The ACT Flora and Fauna Committee

The Flora and Fauna Committee was established by a 1994 amendment to the Nature Conservation Act 1980. The Committee is an independent body of seven experts in biodiversity and/or ecology. Members are appointed by the Minister on a part-time basis for three years.

The functions of the Flora and Fauna Committee are to advise the Minister in relation to nature conservation. In particular, it is required to advise the Minister of species and ecological communities that are threatened with extinction and processes that are ecologically threatening, and recommend that they be declared accordingly.

Where the Minister accepts a Committee recommendation for declaration, the Minister shall make the declaration sought. Declaration is formal recognition of a conservation threat. A species may be declared as either vulnerable or endangered, depending on the degree of threat to its survival. A community is declared as endangered and a process a threatening. Current declarations appear on the threatened species and ecological communities webpage.

Assessment Criteria

The Flora and Fauna Committee's assessments are required to be made on nature conservation grounds only and in a regional context in accordance with specified criteria. These criteria were published in 1995 as Threatened Species and Communities in the ACT—Criteria for Assessment. The document was updated in 2001 and is available for download ( PDF 415Kb ).

A new version of the assesment criteria is currently up for public comment.

The Conservator of Flora and Fauna is obliged to develop a management response to each declaration by way of an Action Plan.

Committee Membership

Details of Flora and Fauna Committee membership and its work program are available in its most recent Annual report

Annual Report 2004-2005( PDF 150Kb )

The annual report for 2005-2006 is not yet available.