What is RACAC?

The NSW Government established the Resource and Conservation Assessment Council (RACAC) in June 1995. RACAC oversaw the implementation in New South Wales of the Government's forest policy, which aimed to balance the need for forest conservation and protection with the creation of ecologically sustainable forest industries. RACAC also considered other conservation and land management issues.

Integral to the Government's conservation and management policies is its emphasis on the need for participation in the decision-making process by forest stakeholders themselves. This commitment to consensus was reflected in the membership of RACAC which included representatives of all the NSW Government agencies, the timber and mining industries, the union, conservationists, the Aboriginal community and the academic community.

Since 1995 RACAC has completed the Comprehensive Regional Assessments (CRAs) of the eastern forests of New South Wales, involving the collection and analysis of scientific, environment and heritage and social and economic data. The results of these assessments was a series of NSW Forest Agreements under the Forestry and National Park Estate Act 1998 (contained in 2 downloadable PDF files: Table of Contents (13k PDF) and the Act (190k PDF) itself), as well as Regional Forest Agreements with the Commonwealth Government. These agreements will determine future conservation and management of the State's major forested areas.

Over 150 projects in the Eden,North East, and Southern regions have generated unprecedented scientific information which can be used not only by forest stakeholders but also by local councils, government agencies and the public. This wealth of data about our forests will be available to the community for decades to come.

It is evident that data of this quality will be increasingly crucial in decisions which all levels of government make about land use and protection, and the challenge now facing RACAC is to ensure the same level of data which has been amassed for the east coast is provided for other parts of the State. Western assessments are now also complete, with assessments conducted in the Brigalow Belt South and Nandewar Bioregions.

RACAC was serviced by the Resource and Conservation Division of PlanningNSW now part of DIPNR.

In this section: What is RACAC? RACAC Members RACAC Terms of Reference Eastern Regions - Comprehensive Regional Assessments (CRAs) Eastern Regions - CRA Projects and Data Goulburn Region Land Use Proposal Western Regional Assessment The community's role in forest assessments Structural adjustment assistance for the timber industry Interim Assessment Process Report (IAP) Region Map Contacting us

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Resource and Conservation Assessment Council (RACAC)
June 1995 - Dec 2003

RACAC presided over the NSW Forest Agreements program
from June 1995 to December 2003.

For continuity this site remains under the name RACAC.
However, project management and monitoring of the
NSW Forest Agreements are now provided by the Resource
and Conservation Unit of the NSW Department of Environment
and Climate Change.