satellite images using the SLATS Methodology and used to report against a number of national and state wide programs. The information provided allows users the opportunity to access the raw data that supports the figures included in the various reports on native vegetation.
In accessing and analysing the information provided it is important to realise the following:
- Woody vegetation changes do not take into account regrowth or re-plantings.
- The figures do not distinguish between approved, permitted, exempt or illegal clearing under the Native Vegetation Act 2003.
- Since clearing authorised in one year may not happen in that year clearing rates and PVP approvals data cannot be aligned.
Previous reports
Page last updated: 07 March 2012
