Standard Criteria for Sites of Biological Significance in Victoria
The primary objective of this document is to provide a standard set of criteria for use by Staff of the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) for the rating of Biological Significance. The meaning of biological significance rating for the purposes of the criteria is defined and restricted to the significance of the site in conserving native biodiversity in Victoria.
The standard set of criteria is based on those that have been used informally as the basis for biological significance assessment in DSE and its predecessors over the last two decades. The range and detail of these informal departmental criteria varied between projects, but the majority retain a consistent core. These in turn owe a lot to the criteria of the Register of the National Estate. A set of five broad criteria, which are divided into a number of sub-criteria, are recommended. The criteria and sub-criteria have been hierarchically numbered to facilitate shorthand reference.
The procedure for ranking a site using the standard criteria is defined via a simple set of rules and principles. It requires that biological assets present at the site are independently rated against each relevant criterion. The site significance is equal to that of the single highest rating of any asset. There is no combination of values for multiple assets. This process retains more comprehensive information that the previous overall ranking of a site without indication of which asset(s) contributed to the rating. It also retains more information, for discrimination between sites, and where review of a site’s significance is required.
It is anticipated that the current rating for the majority of existing sites would be similar to that which would have been derived if the rating had taken place using the new methodology and standard criteria. The the exception to this is that no information will have been recorded on the significance of individual assets, nor the particular assets contributing to the rating of the site. It is therefore recommended that the existing significance ratings for sites is retained, until such time as the rating of an individual site needs to be checked, or reassessed. At that point the new methodology should be used to check and update the site’s rating.
Standard criteria for sites of biological significance in Victoria (PDF - 1.6 Mb)
Links to other relevant sites:
Victoria:
Victoria's Native Vegetation Management : A Framework for Action
Biodiverstiy Interactive Map
Victorian Planning Practice Note - Biodiversity
BioSites - Sites of Biodiversity Significance in the Port Phillip Region, Department of Sustainability and Environment
The BioSites database and site maps for the Port Phillip and Westernport area have recently been updated. There is information stored in the BioSites database on nearly 1000 sites of biodiversity significance in this area. BioSites were assessed against the a draft version of the Standard Criteria to determine whether they were of National, State, Regional or Local significance.
DSE Port Phillip Region - Biosites brochure (PDF - 1.1 Mb)
Maroondah City Council - Sites of Biological Significance Study
Maroondah's Sites of Biological Significance Study identifies sites of biological significance on both public and private land. These sites have been protected in the Maroondah Planning Scheme under the Vegetation Protection Overlay. An additional fifty sites were also identified which are biologically significant at the Local level. The biological significance has been assessed using a scientific criteria.
National and International:
Comprehensive, adequate and representative (CAR) reserve systems (Australia)
One of the key achievements of the regional forest agreements was the establishment of comprehensive, adequate and representative (CAR) reserve systems, based on nationally agreed criteria, also known as the “JANIS criteria”.
Joint Nature Conservation Committee (United Kingdom)
The Joint Nature Conservation Committee is the forum through which the three country nature conservation agencies, the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW), English Nature and Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), deliver their statutory responsibilities for Great Britain as a whole and internationally. Under these special functions JNCC, working with the nature conservation agencies, is the focus for the maintenance and production of the guidelines for the selection of biological Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs).