What is conservation?

Conservation in Australia is the system of laws, protected areas, programmes, and community work that protects native species, habitats, and ecosystems. It operates at federal, state, and local levels and increasingly involves Indigenous Australians as joint managers and primary custodians of much of the country's natural heritage.

The National Reserve System covers about 169 million hectares, or roughly 22 per cent of Australia's land area, through more than 11,000 protected areas. These include 619 national parks managed by state and territory agencies, 87 Indigenous Protected Areas managed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations, and thousands of conservation reserves, regional parks, and private conservation properties. Major Commonwealth-managed parks include Kakadu, Uluru-Kata Tjuta, Booderee (at Jervis Bay), Christmas Island, Pulu Keeling (at Cocos Islands), and Norfolk Island.

Marine conservation has expanded substantially since the 2000s. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (344,400 square kilometres) was joined by the Coral Sea Marine Park (989,842 square kilometres) in 2018 and the Australian Marine Park network covering more than 4 million square kilometres of ocean. The Macquarie Island Marine Park, expanded in 2023, is one of the largest in the world. Together these protected areas cover about 45 per cent of Australia's exclusive economic zone.

Threatened species recovery is led by the federal Threatened Species Recovery Hub, the Saving Our Species programme in New South Wales, Zoos Victoria's Fighting Extinction programme, and parallel state initiatives. Species recovery success stories include the Tasmanian devil (now reintroduced to mainland Australia at Barrington Tops), the eastern barred bandicoot (reintroduced to the Victorian volcanic plains), and the corroboree frog (captive-bred at Taronga Zoo and released into Kosciuszko National Park). Volunteer groups including Bush Heritage Australia, the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, and tens of thousands of Landcare volunteers add private and community conservation effort to government programmes.