Inland New South Wales Rivers are facing a gamut of issues with regards aquatic habitat management. Most of the inland rivers in New South Wales are already in a poor state of ecosystem health as reported in the Sustainable Rivers Audit. Land management issues have a crucial role in influencing the health of aquatic ecosystems and the region is currently under pressure from resource development for coal seam gas, coal and other extractive resources.
This presentation aims to review initiatives that the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries have been involved in within the planning process to maintain and or improve the management of aquatic habitats within New South Wales inland waterways. The suite of tools available include involvement on a local government level to map Key Fish Habitats for inclusion within councils’ statutory planning document, the Local Environmental Plan (LEP) and inclusion of provisions within the LEP which specifically relate to development within or adjacent to Key Fish Habitats. Recently at a more regional strategic level, the synthesis and analysis of over 20 years of data from the Freshwater Fish Research Database has been the basis of developing aquatic biodiversity value maps to assist with the identification of high conservation value aquatic habitats when developing Regional Growth Plans and Strategic Regional Land Use Plans (SRLUPs). These plans are designed to support sustainable growth and provide some certainty for resource development within inland New South Wales whilst recognising and protecting high value environmental assets.