The Biodiversity Conservation Strategy (BCS) is the overarching strategy for protecting biodiversity in Victoria’s growth corridors. It outlines all relevant matters of national and state environmental significance, including matters covered in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
Conservation decisions reflected in the strategy were made using biodiversity data collected by the State Government through various biodiversity mapping projects and other data collected by the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA).
This data has been incorporated into the DEECA Time Stamping dataset and mapping, which captures information on native vegetation type, extent and condition, within the growth corridors. The data informs the native vegetation compensation requirements for urban development in the growth corridors and supersedes the previous requirement for specific Biodiversity Assessment Reports for each growth area precinct.
The BCS and Time Stamping data applies to the four growth corridors within the expanded 2010 Urban Growth Boundary and 16 of the existing 28 urban precincts within the 2005 Urban Growth Boundary covered by the BCS.
This integrated approach contributes to greater planning certainty, improves biodiversity outcomes for matters of environmental significance and assists in streamlining planning and approval processes for the growth corridors.
The completed Biodiversity Assessment Reports are available here.
For further information on the BCS, refer to Melbourne Strategic Assessment website here.