Nature Conservation Tool Values Model information 2015

The Nature Conservation Tool provides management priorities for NSW parks and reserves administered under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974. They have been endorsed for release to NPWS staff by the NPWS Directors Group in February 2016. The management priorities where developed by the Conservation Priorities Project during 2010 to 2015. They are based on the combination of priority classes derived from computer models of nature conservation values, threats to those values and the condition of those values. This dataset includes the modelled value classes for all NSW parks and reserves as well as the input information used in the computer model. The computer models have been developed by an OEH expert panel and use information from the NPWS State of the Parks 2013 assessment and from analysis of relevant spatial datasets. The model was created using the MCAS-S software (Multi-Criteria Analysis Shell for Spatial Decision Support) that has been developed by ABARES and OEH to support natural resource management decision making. The computer model only used information that covered all NSW parks and reserves and was not able to consider regional or local datasets due to their limit coverage extent. More information on the Nature Conservation Tool, including a user guide, maps, tables and presentation, can be found on the OEH EHub at http://ehub/parkmgmt/NatureConservationTool.htm. The Tool will be updated when new information becomes available, such as the 2017 State of the Parks assessment. When this occurs, a full review will determine whether other new datasets should be included in the models.