The Great Otway Conservation Action Plan focuses primarily on the first of Parks Victoria’s three strategic themes:

• Caring for Country
• Connecting People and Nature
• Contributing to Healthy, Liveable Communities.

The goal for Caring for Country is to sustainably manage, protect and conserve Victoria’s natural and cultural landscapes. Parks Victoria identifies as its primary responsibility to ensure parks are healthy and resilient for current and future generations.

Parks Victoria

The Great Otway Parks landscape is a region of great biodiversity and cultural heritage. It encompasses oldgrowth forests, cool temperate rainforests and wet forest, biodiverse heathlands, a large expanse of essentially unmodified coastline, and important marine ecosystems.
It is home to many threatened species, including the Long-nosed Potoroo, Southern Brown Bandicoot, Hooded Plover, Anglesea Grevillea and Metallic Sun-orchid. The areas covered by this plan form part of the Traditional Countries of the Eastern Maar and Wadawurrung peoples.
The Parks landscape includes The Great Otway National Park, Port Campbell National Park, Point Addis Marine National Park, Twelve Apostles Marine National Park and Bay of Islands Coastal Park, and 42 other reserves. It covers more than 135,000 hectares and is home to many endangered plant and animal species and significant cultural heritage places.
This Conservation Action Plan defines and prioritises conservation strategies for the Great Otway Parks landscape for the period to 2035, and broadly describes the expected outcomes of these strategies. The plan outlines what can be realistically achieved to tackle the threats that pose the most risk to conservation assets. The Conservation Action Plan will direct the achievement of the conservation vision:

• The resilience of natural assets in the Great Otway Parks landscape is increased and ecosystem services are maintained in the face of climate change and other stressors.