BEST PRACTICE IN STRATEGIC PARK MANAGEMENT TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED PARK MANAGEMENT MODEL

Park agencies in Australia and New Zealand are required to produce management plans for their parks and protected areas through legislature. The Australian and New Zealand Environmental and Conservation Council (ANZECC), has set up guidelines for best practice in park management planning. The integrated approach to park planning work adopted by Australia and New Zealand has been recognised and commended by ANZECC (2000) for the attention to detail that has been given to all areas of conservation during the planning stage. However the ANZECC working group has also identified that the haste to develop and implement plans can sometimes overlook management areas that require improvement such as the effective involvement of indigenous people; integrated planning that includes policy and strategy planning encompassing budget and development processes; monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of plans; the use of electronic facilities for public consulting and the release of draft documents (ANZECC 2000).
Ecological sustainability of parks for the future should also form part of all management plans, and ecological monitoring and biological surveys should form part of allocated funding in these plans. A Natural Resource Management Plan must give a realistic plan for the next five to fifty years, which incorporates management strategies for managing the effects of global climate change on animals, birds, plants and invasive species. Environmental climate change will see some regions becoming hotter and dryer, while others experience hotter and wetter conditions or a colder and wetter climate shift. The effects on the species living in these regions will be extreme as they struggle to adapt to the climate change or are displaced as they seek to move through conservation corridors to more suitable regions.