The Regulatory Priorities 2021 – 2022 support the Conservation Regulator to focus regulatory efforts on activities that ensure Victorians have safe and equitable access to our forests, parks and natural environment while at the same time protecting our wildlife and ecosystems.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted the way we live, work, and enjoy the natural environment. It has been fantastic to see so many Victorians out enjoying our natural environment during times of eased restrictions with unprecedented visitation across the forest estate. It has also been interesting to see how COVID has affected trends in wildlife licenses with an increase in applications to keep native wildlife as pets coinciding with COVID restrictions.
The Conservation Regulator has risen to the challenge of delivering our Regulatory Priorities and core activities with these changing trends.
We have continued to work to protect our natural environment while we also provide support to the Victorian Government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Our annual review of the risk of harm to our biodiversity and natural heritage values has shown that climate change and population growth continue to be driving factors, influencing our risks into the medium and longer-term. For us, as a regulator, this means increased pressure on, and competing demands for, the environmental and social values we are trying to protect. It further heightens the need for effective prioritisation of our resources, and for us to understand and plan for natural disasters, climate change impacts on ecosystems and demand for access to public land across the landscape.
This year’s priorities reflect a range of factors that will influence compliance and harm to the environment over the next year.
This includes visitation numbers to public land during peak times since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, increases in the sales of off-road vehicles, higher demand for wildlife as pets, and changes in energy demands leading to increased take of firewood while people spend more time at home.
We have refined our priorities to direct our effort to where it will have the most impact and we will continue to use a range of regulatory tools to address non-compliance in these priority areas in collaboration with key regulatory partners and the community.
I look forward to continuing our important work to conserve and protect our environment for future generations.
Kate Gavens, Chief Conservation Regulator
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