Q. What is a plan of management?
A plan of management (PoM) is prepared for each national park in the state.
The PoM lists the management objectives for a national park and details the strategies and actions which will be used to achieve those objectives. The PoM provides the opportunity to respond to the combination of community aspirations and conservation challenges which confront each national park.
The preparation of a PoM begins with a review of the physical characteristics, the conservation, social and economic values and existing uses of the reserve. It assesses the significance of the conservation, social and economic values and identifies any current or potential threats to those values. The next step is the development of a series of strategies and actions to protect the core values of the park while providing for an appropriate level of community use and enjoyment.
By law, a draft PoM must be exhibited for public comment. After it is finalised, it is signed off by the NSW Minister for the Environment and becomes a legally binding document.
Q. Why a new plan?
The role of the PoM in determining the appropriate uses means that it is essential that the document remains relevant. Periodic review is required to ensure that a POM is responsive to any emerging issues.
The current SHNP PoM was approved in 1998, while the sections of the POM relating to the issue of leases and licences were amended in 2003.
There have been many changes around Sydney Harbour, at a state and national level and globally, which have a bearing on the future of SHNP. Some of the factors which influenced the decision to review of the PoM were:
• Legislative changes regarding the issue of leases and licences;
• Resolution of land uses for some of the neighbouring lands, notably those managed by the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust;
• Increasing consolidation of urban development adjacent to the park;
• The identification as of some native fauna and flora popluations as threatened species, populations and communities;
• The completion of some new precinct plans which identified opportunities for the conservation, interpretation and public access (eg. Goat Island);
• A renewed focus at a state wide level of the provision of high quality, sustainable visitor experiences in national parks. This includes enhancements to basic infrastructure such as the walking track network as well as increased opportunities for commercial partners to offer visitor and tourism related services; and
• The recognition of the impending impacts of sea level rise on some of the natural, cultural and visitor assets of SHNP.
Q. What is the relationship of a PoM to other plans
The PoM does have a dominant role in relation to the management of any national park in NSW, however this is not an exclusive role. Many other statutory and non-statutory plans have a significant impact on how national parks are managed.
Key examples of statutory plans that affect the management of national parks include State Environmental Planning Policies prepared under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, Conservation Management Plans prepared under the Heritage Act, and Recovery Plans under the Threatened Species Conservation Act or Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Non-statutory plans which influence the management of SHNP range from the recent NSW Tourism Taskforce Report on Sustainable Tourism in National Parks, to the precinct plans prepared by the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, through to business feasibility plans for individual sites within SHNP.
The PoM process cannot replicate the detailed information collection or analysis which is involved in many of these specialist plans. A major part of the PoM process is therefore to identify those relevant issues which are addressed in these plans and to effectively integrate them into the POM.
It is important to note that the integration of other plans is not simply a matter of transferring their conclusions into the POM. One of the key tasks in the preparation of the POM is to identify any conflicts that might arise between the management requirements of different values of the park. For example, a Recovery Plan for a threatened plant may propose measures to increase its extent on park. This objective might conflict with the maintenance of asset protection zones for adjacent heritage buildings. The challenge for the POM is to find the rightbalance between such competing objectives.
