Conservation Council of the ACT Submission on the draft ACT Nature Conservation Strategy

Mar 30, 2026 | Latest News, Nature and waterways

The Conservation Council of the ACT has provided feedback to the Office of Nature Conservation on the draft ACT Nature Conservation Strategy 2026-2036. Click here to read our full submission.

The Council welcomes the development of the Strategy and commends the ACT Government on its shift towards nature-positive outcomes and landscape scale planning. 

In particular, the Council welcomes the identification and protection of Priority Conservation Areas (PCAs) within a Nature Conservation Network (NCN). Identifying and protecting and managing high value sites outside the ACT’s reserve system is something the Council and Friends of Grasslands have been seeking for years via our ‘Biodiversity Network’ proposal.

The Council considers there are several critical elements that need strengthening if the Strategy is to deliver on its Nature Positive promise. The Council’s submission argues for the following:

  • the identification of sufficient PCAs, enough to be ‘adequate’ to sustain our region’s ecosystems, including constituent species and associated cultural values
  • strong and permanent legal protection for both the relatively intact PCAs, and for the PCAs that connect or are under repair – otherwise, the places we love, and the gains made to buffer and support and connect them, could be lost
  • enforcement of the protections
  • primacy for the Nature Conservation Act 2014
  • a seat at the table when PCA identification decisions are made
  • consultation on amendments to the Nature Conservation Act, which will operationalise aspects of the Strategy
  • timely development and implementation of the ACT Landscape Plan
  • rigorous application of the mitigation hierarchy to all new developments
  • a significant uplift in recurrent funding to ensure the Strategy can be properly implemented, including for the Parks and Conservation Service.

To achieve the Strategy’s Nature Positive promise, the Council urge the ACT Government to go beyond ‘business as usual’ funding for conservation and avoid an over reliance on restoration contributions (offset payments). The implementation of this Strategy, which charts a fine course, needs real resourcing.

You can read the full submission here.