The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) is Australia’s main instrument for implementing its obligations under the World Heritage Convention. Other legislation and management plans provide more specific protection for World Heritage properties.
International context
The World Heritage Convention is the international agreement on the protection of World Heritage. The Operational Guidelines for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention are regularly updated by the World Heritage Committee to reflect new concepts, knowledge or experiences. The Operational Guidelines are an essential reference for everyone involved in protecting and managing World Heritage properties - follow the link to the Operational Guidelines on the World Heritage Centre website for the latest version.
Paragraphs 96-119 of the Operational Guidelines deal with protection and management of World Heritage properties and paragraph 132.5 provides detail about what protective legislation, management plans and/or arrangements are required in a nomination document.
Australian context
Protection of World Heritage in Australia is done in two ways – by regulation and by management plans.
Click on a heading below or Show all | Hide all
Regulation
The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) regulates actions that may have a significant impact on the World Heritage values of declared World Heritage properties.
Section 12 of the EPBC Act provides that a person must not take an action that has or will have or is likely to have a significant impact on the World Heritage values of declared World Heritage properties. Significant impact guidelines have been developed to provide overarching guidance on determining whether an action is likely to have a significant impact on a matter protected under national environment law. The matters of national environmental significance protected under national environment law include:
- listed threatened species and communities
- listed migratory species
- Ramsar wetlands of international importance
- Commonwealth marine environment
- World Heritage properties
- National Heritage places
- the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
- nuclear actions
- a water resource, in relation to coal seam gas development and large coal mining development
Other EPBC Act Policy Statements providing specific guidance are also available.
The EPBC Act does not refer specifically to the Outstanding Universal Value or OUV of Australia’s World Heritage properties, but rather refers to their World Heritage values. An example of how the EPBC Act is applied in relation to OUV is in the Department’s referral guidelines which have been prepared for the Outstanding Universal Value of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.
Importantly, all of Australia’s declared World Heritage properties are also on Australia’s National Heritage List and are also considered National Heritage places. As a result, an action may result in a significant impact on both World Heritage values and National Heritage values of a declared World Heritage property/National Heritage place.
Since the criteria and processes for National Heritage listing differ from those for World Heritage listing, the National Heritage values protected under section 15 of the EPBC Act usually differ from the World Heritage values protected under section 12 of the EPBC Act. The boundary of the National Heritage place may also differ from the boundary of the declared World Heritage property, so it is important to check the National Heritage listing(s) relevant to a particular declared World Heritage property.
Several Australian World Heritage properties are also home to or overlap with other matters of national environmental significance (NES) such as migratory species, Ramsar wetlands or the Commonwealth marine environment. To check which matters of NES apply, check the Protected Matters Search Tool then the Australian Heritage Database records for details of specific listed heritage values.
Australian World Heritage properties are also often protected through state and territory legislation. These are numerous and subject to change, so it is best to check the management plan for the property for the relevant legislation that applies. The most current versions of these laws are available online through official State and Territory legislation websites or through the website for the Australasian Legal Information Institute or AustLII
Management arrangements
Management arrangements including management plans play an important role in providing specific policies on how the Outstanding Universal Value of a property is to be managed.
When preparing or updating management plans for World Heritage properties, it is important to follow the Australian World Heritage management principles which are set out in the EPBC Regulations. The General Principles are as follows:
|
1.01 |
The primary purpose of management of natural heritage and cultural heritage of a declared World Heritage property must be, in accordance with Australia’s obligations under the World Heritage Convention, to identify, protect, conserve, present, transmit to the future generations an, if appropriate, rehabilitate the World Heritage values of the property. |
|
1.02 |
The management should provide for public consultation on decisions and actions that may have a significant impact on the property. |
|
1.03 |
The management should make special provision, if appropriate, for the involvement in managing the property of people who: |
|
1.04 |
The management should provide for continuing community and technical input in managing the property. |
The World Heritage management principles also deal with management planning and environmental impact assessment, as described in the page on Conserving World Heritage.
More information
EPBC Act and EPBC Regulation information.
Federal Register of Legislation for Commonwealth laws and related documents.
The Australasian Legal Information Institute or AustLII.