W hile the State Government is not the only sector of the Victorian community with an interest in biodiversity conservation, it does have a major strategic role. Biodiversity conservation is already integral to a number of Victorian Government strategies and policies, and its prominence will increase over time as familiarity with the concept of biodiversity conservation grows.

The Victorian Government actively works to ensure coordination and liaison across government programs and strategies which affect biodiversity. In practice, the integration of biodiversity conservation and management means:

• recognising the common long-term goal of biodiversity conservation across a range of areas and issues (for example, the catchment and land protection process, and the forest management process);
• recognising the ecological linkages between different parts of the biosphere (for example, streams, streamside vegetation, and the biodiversity they support);
• being aware of all the actions and strategies which influence the attainment of the goal of biodiversity conservation, and working positively with others across institutional boundaries to advance this goal;
• using a variety of complementary tools and approaches in a coordinated way to achieve the goal (for example, information, community participation, economic incentives, as well as more traditional tools such as regulation).

As an example, the Victorian Catchment and Land Protection Council brings together information on the condition of biodiversity as part of its brief to report on the condition and management of land and water resources.¹ Similarly, the Victorian Coastal Council, in its Victorian Coastal Strategy, explicitly identifies the goal of protection of coastal and marine biodiversity, through addressing threatening processes, as a key part of its overall vision for the Victorian coast.²

A major challenge for government is to continue to build on the solid framework provided by existing legislation and programs, and strive for better and more explicit integration of biodiversity into government policies, strategies and actions in the future.

Bioregions, which reflect the patterns of biodiversity in the landscape, provide a geographic framework for integration of priorities and outcomes across all tenures.

Priority setting
Sustaining Our Living Wealth provides a strategic framework and a context in which priorities can be determined. Because conserving biodiversity is an ongoing task, it cannot be reduced to a predetermined list of priorities. Proposing and resolving specific priorities is more appropriately the focus of detailed strategies such as the Victorian Coastal Strategy and regional Catchment Strategies.³

Related documents
Sustaining Our Living Wealth is a strategic document. Separate and complementary documents provide a description of Victoria’s biodiversity (Victoria’s Biodiversity — Our Living Wealth) and the actions to be undertaken to achieve fully integrated biodiversity conservation throughout each bioregion of the state (Victoria’s Biodiversity – Directions in Management).

These documents fulfil the requirements of the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 for the preparation of a strategy that includes proposals for guaranteeing the survival, abundance and development in the wild of all taxa and communities of flora and fauna, ensuring the proper management of potentially threatening processes, providing an education program, and improving people’s ability to meet flora and fauna conservation objectives.⁴