State NRM Plan

Despite being reviewed every five years, the State NRM Plan has a 50 year vision:

South Australia, a capable and prosperous community, managing natural resources for a good quality of life within the capacity of our environment for the long term

It also has four goals:

• Landscape scale management that maintains healthy natural systems and is adaptive to climate change
• Prosperous communities and industries using and managing natural resources within ecologically sustainable limits
• Communities, governments and industries with the capability, commitment and connections to manage natural resources in an integrated way
• Integrated management of biological threats to minimise risks to natural systems, communities and industries

Under each of the Goals are a range of Milestones and Strategies that link to other policies, where appropriate

The State NRM Plan has a strong focus on partnerships between government, communities, industry, landowners and the regional NRM boards.

The State NRM Plan interprets what the NRM Act is designed to achieve. It provides a pathway between the Act and the regional NRM boards, and the projects that boards invest money in.

This is important because scientific evidence supports what we all know - that the condition of our natural resources is declining in many areas.

For example, monitoring of seagrass loss off the metropolitan coast has shown a strong trend of continuing decline, despite the causes being known. Evidence is also available on a range of land ecosystems that show similar decline.

Using this type of evidence, the State and regional NRM blans will identify high priority areas that are contributing to these declines and work with relevant government agencies, industry, local councils and the community to address the problems.

Being a high level statutory document gives the State NRM Plan credibility and the ability to influence other policies at a similar level.

The regional NRM plans developed by the regional NRM boards must be consistent with the State NRM Plan.