NSW invasive species management review

Summary

Through a Terms of Reference, the then Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Environment asked the Natural Resources Commission to advise on strategic opportunities to improve the management of invasive species in NSW across all land tenures for environmental, economic, social and cultural benefits. This will help to inform the NSW Government of key opportunities to better manage invasive species, supported by the best available evidence.

In August 2024, we released a preliminary report. The report identifies five areas in which key issues pose the greatest risk to the success of NSW’s invasive species management system. For each area, the report proposes a suite of integrated recommendations. The recommendations target risk reduction and system-wide improvement.

In November 2024, we provided our final report to Government. The final report identified that current risks from weeds and pest animals are high and the costs to NSW are accumulating rapidly. It is time for a step-change in invasive species management, focused on risk reduction and coordination, to protect NSW’s economy, environment, health and way of life.

The recommendations in our final report are interrelated. They are designed to build on and complement each other to shape a better invasive species management system. Our final report includes a road map to address the five key threats to the success of NSW’s invasive species management system. The road map outlines a phased approach:

• first, state-wide objectives and principles are clearly defined and documented
• followed by the development and implementation of supporting documentation.

In August 2025, the NSW Government provided its response to the final report. The Government response recognises that with finite resources available to government to manage exotic and established pest, weed and disease risks to the economy, agricultural sector, environmental, social and cultural assets, and communities, it is important that decision making, and programs are strategic and designed to deliver positive outcomes. The NSW Government Biosecurity Action Plan 2025-2026 will start the process of responding to our recommendations.

We received a range of public submissions that were considered as part of the review. We also consulted with targeted stakeholders and worked with Dr. Marion Healy, independent NSW Biosecurity Commissioner, in delivering the review.

Key documents

• Final report NSW invasive species management review-Government response (August 2025) (PDF 1.03MB)
• Final report NSW invasive species management review (November 2024) (PDF 7.77MB)
• Preliminary report - Invasive species management (August 2024) (PDF 3.15MB)
• Terms of Reference (PDF 186.26KB)
• FAQ Invasive species review (PDF 120.12KB)

Outputs from the review

We commissioned the following investigations to inform this review:

• Invasive species cost assessment for NSW - Final project report (CEBRA / CEER, October 2024) (PDF 16.34MB)
• Assessment of landscape-scale action on the management of widespread invasive species (February 2024) (PDF 661.05KB)
• Pest animal and weed management survey 2016/2019/2022 (February 2024) (PDF 632.2KB)
• Forum on improving Aboriginal involvement in invasive species management - Summary (November 2023) (PDF 132.95KB)
• Interjurisdictional analysis - invasive species management (March 2023) (PDF 2.89MB)