3. ENVIRONMENTAL DATA COLLECTION AND ASSESSMENT

3.1. INTRODUCTION

RACAC established a Conservation Working Group (CWG) to develop methodologies and guidelines for applying the reserve criteria outlined in National Forest Conservation Reserves, Commonwealth Proposed Criteria (March 1995) in the IAP. The CWG was supported by specialist Flora and Fauna Panels. The limited time frame to complete the IAP necessitated the use of criteria which could be realistically applied to the best available data.

Four broad criteria form the basis for developing specific conservation targets and collating data for the IAP:

• forest or vegetation types (which are employed as a broad surrogate for biodiversity)
• old growth (which is a critical successional stage within forest types)
• wilderness
• Priority listed rare and threatened flora and fauna species.

The preparation of data layers relating to these criteria is documented in a series of project reports. Only a summary of the approaches used is provided in this chapter. The data layers, and specific conservation targeting developed for each criterion, have been used as input to conservation planning software which identifies the relative conservation value of all forest areas considered under the IAP (see Section 2.5.2).

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