Appendices | Mallee Regional Catchment Strategy

Appendix 1: Long-term (20-Year) and Medium-term (6-Year) Outcomes For Each RCS Theme

The long-term (20-year) and medium-term (6-year) outcome targets established to demonstrate delivery against state-wide and regional indicators for the Biodiversity, Waterways, Agricultural Land, Culture and Heritage and Community Capacity for NRM themes are listed in Table A1.

**Table A1** | Long-term (20-year) and medium-term (6-year) outcome targets for Biodiversity, Waterways, Agricultural Land, Culture and Heritage and Community Capacity for NRM. *Continued…*

*Continued..*. **Table A1** | Long-term (20-year) and medium-term (6-year) outcome targets for Biodiversity, Waterways, Agricultural Land, Culture and Heritage and Community Capacity for NRM.

Foundational activities and priority actions required to monitor, evaluate and report progress against these targets is provided in Table A2 below.

Table A2 | Foundational activities and priority actions to support RCS MERI processes.

Appendix 2: Planning Instruments Informing Regional and Landscape Scale NRM in the Mallee

2.1 Regional Scale Planning Instruments

The key federal, state and regional instruments considered in the development of priority management and strategic directions for the Biodiversity, Waterways, Agricultural Land, Culture and Heritage and Community Capacity for NRM themes are listed in Table A3 below.

Table A3 | Regional, state and federal planning instruments informing Biodiversity, Waterway, Agricultural Land, Culture and Heritage, and Community Capacity for NRM management at the whole of region x theme scale.

2.2 Landscape Scale Planning Instruments

The key local instruments considered in the development of priority management actions for each Local Area are listed in Table A4 below.

Table A4 | Local planning instruments informing Local Area management at the landscape scale.

Appendix 3: Stakeholder Engagement

A summary of the stakeholder forums/audiences and representatives engaged to inform development of this RCS is provided in Table A5.

Table A5 | Stakeholder forums and representatives engaged to inform development of the RCS.

(1) BGLC workshops were undertaken in partnership with the three other CMA regions (Wimmera, North Central and Glenelg Hopkins) located in the RAP area.

Appendix 4: Statewide Outcomes Framework

**Figure A1** | Statewide outcomes framework applied to each of the ten Victorian Regional Catchment Strategies.

Appendix 5: Threatened Species and Ecological Communities

The 2022–2028 Regional Catchment Strategy (RCS) considers threatened species and ecological communities under the Biodiversity theme.

Within this theme, those species and communities which are listed as threatened at either a Federal (under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act)) or State (under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 (FFG Act)) are considered to be a priority for future management actions. Each of the Victorian Mallee flora and fauna species and communities currently listed in these instruments is detailed below (2).

Federal Listing

The EPBC Act is the Australian Government’s central piece of legislation for the protection of the environment the conservation of biodiversity and the promotion of the ecologically sustainable use of natural resources. The EPBC Act provides for the identification and listing of flora and fauna species, ecological communities and native migratory species as nationally threatened.

Listed flora and fauna species are categorised as: extinct, extinct in the wild, critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable, or conservation dependent (see: https://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/ public/publicthreatenedlist.pl for full listing). Listed ecological communities are categorised as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable.

The Mallee CMA area contains ten flora species, 23 fauna species, five Vegetation Communities and one Fauna Community which are listed under the EPBC Act (Tables A6-A8).

State Listing

The FFG Act is the key piece of Victorian legislation for the conservation of threatened species and communities and for the management of potentially threatening processes. It provides for the listing of threatened taxa (genera, species, subspecies, and varieties) and threatened communities of flora and fauna and potentially threatening processes.

Recent changes to the FFG Act used the common assessment method to remove duplication of species lists by establishing a single comprehensive list of threatened flora and fauna species known as the FFG Act Threatened List. Previous Advisory Lists have now been revoked. Further information on these changes can be found at https://www.environment.vic.gov.au/ conserving-threatened-species/threatened-list.

The Mallee CMA area contains 283 flora species, 105 fauna species, five Flora Communities and two Fauna Communities which are listed under the FFG Act (Tables A6-A8).

Table A6 | Flora species listed under the FFG Act and EPBC Act.

Table A7 | Fauna species listed under the FFG Act and EPBC Act.

Table A8 | Ecological communities listed under the FFG Act and EPBC Act.

(2) Species lists for Tables A6-A7 were generated from Victorian Biodiversity Atlas from 1990 onwards https://www.environment.vic.gov.au/biodiversity/victorian-biodiversity-atlas. Species lists for Table A8 were determined from the updated (2021) Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 threatened species list retrieved from https://www.environment.vic.gov.au/conserving-threatened-species/threatened-list and the Protected Matters search tool website (limited to MCMA boundary) https://www.awe.gov.au/environment/epbc/protected-matters-search-tool

(3) The EPBC listed Buloke Woodlands of the Riverina and Murray-Darling Depression Bioregions encompasses five FFG listed woodland communities (Source: https://www.awe.gov.au/environment/biodiversity/threatened/assessments/buloke-woodlands).

(4) EPBC listed as Mallee Bird Community of the Murray Darling Depression Bioregion, and by the FFG as Victorian Mallee Bird Community.

Appendix 6: Priority Locations For Biodiversity Management Actions

Priority locations for the delivery of sustained weed, herbivore, and predator control, and revegetation re-establishment management actions (as shown in the Figures A2-A5 below) were identified through application of the DELWP Strategic Management Prospects spatial tool and stakeholder consultation. Whole of region medium-term (6-year) outcome targets and spatial representation of associated Local Areas boundaries are also shown.

5A: Weed Control

**Figure A2** | Priority locations, regional targets and local area boundaries for sustained weed control, focusing on transformer weeds.

5B: Herbivore Control

**Figure A3** | Priority locations, regional targets and local area boundaries for sustained herbivore control, encompassing rabbits, feral goats, kangaroos, deer and feral pigs.

5C: Predator Control

**FigureA4** | Priority locations, regional targets and local area boundaries for sustained pest predator, encompassing foxes and feral cats.

5D: Revegetation (Re-establishment)

**Figure A5** | Priority locations, local area boundaries and priority corridors (bio-links) for the re-establishment of native vegetation (note that the total area of priority locations identified through SMP for delivery against Biodiversity 2037 20-year targets are represented on the maps. Identification of specific areas to deliver actions over the life of the RCS (i.e. 3,450 ha outcome target) will be determined at a landscape scale in consultation with local stakeholders. The regional outcome target for 3,450 ha of revegetation within existing remnants does not apply this SMP data).

Appendix 7: Priority Management Directions For Each Local Area

Table A9 | Priority Management Directions for each Local Area to deliver against the whole-of-region medium-term (6-year) outcome targets identified for our biodiversity, waterway, agricultural land, culture and heritage, and community capacity for NRM assets.

Appendix 8: Strategic Biodiveristy Values For Local Areas

The relative importance of natural values within each of the region’s nine Local Areas was identified through application of the DELWP Strategic Biodiversity Values spatial dataset. The data combines biodiversity values with connectivity and fragmentation information to show the relative value of landscapes across Victoria.

This data is then ranked into 20 percent increments to provide a strategic view of the ranked contribution of a location for the conservation of Victoria’s biodiversity. A higher strategic biodiversity value score indicates a location that contains more, and less common biodiversity values relative to other locations with a lower score.

Figure A6 shows habitat identified as being of the highest ecological value to Victoria (i.e. top 20%) for each Local Area and Figure A7 illustrates all relative rankings for the region.