Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act: Listing Process

Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act - The Listing Process

The Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act provides for the establishment and maintenance of three lists:

The Excluded List, containing native flora and fauna taxa which are not to be conserved because they constitute a serious threat to human welfare; the only item on this list is "human disease organisms"
The Threatened List, containing taxa and communities of native flora and fauna which are threatened, and
The Processes List, containing potentially threatening processes.

The Listing Process commences with the submission of a nomination. Any person may make a nomination. The Flora and Fauna Guarantee Regulations specify the prescribed information which must be provided in a nomination. A nomination may be to add an item to, or remove an item from, the Threatened List or the Processes List. (The Excluded List is maintained without the need for nominations) DSE has also prepared Microsoft Word templates for nominations and a list of useful references.

The nomination is considered by the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC), an expert advisory committee comprising seven scientists, a majority of whom are not Victorian Government employees. The Committee determines whether the nomination is for a valid item and assesses whether the item satisfies one or more of the FFG-listing criteria.

The Committee prepares a preliminary recommendation in regard to each nomination, stating whether or not the nomination satisfies the listing criteria and is therefore supported or rejected by the Committee. This preliminary recommendation is then advertised and made available to the public for comment for a minimum period of 30 days.

Then Committee then reconsiders the nomination in light of any further evidence provided during the public comment period and makes a final recommendation. The final recommendation is then fowarded to the Minister for Environment and Climate Change, the Hon. Gavin Jennings MLC, together with any comments from the Victorian Catchment Management Council.

You can view or download the most recent SAC Recommendation Reports.

Upon receiving the Committee’s final recommendation, the Minister has 30 days in which to decide whether or not recommend to the Governor-in-Council that the item be listed or delisted, as the case may be. If listing or delisting proceeds, it is effected by a Governor-in-Council Order. The process is complete when the Order is published in the Victorian Government Gazette, which can be found at www.gazette.vic.gov.au

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Plants and Animals