Program Management and Outcomes: ACT Nature Conservation Strategy

This report provides an overview of the ACT Nature Conservation Strategy 2013-2023, which aims to enhance biodiversity and ecosystem resilience. It addresses the program's objectives, which include strengthening foundational elements like resilience, connectivity, and community capacities. The report examines the strategy's alignment across five primary areas: enhancing habitat connectivity, managing threats to biodiversity, protecting ecological communities and species, improving urban biodiversity, and strengthening community engagement. It also discusses the management of benefits within four focal landscapes: urban, rural, water catchment, and river corridor, each with specific restoration goals. Furthermore, the report emphasizes the importance of community involvement and stakeholder engagement through volunteering and targeted education campaigns, along with collaboration with Indigenous communities and the Australian Government for natural resource management.

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Program Management
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Institution

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Introduction
The ACT Nature Conservation Strategy 2013-2023 improves the attainment of the 1997
strategy that achieved significant progress in improving the reserve estate, putting in place
measures to manage the ecological threats that affect both the biodiversity and the aquatic
ecosystems, along with managing the recovery of threatened ecological communities and
species. This report will address the ACT’s program overview and outcome, strategy alignment,
program benefits management, and program stakeholder engagement.
Program Overview and Outcome
The ACT Nature Conservation Strategy 2013-2023 provides an outline and a vision for
conservation over the next few decades. The objective of this strategy is to strengthen the
primary foundational elements that comprise resilience, connectivity, as well as community
capacities. ACT is a long-term approach of building natural ecosystems along with people’s
adaptive capacity to a changing climate (Apostolopoulou & Adams, 2017). With the aim of
managing biodiversity as well as the native habitat between and within the areas that are
presently protected in the reserve system, the ACT strategy provides an outline of the plan to be
adopted in coming up with a larger and more resilient landscapes that are across several tenures
such as urban areas, reserves, riverine corridors, open space, and rural lands (Dai, et al., 2013).
The outcomes of this ACT include maintaining and improving native vegetation and
biodiversity, landscapes are more resilient and this comprises of climate change, and the
community wealth and the well-being are enhanced by using and appreciating natural areas,
including ‘green assets’ in the urban areas.
Program Strategy Alignment

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This program mainly consists of five primary strategies. The first strategy includes
enhancing habitat connectivity along with ecosystem function. Specifically, this strategy is based
on bioregional and off-reserve conservation techniques as outlined in the original Nature
Conservation Strategy (1997). The second strategy involves managing threats to biodiversity.
This strategy continues to implement the weed and vertebrate pest strategies and continuingly
integrating ecological considerations into fire management, as well as several improved
catchment management actions (Islam & Kitazawa, 2013). The third strategy is protecting
ecological communities, including species. The strategy consists of measures that are designed to
conserve ecosystems and species through improved landscape resilience (Warner, Lamm,
Rumble, Martin & Cantrell, 2016). Also, the strategy aims at improving urban areas’ biodiversity
value. The strategy improves ecological connectivity both at the regional and local scales by
connecting the urban green assets with reserves, local wildlife among other things. The last
strategy is strengthening community engagement by involving community firms and dedicating
people who volunteer their expertise and time.
Program Benefits Management
Managing the benefits of the ACT program is based on four focal landscapes which are
clearly laid out in the ACT strategy. The management and restoration of each landscape is as
shown: urban landscape is the first focal landscape that aims at enhancing several ecosystems
that are in line with urban development and which provide certain environmental services that
consist of open space along with street-scapes, connectivity, and habitat along with amenity
parks (Mazzanti & Zoboli, 2013). The rural landscape is the second and it aims at strengthening
connectivity between native vegetation remnants and reserves and other tenures, including the
restoration of ecosystem services that comprise primary production and drinking water. The third

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focal landscape is water catchment landscape whose goal is to restore the ability of the areas to
avail both native habitat and clean water (Haag & Williams, 2014). River corridor landscape is
the last focal landscape which aims at maintaining in-stream flows and water quality, including
protecting and restoring riparian vegetation stream as well as buffering rivers.
Program Stakeholder Management
The success of implementing this strategy greatly depends on the community who are the
primary stakeholders. The strategy aims at supporting greater community involvement through
the act of volunteering (Adams, 2014). The primary objective is to improve on the number of
groups including areas that are actively managed by the volunteers through the introduction of
innovative engagement strategies along with targeting new target groups. Additionally, to engage
the stakeholders, the strategy also offers community education on issues that are considered to be
of priority (Deák, et al., 2016). These targeted education campaigns are a priority in supporting
the strategy’s landscape strategy. To implement this, it requires collaboration with the
community groups as well as the education sector. Nonetheless, the strategy works with
Indigenous communities in managing natural resources by partnering with the Australian
Government.
Conclusion
The ACT Nature Conservation Strategy establishes a detailed reserve network that seeks
to protect high conservation value areas. This strategy supports the continued actualization of the
Tidbinbills and Namadgi management plans in collaboration with the community and the
Australian Government to make sure that the upland areas remain in good condition.

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Warner, L. A., Lamm, A. J., Rumble, J. N., Martin, E. T., & Cantrell, R. (2016). Classifying
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