Biodiversity Conservation Lands (Detailed Version) for the Lower Hunter Regional Strategy

The Biodiversity Conservation Lands dataset has been compiled for the Lower Hunter and interpreted as presenting planning constraints at three scales:

State: Areas identified as of state significance in recognition of a related state or federal conservation policy or program

Regional : Areas identified as of regional significance generally in recognition of a related state policy or program or as providing buffers to state significant lands

Local : Areas recognised through local conservation zoning and including all remnant vegetation

Principles for deriving conservation constraints:

1. A twenty five-year planning horizon was adopted for identifying Biodiversity Conservation Lands and opportunities

2. State, regional and local significance classes for conservation constraints were adopted and spatially delineated

3. Biodiversity features are presented as constraints with limited or no transferability. Irreplaceability of significant features is generally low and in situ conservation is generally required. The level of irreplaceability for each feature is noted in the metadata proforma

4. Biodiversity Conservation Lands will generally be identified across the landscape regardless of current tenure or zoning. Whilst back-zoning of existing development zones is not envisaged, protection of high conservation value features occurring in existing development zones will be encouraged

The Biodiversity Conservation Lands is complete for all Local Government Areas along the coast from Tweed Heads to Gosford. This metadata statement deals with that portion of the data covering the Local Government Areas of Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Port Stephens, Maitland and Cessnock

There are two BioConLands datasets for each Regional Strategy area - a simplified one containing only State, Regional and Local categories in the attribute table and a larger, more complex version with "detailed" information on the components that went into the datasets

Note: Certain boundaries within these datasets, eg. NPWS and State Forest Estate, are only current to 2007