Biodiversity Strategy - Gosford City Council - NSW Government

Biodiversity Toolbox
The Commonwealth Department of Environment and Heritage has provided a Biodiversity Toolbox
(see http://www.deh.gov.au/biodiversity/toolbox) containing a number of benchmarks for local
government to consider. The steps identified in the Toolbox and Council’s responses so far are
considered below:
Benchmark One is to establish a firm political and policy commitment towards achieving Biodiversity
Conservation and is committed to a positive change through incorporation of biodiversity conservation
and enhancement in Council’s overall Corporate Plan or Management Plan or policies. This strategy
will establish Council commitment to participating in the Benchmarking Biodiversity Conservation
program.
Council response
Council's vision statement and statements of intent reflect its commitment to achieving balanced
environmental outcomes for Gosford City. Council has committed to achieving biodiversity
conservation through its adoption of a Biodiversity Management Policy in 2001. As a result of this a
Draft Biodiversity Action Plan was developed in 2001 that identified a number of actions for Council.
The majority of the high and medium priority actions were implemented through funding provided by
Council’s Financial Strategy (Environmental Levy). These actions are discussed further in Chapter 3.
Council has also developed an Integrated Management Strategy (IMS) integrating occupational
health, safety and environmental management. This management system provides an integrated
systematic framework for Council to manage its impact on the environment from its activities, products
and services. The guiding document for this management system is the IMS Corporate Policy, which
has two major objectives; one of which is:
"to effectively integrate the principles of ecological sustainability into all Council functions so as
to achieve a clean, healthy and ecologically sustainable environment."
This management system is supported by way of a permanent staff member and recurrent funding for
implementation.
Benchmark Two concerns establishing baseline data.
Council response
Council has achieved this milestone (this action was identified in the Draft Biodiversity Action Plan)
and now has the following baseline data:
- Comprehensive and detailed vegetation community mapping at a scale of 1:8,000;
- Threatened species profiles for the local government area;
- Lists of all known flora and fauna species;
- Mapped data layers on Council’s corporate Geographic Information System (GIS) and
- A list of threatened species, ecological communities and threatening processes for the
LGA updated regularly including global updates for staff.
- Reports on two targeted and systematic fauna surveys
Information that is still required includes:
- List of invertebrate and aquatic fauna species
- Estuarine biodiversity (no comprehensive species lists or mapping is available)
- Riparian vegetation and waterways assessment and mapping
- Vegetation condition and ‘old growth’ mapping
- Local Scale pre 1750 vegetation community mapping
Biodiversity - Technical Report Page 46