Australia's federal, state and territory environment ministers agreed on March 27, 2026, to an implementation plan for the country's Strategy for Nature, setting out concrete steps toward halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030. The plan was developed jointly by Australian governments at every level, incorporating input from conservation groups, scientists and First Nations representatives.

The strategy sets six national targets to address biodiversity decline, paired with three broader "enablers of change" meant to drive the kind of transformation officials say the targets require. Among the most concrete commitments: protecting and conserving at least 30 percent of Australia's terrestrial, inland water, marine and coastal areas by 2030, with particular attention to areas important for biodiversity and ecosystem function. The plan also commits to ensuring those protected areas are ecologically representative and well-connected, while explicitly recognising and respecting the rights of First Nations peoples in how they are managed.

Other targets include putting priority degraded areas — across land, inland waterways, and coastal and marine ecosystems — under effective restoration by 2030, and reducing pollution, including plastic pollution, and its impact on biodiversity. The strategy also commits Australia to minimising and mitigating the impact of invasive species in priority landscapes, and to embedding climate adaptation and nature-based solutions into broader decision-making, with an explicit goal of minimising the negative effects that climate action itself can have on biodiversity.

The plan ties into Australia's international commitments under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which Australia adopted alongside 188 other countries at the 15th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in December 2022. The GBF sets a global goal of halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030 and living in harmony with nature by 2050, through 23 specific targets. Australia's domestic targets are explicitly mapped against the relevant GBF targets, including its commitments on protected areas, ecosystem restoration, invasive species and pollution.

Among the enablers of change identified in the plan is a commitment to make environmental data and information more widely accessible to support decision-making, and to "mainstream" nature into government and business decisions, including in financing, regulation and planning processes. The plan also commits to ensuring equitable representation and participation for First Nations peoples in decisions relating to nature.

The agreement comes as Australian conservation groups continue to warn that habitat loss remains the country's biggest driver of biodiversity decline. The Nature Conservation Council of NSW, for instance, says more than half of all native forest and woodland in New South Wales — some 29 million hectares — has been lost since European colonisation, and has continued to press state governments over new coal mine approvals even as the national strategy moves into its implementation phase.

Liam Brien

Articles

Australia Sets 2030 Deadline to Halt and Reverse Biodiversity Loss