ACT Natural Resource Management (NRM) Advisory Committee

The ACT Natural Resource Management Advisory Committee held its 15th meeting on Monday 16 February 2026 and focussed on 3 main topics. ACT Government staff presented their work on draft spatial restoration tools, including plant community type mapping, priority restoration mapping and a threat map.

The Committee welcomed the opportunities to further enhance the work of community groups and government agencies enabled by these tools to conserve and restore ecosystems across the ACT when they become publicly available later in the year.

ACT NRM, provided an update on conservation activities in the bogs, fens and alpine wetlands covering the Commonwealth funded program and relevant chapter of the ACT NRM Strategy. Considerable progress has been made to conserve priority wetlands.

Committee discussions focussed on potential for carbon sequestration through restoration and further climate change adaptation measures.

The Committee was briefed by ACT Office of Nature Conservation staff on the draft Nature Conservation Strategy 2026–2036, which is open to public submissions by 27 March 2026.The Committee welcomed proposals in the strategy to conserve natural and cultural values in priority conservation areas across land tenures, to participate in emerging natural capital and ecosystem services markets, consider new funding options, and further support rural lessees to protect natural values on their farms. Members also discussed the relationship between the Strategy and current ACT planning processes, and noted opportunities to deepen collaboration between community groups, Ngunnawal people, and government to enhance nature conservation outcomes.

The next Committee meeting is scheduled for May 2026.

The ACT Natural Resource Management Advisory Committee held its 16th meeting on Tuesday 12 May 2026. Discussion focussed on three main topics.

The Committee reviewed progress with citizen science programs in the ACT and welcomed the increasing reporting of biodiversity and other environmental data, and its use for conservation. The members identified a number of options for further expanding public participation and the use of citizen science data to inform environmental management. Opportunities to enhance public understanding of Country through citizen science connecting to aspects of Ngunnawal traditional ecological knowledge (e.g. the Ngunnawal seasonal calendar) were discussed.

The Committee received a briefing on the Sustainable Agricultural Facilitator program and welcomed progress. Members discussed ways of further enhancing public understanding and support for agricultural production in the ACT.

The Committee also discussed the ACT's role in the national network for natural resources management, including our peak organisation, NRM Regions Australia.

The Advisory Committee will meet next in August 2026.

The 11^th NRMAC meeting was held on 10 February 2025. There are a number of changes in membership. NRMAC thanked Sarah Sharp for her service as the Conservation Council’s representative over the past two years and noted the nomination of Simon Copland as her replacement. Greg Clark was welcomed to NRMAC as representative of the ParkCare program volunteers.

The Committee provided feedback to ACT Government staff for the ongoing reviews of the Nature Conservation Act 2014 and Nature Conservation Strategy 2013-2023, welcoming a number of proposed reforms and suggesting further measures to enhance nature conservation. NRMAC expressed concern at the looming end of funding for current biosecurity programs and recommend that renewed funding be considered a high priority. The Committee received an update on progress in implementing the ‘Reducing the Threats to High Country Wetlands’ project. NRMAC commended the progress on feral pest control and on collaboration with other jurisdictions to share lessons for more effective conservation. The Committee also reviewed progress in implementing the ACT NRM Action Plan Governance chapter actions. In particular, an update was received on efforts to streamline approvals for volunteer groups undertaking NRM activities on public lands.

The next meeting of the NRMAC will be held in May and will focus on ACT NRM Action Plan implementation of water actions, including a visit to see work underway on the Murrumbidgee River corridor.

The 12^th meeting of the ACT Natural Resource Management Advisory Committee was held on 27 May 2025.

The Committee received updates on a number of key projects and provided strategic advice on matters of importance to the ACT’s natural environment.

The Committee received a presentation from the Office of Water on the Restoring the Upper Murrumbidgee project. The Committee welcomed the Commonwealth Government’s commitment of $30 million over three years in contingency funding for additional environmental flows. NRMAC noted the importance of clarifying trigger conditions for these flows and recommended that the ACT Government engage with the Commonwealth to ensure unused funds can be reallocated to benefit the river system.

The Committee received an update on progress against the Water Ways chapter of the NRM Plan. Members identified a knowledge gap regarding diffuse pollution runoff across the ACT and welcomed the ACT NRM ‘rehydrating landscapes’ project as a key initiative to reduce stormwater impacts.

The ACT’s Sustainable Agriculture Facilitators provided an overview of local delivery of the Commonwealth’s Sustainable Agriculture Facilitator program.

The Committee endorsed a new approach to reporting progress on the NRM Plan. The new framework will group actions into broader themes to improve clarity and streamline reporting.

The Committee received an update on the Cultural Landscapes chapter. The Committee advised that the new City and Environment Directorate should prioritise the inclusion of culturally informed and culturally literate Indigenous people, especially Ngunnawal people, in senior roles.

The Committee looks forward to future discussions with Minister Orr and further progress updates on upcoming chapters of the NRM Plan, including Chapter 8: Grasslands and Chapter 9: Ecosystem Services.

The next meeting of the NRMAC will be in late August 2025.

The 13th meeting of the ACT Natural Resource Management Advisory Committee was held in Gungahlin on 25 August 2025.

The Committee visited a natural temperate grassland restoration project and discussed the broader Regional Delivery Partnership Program grasslands project. The Committee discussed alignment and coordination with existing overarching strategies for grasslands and nature in the ACT. The different techniques for grasslands restoration being developed in the ACT and opportunities to communicate costs and benefits for managers were considered. The Committee welcomes the focus on this endangered ecosystem.

The Committee also discussed with ACT NRM staff opportunities for boosting community engagement in nature, to inform future programs.

The next meeting of the Committee is scheduled in November.

The ACT Natural Resource Management Advisory Committee held its 14^th meeting on 24 November 2025.

The Committee discussed ways in which the ACT Government can enhance its support for volunteers working to conserve the environment. It also reviewed the recently completed round of ACT Environment Grants for community groups and considered ways in which it might be even more effective for FY27, including by identifying a number of areas where ACT Government agencies could provide further information to prospective applicants to aid project development by meeting requirements for heritage conservation, revegetation and fire safety. The Committee considered the good progress in implementing the ACT NRM Plan chapter on conserving ecosystem function and services. Further options for enhancing programs were discussed, including: engaging emerging national NRM markets to better support ACT land managers to provide ecosystem services, the importance of conserving soils, opportunities to enhance measures in urban areas, as well and the importance valuing ecosystem services to better cost income streams and repair activities.

Suzanne Orr MLA, Minister for Climate Change, Environment, Energy and Water spoke to the NRMAC about some of her priorities and some issues raised by NRMAC. Topics discussed included environmental protection and cross-tenure conservation, the landscape plan, volunteers, biosecurity, and the upper Murrumbidgee River. Minister Orr welcomed community input to the landscape plan and climate change strategy.

The ACT Natural Resource Management Advisory Committee held its 10^th meeting on 25 November 2024 at Callum Brae Homestead. This enabled the Committee to see firsthand the NRM issues arising on rural leasehold and adjacent nature reserve lands. The Committee received a presentation on the development of the new ACT offsets policy and requested more information on the trends in environmental condition of offset sites. Three aspects of ACT NRM work were reviewed, namely progress in implementing the Regional Delivery Partnership Program Project on Climate Smart Agriculture, as well as the ACT NRM Action Plan for Rural Landscapes and Woodland and Forests. The Committee welcomed the appointment of an ACT NRM policy officer to progress the actions for enhanced management of rural landscapes. We noted the importance of the Regenerative Agriculture Monitoring and Planning Systems property plans for assisting leaseholders to undertake further sustainable NRM activities. The Committee supported a proposed review on how ACT can best utilise Commonwealth programs for carbon and biodiversity markets given the leasehold tenure and smaller sizes of ACT properties compared to those nationally.

Regarding conservation of grassy ecosystems, the Committee discussed how the ACT may best manage the trade-offs between conservation of small areas of high conservation value habitat (such as habitat of nationally threatened species) versus Commonwealth funding tied to hectares of habitat restored. ACT NRM members and other community experts will further discuss site prioritisation options through the Woodlands and Grasslands Community Project Advisory Group. For both rural landscapes and grassy ecosystems, the Committee discussed opportunities for greater implementation of NRM actions by Traditional Custodians. The Committee received a report from the Chair on ACT NRM’s engagement with the national sector through NRM Regions Australia.

The 9^th meeting of the ACT Natural Resource Management Advisory Committee took place on 26 August 2024 at Wildbark and Mulligan’s Flat Nature Reserve.

The Committee thanked Warren Bond, who stepped down as representative of ParkCare groups, for his service to the Committee, and noted that expressions of interest are open for a new ParkCare representative. We welcomed Caroline Le Couteur as the new representative of Urban Parks and Places Volunteering.

The meeting was preceded with a field visit of threatened fauna reintroduction programs at the Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary as Australia’s largest single box-gum grassy-woodland area managed for conservation. We were hosted by the Woodlands and Wetlands Trust, Parks and Conservation Service and ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society. The field visit reinforced how investment by the ACT Government in best practice conservation can lead to outstanding environmental outcomes, including in this case, the recovery of the threatened Eastern Bettong. It also highlighted the added value from government collaboration with community and scientific researcher organisations.

The Committee discussed a number of key issues:

• Offsets. Monitoring of environmental outcomes for areas of land designated as development offsets was considered. The Committee will receive a further briefing from the ACT Government policy offsets team at its next meeting.
• Restoring Grasslands and Woodlands. A briefing was provided on initial actions to implement the Commonwealth funded Regional Delivery Partnership Program project “Restoring Grasslands and Woodland Ecological Communities in the ACT”. Opportunities to enhance conservation of habitat on sites outside conservation reserves were discussed.
• ACT NRM Action Plan. A report on implementation was received and discussed on the first 2 of 10 chapters, namely Community Connection to Nature and Urban Landscapes. Activity is on track on 27 of the 30 actions. The Committee noted the need for ACT Government agencies to advise community groups on how to remove weed tree species in compliance with Urban Forest Act regulations.

The next meeting of the Committee is scheduled for late November 2024. Among the priorities for discussion are:

• ACT Government offsets policy.
• Regional Delivery Partnership update on the Climate Smart Agriculture Project.

NRM Action Plan progress in implementing actions under the Rural Landscapes and Woodland and Forests chapters.

The 8^th meeting of the ACT Natural Resource Management Advisory Committee was held on 3 June 2024.

The committee elected Lachlan Butler (Community Councils’ representative) as the Deputy Chair of the committee.

The committee discussed the importance of actions under the ACT NRM plan Cultural Landscapes theme. The committee supported the First Nations Training Conservation Program that ACTNRM is establishing under the Regional Delivery Partnership (RDP) Program in the coming year.

Going forward, the committee agreed that at each meeting they will review progress in implementing two ACT NRM plan themes and one RDP project in detail.

The committee made recommendations to ACTNRM on options for better including ‘environment’ into emergency response material, alongside ‘life’ and ‘property’ for the Biodiversity Natural Capital Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan.

The committee discussed the importance of sustainable agriculture in the ACT and made recommendations to support conservation land management by leaseholders.

The next meeting will be in late August 2024.

The 7^th meeting of the ACT Natural Resource Management Advisory Committee (NRMAC) was held in Belconnen on 8 April 2024. NRMAC was hosted on a field visit by the Emu Creek Landcare Group. The Committee was impressed by the restoration work achieved since 2017 and noted the different methods and innovative practices they were testing to improve habitat at a low cost. This raised discussion for the committee about how more outcomes can be delivered in a similar way across the ACT.

Rebecca Vassarotti MLA, Minister for the Environment, Parks, and Land Management joined the meeting on the Committee’s first anniversary. The Minister thanked the Committee for its work over the past year, reflected on its achievements and outlined some key priorities for the year ahead. This included the Regional Delivery Partnership Program, environmental volunteering, NRM Plan actions, National Soils Action Plan and Urban Rivers program.

The Committee discussed with the Minister several areas of concern to them for enhancing NRM outcomes in the ACT. The Committee discussed how to enhance a draft action tracker of the ACT NRM Plan implementation to enhance monitoring, assessment and communication. NRMAC agreed it would focus on assessing progress on two plan themes, sustainable agriculture and biodiversity and conservation, as priority areas at its next meeting. The Committee evaluated its work over its first year and agreed to measures to enhance its activities in the year ahead.

The ACT Natural Resource Management Advisory Committee held its 6th meeting on 5 February 2024 at Chifley. The meeting was preceded with a visit hosted by the Woden Valley Community Council and Friends of Mawson Ponds. The Friends have undertaken an exemplary, ~1,200 m long revegetation of a corridor linking habitats in the urban environment. A key observation was the value of ACT Government volunteer support staff and the need to secure these positions in City Service’s urban parks and places program.

The meeting focussed on a discussion of ACT Government conservation and land management priorities for 2024 with Mr Bren Burkevics (Executive Group Manager – Environment Heritage and Water, and ACT Conservator of Flora and Fauna) and Mr Stephen Alegria (Executive Branch Manager – Parks and Conservation Service). These included: strengthening strategic environment management and supporting policy; understanding and address biosecurity and invasive threats; regulating and protecting our environment; progressing infrastructure and resilience building in parks, reserves and forests; and good governance of environment, heritage and water. The Committee welcome these strategic approaches, and also sought assurances that the ACT Government would provide security of funding for key programs and associated staff, such as for biosecurity control.

The Commonwealth has allocated funding to ACT natural resources management for FY24 to FY29 under the Regional Delivery Partner Program. Funds have been allocated to projects that include: conservation of native grasslands; restoration of bogs and fens; sustainable agriculture; and employment of Ngunnawal people to undertake key on ground works. The Committee discussed how it and the broader community can enhance implementation of these projects.

Mr Bill Gemmel stepped down from the Committee and a replacement nominee will be sought from the Community Council Board. The Committee will meet next in April 2024.

The ACT Natural Resource Management Advisory Committee held its 4^th meeting in Jamison after a field visit to the Pinnacle Nature Reserve hosted by the local Parkcare group. The field visit highlighted the importance for effective Parkcare groups of support from dedicated ACT Government rangers and resources for weed control.

The Committee discussed opportunities to strengthen Parkcare and Urban Parks and Places (UPP) groups with advice from Ngunnawal traditional custodians on the relevant cultural values of each places, as well as for further technical support and resources for weed control.

The Committee welcomed the ACT Government’s commitments to the pilot Community Stewardship Weed Control Support Program and more volunteer support staff for UPP groups. Technical support to restore weedy understory to indigenous vegetation was identified as an opportunity.

The Committee received a briefing on the urban waterways programs and welcomed its focus on identifying sources of pollution and controlling them at source. A number of suggestions were made to further enhance these programs by working with residents and urban lands managers to reduce the inflow of nutrients and other pollutants onto streets and into waterways. Better draining eroding management and walking tracks on public lands is one such opportunity.

The Committee also considered measures that may enhance volunteering in the ACT community. Opportunities to increase engagement with people from underrepresented groups were discussed.

The ACT Government is still awaiting clarification from the Commonwealth Regional Delivery Partner Program on funding to underpin projects from 2024.

The Advisory Committee’s next meeting will be held in February 2024 and will look to visit a Community Council.

The 4^th meeting of the ACT Natural Resources Management Advisory Committee was hosted by the McGrath family on their Majura valley farm, and gave the Committee an opportunity to better understand the perspectives of the Rural Landholders Association on natural resource management.

The Committee noted that controlled grazing can be an important tool in vegetation management, particularly in areas of grasslands that are habitat for important species such as the Canberra Grassland Earless Dragon. Priority issues for potential funding under the Commonwealth’s Regional Delivery Partner Program were considered.

The proposed ACT’s National Soil Action Plan 2023-28 Partnership Program activities were also discussed. Development of the ACT’s Drought Plan was considered. The Committee recommended further exploration of ways to reduce soil erosion in the urban ACT, in particular, better drainage of tracks on public lands.

The next meeting in November will include a visit with a ParkCare group. Further consideration of the Commonwealth’s Regional Delivery Partner Program is a priority.

The ACT Natural Resource Management Advisory Committee held its 3^rd meeting on 23^rd July 2023. We welcomed a new member, Dr Mark Lonsdale representing the ACT Scientific Committee. The Committee noted that the Australian Government’s decision on the Regional Development Partner process for the ACT is yet to be confirmed. Should this be confirmed in the next few months then the Committee’s September meeting is expected to advise on proposed ACT Natural Heritage Trust projects. The recently completed FY24 ACT Environment Grants funding round was considered and the Committee provided advice on enhancing the criteria, application and reporting systems. Further advice was provided on opportunities for ACT and NSW collaboration for natural resources management in the capital region ahead of a forthcoming meeting of the ACT/NSW Cross Border Committee, including for enhance management of water, invasive species and conservation of biodiversity. An update on reforms to the ACT planning system was received. The Committee is next scheduled to meet on Monday 25^th September 2023.

Prof. Jamie Pittock, Independent Chair, ACT NRM Advisory Committee.

The ACT Natural Resource Management Advisory Committee visited the Ngunnawal cultural site at Gubur Dhaura and then held its second meeting at Wildbark at Mulligans Flat on the 22 May 2023. The committee discussed ways in which support for Ngunnawal identification and management of cultural sites can be enhanced and would improve natural resources management in the ACT.

The committee was briefed on the Connecting Nature Connecting People initiative, and strongly supported this program as a means of engaging Canberrans in the conservation of biodiversity and cultural sites. The committee’s terms of reference and other aspects of its operations were finalised. The next committee meeting will be in late July. Development of the ACT’s proposal to the Commonwealth Government’s National Landcare Program is expected be a focus of the committee’s work in coming months.