Recovery plans outline the actions that we need to take to help threatened species or ecological communities survive and 'recover' to a healthy level.

The Biodiversity Conservation Act provides for recovery plans to be prepared for the conservation, protection and management for one or more threatened species, or one or more threatened ecological communities, or a combination of threatened species and threatened ecological communities. A recovery plan must provide for research and management actions to stop the decline, and support the recovery, of each threatened species or threatened ecological community to which the plan relates so that its chance of long-term survival in the wild are maximised.

Draft recovery plans and plans proposed for adoption under the Biodiversity Conservation Act will be available for public comment prior to approval of the recovery plan by the Minister for Environment. Approval of recovery plans will be published in the Government Gazette and on the department's website.

Interim recovery plans are preliminary versions of recovery plans that are prepared where full information is not available.

Recovery plans and interim recovery plans are prepared for threatened species and ecological communities on a priority basis, commencing with those ranked for conservation action by the Minister for Environment as ‘Critically Endangered’.

They are developed with a range of stakeholders, with a term of 10 years (recovery plans) or five years (interim recovery plans) from the gazettal date. They are modified when changes in knowledge occur. They provide an assessment of the current status, and detailed information and guidance for the management and protection, of threatened flora and fauna and their habitats, and of threatened ecological communities.

Interim recovery plans are used to manage and protect threatened species and threatened ecological communities where a plan is required urgently but where there are insufficient data available to prepare a full recovery plan.

Recovery plans prepared by the department may be adopted by the Australian Government, and are then referred to as national recovery plans.

More information on recovery plans

• Department Corporate Policy Statement no. 35 Conserving Threatened Species and Ecological Communities.
• Australian Government Department of the Environment and Energy's Recovery planning - Compliance checklist for legislative and process requirements to be provided with recovery plans for terrestrial threatened species and ecological communities (DoE 2014)
• The Department of the Environment and Energy's webpage for national recovery plans.
• List of National Recovery Plans for threatened species and ecological communities listed under the EPBC Act