The Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD) provides spatial and attribute information about government-vested protected areas (PAs) for nature conservation in different jurisdictions in Australia. The data were contributed by State and Territory nature conservation agencies.
"A protected area is an area of land and/or sea especially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity, and of natural and associated cultural resources, and managed through legal or other effective means" (IUCN 1994).
The CAPAD spatial data is reported in the biennial publication "Terrestrial and Marine Protected Areas In Australia", located on The Australian Government Department of the Environment and Energy and Water resources (DEW) website at http://www.environment.gov.au/capad
Main attributes in the database include:
NAME: official (gazetted) name of a PA or its unofficial name if one exists. Gazetted PAs with no name are flagged as "Unnamed".
TYPE: official gazetted designation of the PA.
GAZ_AREA: area of PA described in the nomination document (eg. parliamentary gazettal), to the nearest hectare.
IUCN: the IUCN protected area category ascribed by the Managing authority, as outlined in the publication: CNPPA/WCMC "Guidelines for Protected Area management categories". Gland: IUCN, 1994. (ISBN: 2-8317-0201-1). Definitions include:
IA Strict Nature Reserve: PA managed mainly for science;
IB Wilderness Area: PA managed mainly for wilderness protection;
II National Park: PA managed mainly for ecosystem protection;
III Natural Monument: PA managed mainly for conservation of specific natural features;
IV Habitat / Species Management Area: PA managed mainly for conservation through management intervention;
V Protected Landscape / Seascape: PA managed mainly for landscape/seascape conservation and recreation;
VI Managed Resource Protected Area: PA managed mainly for the sustainable use of natural ecosystems.
GAZ_DATE - original gazettal/ proclamation date.
LTST_GAZ - Date of most recent gazetted amendment or verification.
Other attributes include: STATE (eg. NSW), AUTHORITY (eg. ANPWS), DESC (ancillary information, such as data source)
and LAND (terrestrial 'T' or marine 'M').CC - Attribution (CC BY)
This data has been licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia Licence. More information can be found at http://www.ausgoal.gov.au/creative-commons.
© Commonwealth of Australia (Department of the Environment and Energy) 2016
Licence type changed to Creative Commons By Attribution on 9 June 2016