Measuring how well we are meeting our aiMeasuring how well we are meeting our aim

Measuring how well we are meeting our aim

• Degree of compliance of management with the relevant Australian IUCN reserve management principles.

Background

As noted in Section 2.6, the EPBC Act requires this Management Plan to assign the Park to an IUCN category. The EPBC Regulations prescribe the management principles for each IUCN category. The category to which the Park is assigned is guided by the purposes for which the Park was declared (see Section 2.4, Legislative context). The purposes for which Kakadu National Park were declared are consistent with the characteristics for the IUCN protected area category ‘national park’.

What we are going to do

Policy

3.1.1 The Park is assigned to the IUCN Protected Area Category ‘national park’ and will be managed in accordance with the Management Principles set down in Schedule 8 of the EPBC Regulations and listed in Appendix G:

• Natural and scenic areas of national and international significance should be protected for spiritual, scientific, educational, recreational or tourist purposes.
• Representative examples of physiographic regions, biotic communities, genetic resources, and native species should be perpetuated in as natural a state as possible to provide ecological stability and diversity.
• Visitor use should be managed for inspirational, educational, cultural and recreational purposes at a level that will maintain the reserve or zone in a natural or near natural state.
• Management should seek to ensure that exploitation or occupation inconsistent with these principles does not occur.
• Respect should be maintained for the ecological, geomorphologic, sacred and aesthetic attributes for which the reserve or zone was assigned to this category.
• The needs of Indigenous people should be taken into account, including subsistence resource use, to the extent that they do not conflict with these principles.
• The aspirations of traditional owners of land within the reserve or zone, their continuing land management practices, the protection and maintenance of cultural heritage and the benefit the traditional owners derive from enterprises established in the reserve or zone, consistent with these principles, should be recognised and taken into account.