About Us

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is South Australia's lead environment agency. We are a new department that brings conservation of the environment and the management of natural resources together.

Our responsibilities include natural resources management (NRM), nature conservation, heritage conservation, coast and marine conservation and animal welfare. We manage approximately one quarter of the state's land in the public land estate and manage important cultural institutions such as the botanic gardens.

Some of our core functions are:

environment and NRM policy and advice, including policy leadership on landscape and seascape conservation across public and private lands, and provision of advice to guide planning and development decisions
integrated regional NRM planning and delivery in partnership with the state's eight regional natural resources management boards
management and administration of the state's public land including national parks, marine parks, botanic gardens and the coastline
development and administration of environment and natural resources legislation, including controls on the clearance of native vegetation, mining exploration and extraction on parks and reserves and the management of native wildlife
collection and provision of information and knowledge about the state's environment and natural resources, to increase our understanding of the environment and to support decision-making
coordination of fire management activities across the state's public land including implementation of a prescribed burning program in partnership with the CFS, SA Water and Forestry SA
coordinated delivery of actions to recover the Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray Mouth region.

DENR is part of the Environment and Conservation Portfolio and reports to the Minister for Environment and Conservation. Our work helps government achieve its priorities and is informed by the government's commitments set out in South Australia's Strategic Plan and the State Natural Resources Management Plan and also by the DENR Corporate Plan 2010-2014 (1.24mb pdf).

The DENR Corporate Plan sets three goals to guide our work:

1. the environment is conserved and natural resources are used sustainably
2. the environment is valued and enjoyed
3. the environment is integral to development decisions.

The Corporate Plan also defines the three qualities or values that we emphasise as we carry out our work in this department:

1. we work well with people
2. we bring out the best in others and ourselves
3. we get the right things done.

Read more about the role of DENR and our current priorities in the DENR Corporate Plan 2010-2014 (1.24mb pdf).