3 September 2026
The start of spring marks a significant change for farmers across NSW, with the Government’s Native Vegetation Regulatory (NVR) Map coming into effect statewide.
The NVR Map is used to display regulated and unregulated land categories, which can affect whether native vegetation management activities require approval or are unrestricted.
NSW Farmers has strongly opposed the move to make the mapping regulatory, warning that farmers would be deemed to have committed an offence when actually correctly managing their land because of inaccurate or disputed mapping of their own properties.
Farmers across NSW have been raising concerns about the accuracy of the mapping for years, and in particular that the map cannot correctly categorise groundcover, leading to an assumed position that it is all regulated unless proven by the farmer otherwise.
NSW Farmers President, Rebecca Reardon, said the concerns of farmers have once again fallen on deaf ears.
“Farmers have consistently told us that the mapping does not accurately reflect what is on the ground, particularly when it comes to grasslands,” Ms Reardon said.
“We need a system that recognises farmers are the people who know their properties best and if the map is wrong, there needs to be a simple, transparent and timely way to prove it is wrong and have it fixed.”
A major concern for farmers is the impact of inaccurate groundcover mapping that creates unnecessary and perverse restrictions on the management of invasive weeds such as African lovegrass.
African lovegrass is a highly invasive, drought-tolerant weed that is already widespread across parts of NSW, particularly in the South East, Central and Northern Tablelands and Riverina.
“Farmers need to be able to manage these weeds effectively to protect productive pastures. A weed problem shouldn’t become a regulatory problem simply because the map gets the vegetation wrong.”
NSW Farmers say there are vast areas of grassland mapped as regulated land despite containing less than 50 per cent native vegetation, putting farmers at risk of unnecessary restrictions on land they have been managing productively for generations.
If the makeup of the grasslands is contested, even though the landholder is certain it is less than 50% native, it can take two years to get a government assessment to allow land management activity that should otherwise be able to be undertaken immediately.
“This is not about farmers wanting to clear native vegetation. It is about getting the map right in the first place,” Ms Reardon said.
“Farmers should not have to fight the map on a property-by-property basis to prove that land has been incorrectly classified. They want to be left to get on with their job of producing food and fibre while managing the environment responsibly and improving it for generations to come.
“We need a regulatory system that recognises that reality, rather than one that creates more red tape and uncertainty, and places a government failure to accurately identify species onto the landholder to fix.
“On behalf of our members, we will continue to advocate for a practical process that allows inaccurate mapping to be corrected quickly and fairly, without placing an unnecessary burden on farmers.”
