Conservation Reserves Management Strategy 2003 - Parks Victoria

Only 39% of Nature Conservation Reserves are well buffered by adjacent indigenous vegetation; thatis have more that 60% of their boundary with adjacent indigenous vegetation, and the majority haveless than 30% of their boundary with indigenous vegetation. Only 13% of Natural Features Reservesand 13% Historic and Cultural Features Reserves are well buffered by adjacent indigenous vegetation.TABLE 7RESERVESIZE (HA)NUMBER OF CONSERVATION RESERVES BY SIZE AND CONNECTIVITY CLASS% BOUNDARY BORDERED BY INDIGENOUS VEGETATION (EVC)0-30%-< 60% > 60% - < 100% 100%NCR NFR HCFR NCR NFR HCFR NCR NFR HCFR NCR NFR HCFR0 – 10 26 438 39 3 147 6 9 92 4 5 70 2>10–200 107 525 21 25 120 5 16 68 2 13 33 3>200–400 25 52 3 4 7 1 5 5 2 1 3 0>400 41 69 15 4 4 0 2 4 0 1 4 13.1.3 Intrinsic viabilityIn the absence of a statewide survey of the condition of vegetation communities and flora and faunapopulations, the size of reserves combined with connectivity of reserves to indigenous vegetation isused as a broad indication of intrinsic ecological viability of reserves i.e. the likelihood that a reservewill be able to maintain the long-term survival of ecosystems and species without managementintervention (PV 2000b).Table 7 compares the number of Conservation Reserves grouped by size and the proportion of theboundary with surrounding indigenous vegetation (EVC) categories. The majority of reserves havelower intrinsic viability. More than 43% of Conservation Reserves are both very small (