Australian Natural Resources Atlas

Natural Resource Topics

Native vegetation types in protected areas

Key findings

The World Conservation Union defines a protected area as:

This definition is used in the analysis of vegetation types protected.

Barringtonia acutangula, Coonida, Kakadu National Park, NT 

Barringtonia acutangula, Coonida, Kakadu
National Park, NT © Murray Fagg

Gazetted formal protected areas total 7.8% of Australia's area. The Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania have more than 30% in protected areas and the Northern Territory and Queensland has less than 5% in protected areas (Table 37).

While the level of reservation may appear low for some States and Territories, important areas of some native vegetation types and ecosystems are included in their reserve system. Conversely, some native ecosystems may be inadequately protected in States and Territories that have high levels of reservation. To better understand the representativeness of vegetation types within protected areas, it is necessary to examine the area of each major vegetation group in protected areas. Figure 38 shows the relative proportion of major vegetation groups protected across Australia and the distribution of protected areas against major vegetation groups is presented in Figure 37.

Figure 37. Major vegetation groups and protected areas.
Table 37. Area (km2) of protected areas in Australia in 2000 (Hardy 2001).

Western
Australia

Northern
Territory

South
Australia

Queensland

New
South
Wales

Australian
Capital
Territory

Victoria

Tasmania

Australia

Total land area

2,525,193

1,347,816

983,789

1,726,950

801,311

2,362

227,487

67,927

7,684,327

Total protected area

159,151

51,256

216,310

69,388

49,532

1,230

33,780

22,020

602,730

Percentage of land
area protected

6.3

3.8

22.0

4.0

6.2

52.1

14.8

32.4

7.8

Figure 38. Pre-European and present vegetation, and protected area (km2) for each major vegetation group.

Figure 38. Pre-European and present vegetation, and protected area (km2) for each major vegetation group.

From Table 38 it can be seen that there are substantial areas of major vegetation groups previously discussed as being heavily impacted by clearing in protected areas, recognising that some vegetation groups are better protected that others.

Each State or Territory makes a major contribution to the protective management of particular major vegetation groups, including:

Table 38. Area (km2) of major vegetation groups in protected areas.

Major vegetation group

Western
Australia

Northern
Territory

South
Australia

Queensland

New
South
Wales

Australian
Capital
Territory

Victoria

Tasmania

Australia

Rainforest and vine thickets

0

265

0

5,058

1,545

0

134

4,241

11,244

Eucalypt tall open forests

554

0

0

48

1,286

4

4,550

1,569

8,011

Eucalypt open forests

1,705

6,806

87

4,016

21,580

858

2,844

3,657

41,552

Eucalypt low open forests

106

70

17

104

509

42

77

31

957

Eucalypt woodlands

9,543

4,280

1,311

15,437

10,478

179

7,887

1,420

50,534

Acacia forests and woodlands

8,065

10

659

3,326

539

0

97

6

12,701

Callitris forests and woodlands

0

0

220

67

1,157

4

279

0

1,728

Casuarina forests and woodlands

163

0

7,363

223

647

2

42

16

8,457

Melaleuca forests and woodlands

348

1,695

1

5,744

1

0

24

0

7,812

Other forests and woodlands

751

127

10,731

2,197

2

0

1,290

252

15,350

Eucalypt open woodlands

4,236

8,190

7,050

6,990

2,166

48

333

33

29,047

Tropical eucalypt
woodlands/grasslands

10,073

17,072

0

1,757

0

0

0

0

28,903

Acacia open woodlands

75

24

8,953

1,899

8

0

0

0

10,959

Mallee woodlands and
shrublands

14,763

1,318

47,809

0

2,919

0

8,675

0

75,484

Low closed forests and
closed shrublands

276

0

2

115

31

0

403

1,388

2,214

Acacia shrublands

12,427

1,305

2,748

2,073

1,664

0

5

3

20,225

Other shrublands

4,291

1

9,374

1,863

23

7

2,390

329

18,278

Heath

5,294

0

2,011

140

730

9

1,405

765

10,354

Tussock grasslands

2,314

701

6,166

5,033

1,994

40

165

144

16,556

Hummock grasslands

54,689

5,870

54,404

10,441

0

0

0

0

125,403

Other grasslands
herblands, sedgelands
and rushlands

873

1,913

261

405

204

0

395

6,385

10,437

Chenopod shrubs, samphire
shrub and forblands

21,363

441

32,696

2,003

740

0

704

5

57,952

Mangroves, tidal mudflats,
samphires and bare areas
claypans, sand, rock, salt
lakes, lagoons, lakes

3,127

265

22,900

633

300

10

272

733

28,240

Methods

Data on the extent of native vegetation found within protected areas was analysed by intersection of the major vegetation groups with spatial data from the Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (Hardy 2001).

Limitations

The Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database contains all gazetted formal protected areas within Australia, current to 2000 in Tasmania and to 1999 for other States and Territories. As the data relates to gazetted areas only it does not include many new reserves (approximately two million hectares) declared through the Regional Forest Agreement process in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia. It therefore underrates the level of protection afforded to forest communities such as rainforest and vine thickets, eucalypt tall open forests and eucalypt open forests. The data also does not include other recent protected area declarations where they have yet to be gazetted under State and Territory legislation and boundaries reliably defined.

The analysis, in keeping with the World Conservation Union definition, excludes:

These tenures would add considerably to the areas in protective management for some of the vegetation groups.

Change in area of vegetation protected between 1968 and 2000

Key findings

Table 39 outlines changes in area of the major vegetation groups found within protected areas over time. Figure 39 presents the change in extent of protected areas for 1968, 1979, 1982, 1988, 1997 and 2000.

All major vegetation groups most affected by clearing have had dramatic increases in their area within protected areas since 1968.

The protected area of many vegetation groups appears to have increased substantially from 1969 to 1979. Exceptions are:

  • other forests and woodlands and tussock grasslands: major additions to the protected area for these groups occurred from 1979 to 1989; and
  • rainforest and vine thickets, eucalypt tall open forests, acacia open woodlands, mallee woodlands and shrublands, chenopod shrublands and saltpan and saltlake communities: major additions to the protected area occurred from 1988 to 1998.

Divide between temperate rainforest and heath, Morton National Park, NSW 

Divide between temperate rainforest and
heath, Morton National Park, NSW © Robin Jean

There are important stories of protected area declarations associated with these dramatic increases in the protected area of native vegetation. The declaration of the 1.3 million hectare Lake Eyre National Park in 1985 and the 1.8 million hectare Gibson Desert Nature Reserve in 1977 made substantial contributions to reservation of their particular vegetation groups. Smaller reserves have also made important contributions to the protection of specific vegetation associations and associated wildlife habitats.

Figure 39. Changes in protected areas between 1968 and 2000.

Methods

The major vegetation groups were intersected with the Time Series of Protected Areas in Australia (1967-1989) polygon boundaries for each date, the Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database 1997 and the Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database 2000. Only information on terrestrial reserves are presented.

Limitations

The time series database was developed using hardcopy maps (for polygon information) and published lists of protected areas (centroids). For all years other than 1968 and 1979, areas under 5000 ha are represented as points and areas greater than 5000 ha are represented as polygons.

The data compiled for each year in the time series are based on a mixture of pre-existing digital data sets (CAPAD 1997) and digitised maps. Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database 1997 and Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database 2000 are a compilation of State and Territory protected area data sets. Further information on the sources of information and changes in the protected areas between 1967 and 1989 can be found in Cresswell and Thomas (1997) and Hardy (2001).

Table 39. Change in area (ha) of major vegetation groups protected from 1968 to 2000.

Major vegetation group

1968

1979

1982

1988

1997

2000

Rainforest and vine thickets

1,993

3,739

4,223

5,707

9,720

11,244

Eucalypt tall open forests

709

1,545

2,939

4,108

7,730

8,011

Eucalypt open forests

10,511

19,316

19,033

26,588

34,331

41,553

Eucalypt low open forests

192

657

699

827

1,006

957

Eucalypt woodlands

4,193

17,749

27,429

36,213

48,426

50,535

Acacia forests and woodlands

68

8,528

8,528

9,193

12,062

12,701

Callitris forests and woodlands

125

1,254

1,284

1,464

1,691

1,728

Casuarina forests and woodlands

137

7,148

7,220

7,337

8,300

8,457

Melaleuca forests and woodlands

424

5,765

5,935

6,709

7,804

7,812

Other forests and woodlands

110

1,937

2,251

10,493

15,135

15,350

Eucalypt open woodlands

732

10,799

15,180

21,216

25,928

29,047

Tropical Eucalypt woodlands/grasslands

996

16,155

15,956

26,614

28,308

28,903

Acacia open woodlands

97

172

172

254

10,892

10,959

Mallee woodlands and shrublands

3,266

26,519

27,591

30,734

70,976

75,485

Low closed forests and closed shrublands

285

670

671

1,204

2,152

2,215

Acacia shrublands

1,656

10,179

10,410

15,364

19,552

20,225

Other shrublands

913

9,974

10,370

11,508

17,887

18,279

Heath

1,540

6,356

6,769

7,030

10,185

10,354

Tussock grasslands

652

3,372

3,397

10,923

12,862

16,556

Hummock grasslands

43,587

101,133

101,133

105,763

123,636

125,404

Other grasslands, herblands, sedgelands and rushlands

1,460

5,076

4,214

6,287

10,434

10,438

Chenopod shrubs, samphire shrubs and forblands

458

25,555

25,682

30,187

56,008

57,952

Mangroves, tidal mudflats, samphires and bare areas,
claypans, sand, rock, salt lakes, lagoons, lakes

608

4,731

4,754

13,639

28,693

28,242

Total area protected

74,712

288,330

305,840

389,361

563,718

592,407

Moving towards a comprehensive, adequate and representative system of protected areas

Key findings

A systematic approach to nature conservation is essential to efficiently and effectively protect biodiversity and a framework is needed for describing biodiversity and for planning its conservation (Sattler & Williams 1999). Biodiversity can be described in a range of ways:

  • plant species;
  • groups of plant species (vegetation types); and
  • ecosystems that incorporate the environments in which vegetation types occur (e.g. climate, landforms, geology and soils).

Caladenia fuscata near Braidwood, NSW 

Caladenia fuscata near Braidwood, NSW
© Robin Jean

Ecosystems are the preferred biodiversity assessment framework and are being increasingly recognised as reflecting the biotic and abiotic elements of the landscape (Sattler & Williams 1999). The IBRA bioregions are the accepted landscape framework for Australia (Cresswell & Thomas 1997). The IBRA subregions, further divide the IBRA bioregions and delineate the major geomorphic patterns, providing a more robust framework with greater resolution for analysing the distribution of landscapes.

The Australia and New Zealand Environment Conservation Council National Reserve System Taskforce have adopted the notion that comprehensiveness is assessed at an IBRA bioregion level and representativeness at an IBRA subregion level (i.e. ecosystems have IBRA targets , and we apply a a subregional framework to ensure that sampling occurs across their geographical range).

Table 40 provides an overview of the number of major vegetation groups within each of the reservation classes of the five IBRA bioregions with less than 30% of native vegetation remaining.

These results show that the protection status for the vegetation in these regions is low. The majority of the major vegetation groups in each region fall below reservation Class 3 with less than 10% of the pre-European extent of the vegetation group in a protected area.

The reservation classes from the Avon Wheatbelt bioregion (Table 41) have been mapped as an example (Figure 40) along with the major vegetation groups.

Figure 40. Avon Wheatbelt bioregion major vegetation groups and reservation classes.

Figure 40. Avon Wheatbelt bioregion major vegetation groups and reservation classes

Table 40. Number of major vegetation groups by reservation class for IBRA bioregions with less than 30% of native vegetation remaining.

Bioregion

Class 1

Class 2

Class 3

Class 4

Class 5

Class 6

0%

< 5%

5-10%

10-15%

15-30%

> 30%

South East Coastal Plain

-

9

1

2

2

2

Victorian Midlands

3

4

3

-

2

3

Victorian Volcanic Plain

8

3

2

1

2

-

Naracoorte Coastal Plain

4

4

2

-

3

4

Avon Wheatbelt

4

9

2

-

-

-

Table 41. Avon Wheatbelt (IBRA70) reservation analysis.

 

Eucalypt
tall open
forests

Eucalypt
open forests

Eucalypt
woodlands

Acacia
forests and
woodlands

Casuarina
forests and
woodlands

Melaleuca
forests and
woodlands

Other
forests and
woodlands

Eucalypt
open
woodlands

Native vegetation (ha)

4

720

525,408

4

6,836

532

952

36,588

Cleared vegetation (ha)

36

1,696

92

152

17,668

2,012

4,532

4,824,552

Pre-European vegetation (ha)

40

2,416

525,500

156

24,504

2,544

5,484

4,861,140

Protected area (ha)

0

0

30,672

0

332

180

120

7,860

Percent native vegetation in protected area

0.0

0.0

5.8

0.0

1.4

7.1

2.2

0.2

Reservation class

1

1

3

1

2

3

2

1

 

Mallee woodlands
and shrublands

Low closed
forests and
closed shrublands

Acacia
shrublands

Other
shrublands

Heath

Chenopod shrubs,
samphire shrubs
and forblands

Mangrove
Group

Native vegetation (ha)

87,024

52,176

271,356

216,184

31,916

103,800

51,580

Cleared vegetation (ha)

813,108

339,224

488,420

848,204

387,540

235,996

168,876

Pre-European vegetation (ha)

900,132

391,400

759,776

1,064,388

419,456

339,796

220,456

Protected area (ha)

5,272

4,736

12,708

14,984

6,040

6,968

5,448

Percent native vegetation in protected area

0.0

1.2

1.7

1.4

1.4

2.1

2.5

Reservation class

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

Methods

The data incorporated into the National Vegetation Information System describe the vegetation types and do not delineate ecosystems. Any assessment of nature conservation priorities using the National Vegetation Information System will therefore be based on an assessment of the vegetation types.

Interpretations based on vegetation types must remember that the vegetation is heterogeneous and may mask internal ecosystem diversity of the broad vegetation groups. While progress in ecosystem mapping varies across Australia, it is unlikely to be completed for many years or at all.

York gum woodland with grazed understorey, near Gnowangerup, WA 

York gum woodland with grazed understorey,
near Gnowangerup, WA © Damian Shepherd

The Audit's major vegetation groups therefore provide a broad base for assessing the representativeness of reserves and providing input based on vegetation types into the setting of priorities for reservation. Further analyses should be undertaken at finer levels of vegetation classification.

Analysis of the adequacy of existing levels of native vegetation protection requires examining the comprehensiveness of the protected area estate in sampling native ecosystems and, ideally, vegetation communities. This analysis examines the area of major vegetation groups within protected areas as an estimate of the proportion of the notional pre-European extent of these groups sampled in protected areas.

The extent of each major vegetation group found within protected areas within each IBRA bioregion was then calculated as a proportion of this notional pre-European extent. This provides an estimate of overall representativeness (Table 42).

Table 42. Bioregional reservation classes.

Reservation class

Level of reservation
compared to pre-European extent

1

Nil

2

< 5%

3

5-10%

4

11-15%

5

16-30%

6

> 30%

These reservation classes relate to contemporary views on appropriate levels of protection in the development of a comprehensive, adequate and representative system of protected areas (e.g. a broad goal of 10% of the pre-European extent of native ecosystems has been used informally for many years as a guide to assess the adequacy of reservation levels). In the Regional Forest Agreement process, formal reservation targets were developed through the JANIS National Reserve Criteria (Commonwealth of Australia 1997a) recommending 15% of pre-European extent of forest ecosystems, unless ecosystems were rare or threatened, in which case higher targets applied.

Limitations

This analysis, as discussed in the methods, is a surrogate for mapping and priority setting at an ecosystem scale. Reservation priorities also need to take account of other factors, including:

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