Beyond compliance: Building trust and capability as a regulator

Giving Country a voice in court – Cultural impact statements

This year, we introduced new guidance on victim impact statements relating to cultural harm, marking an important step in recognising the lived and ongoing impacts of environmental harm on Traditional Owners.

One of our core roles is to hold people accountable for harm to forests, wildlife, land and waters. Historically, court proceedings have relied on technical evidence of non compliance and environmental damage. However, our Pupangarli Marnmarnepu Working Group identified a critical opportunity to strengthen this approach by ensuring Traditional Owners’ voices can be heard when harm is done to Country.

In many regulatory cases, the direct victims – plants, animals, land and waters – cannot speak for themselves. Victim Impact Statements create a pathway for Traditional Owners to explain, in their own words, the cultural, spiritual, emotional and social impacts of harm to Country. These statements may be provided by individuals, Traditional Owner Corporations, or authorised representatives, and are presented to the court after a guilty plea or finding.

While courts can only legally receive documents titled Victim Impact Statements, we acknowledge that this language does not fully reflect the strength, resilience and sovereignty of Victoria’s First Peoples. Nonetheless, these statements play a meaningful role in informing sentencing decisions and ensuring courts better understand the full significance of environmental crime. Participation is entirely voluntary.

This guidance reflects our continued commitment to Aboriginal self determination and to regulatory approaches that better acknowledge cultural harm. It supports a more informed, respectful and comprehensive justice process – one that recognises Country as living, storied, and deeply connected to people.

Key publications

How-to-comply guides

Clear guidance helps people do the right thing for wildlife. This year, we published new and updated ‘how to comply’ resources to help licence holders and applicants understand their legal obligations, meet minimum welfare standards, and avoid common compliance issues.

We released our new Wildlife Controller Licence Guide: Things you need to know, setting out minimum standards for lawful operation – including eligible species, record keeping and returns, and requirements for handling and displaying wildlife.

After the Victorian government’s response to the Wildlife Act Review (October 2025), we updated the Private Wildlife Licence Guide to reflect new crocodile restrictions: licence holders must not acquire or receive saltwater or freshwater crocodiles without prior written approval from the Conservation Regulator.

The guidance also clarifies enclosure, breeding and disposal requirements to support consistent, safe management of high-risk species.

The how to comply guides that are now available are:

• Wildlife Rehabilitator Authorisation Guide(opens in a new window)
• Private Wildlife Licence Guide(opens in a new window)
• Dingo Licence Guide(opens in a new window)
• Wildlife Controller Licence Guide(opens in a new window)
• Wildlife Demonstrator Licence Guide(opens in a new window)

We also published a land manager activities and flying-foxes fact sheet to help public land managers undertake routine maintenance and reduce risk at flying-fox camps while avoiding harm to wildlife, and a Living with Wildlife webpage to clarify reasonable precautions to identify and avoid wildlife harm, including disturbance.

We’ve developed and published guidance to help operators understand and minimise the impacts of drones on wildlife. The negative impacts of drones on wildlife can include:

• collisions with, or attacks on, drones causing injury or death of wildlife
• increased stress due to audible or visual drone disturbance
• offspring being separated from their parents when drones come between them
• wildlife abandoning their nests when mistaking a drone for a predator
• increased predation risk as drones may attract predators to the area and/or scare wildlife out of safety.

Visit Wildlife Rehabilitator Authorisation Guide(opens in a new window)
Visit Private Wildlife Licence Guide(opens in a new window)
Visit Dingo Licence Guide(opens in a new window)
Visit Wildlife Controller Licence Guide(opens in a new window)
Visit Wildlife Demonstrator Licence Guide(opens in a new window)

Systems, processes, and tools

Wildlife Licensing System replacement

This year, we made significant progress toward replacing the legacy Wildlife Licensing System, a critical step to streamlining how permissions are applied for and assessed across Victoria.

A modern replacement will ensure we can continue to deliver permissions efficiently, support compliance activities and provide a better experience for licence holders and applicants. The new Permissions System will be designed to provide a more reliable, efficient and user‑friendly platform for managing licences, permits and authorisations.

A major focus during 2025–2026 has been engaging with the internal and external users of the system. External user engagement activities including research, workshops and interviews have provided valuable insights into how permissions are accessed and managed in practice. This work will shape system design to better meet the needs of applicants, licence holders and the broader community.

Development of the new system is now underway, with the project expected to deliver a system capable of supporting permissions processes and covering the full range of permission types administered by the Conservation Regulator in 2027.

Internal reviews

We have an internal review program that provides the community with a method to make a complaint or request an internal review about the way we conduct our activities or the decisions we make.

Our internal review program provides an impartial assessment of:

• a regulatory decision, such as issuing licences or authorisations
• an officer’s behaviour when conducting regulatory activities, including if they followed policies and procedures, or how they undertook defensive actions
• systemic issues or risks that might impact our ability to safely and effectively conduct our regulatory activities.

Each assessment is conducted internally by an assessor not involved in the original decision. They consider all aspects of the matter to determine compliance with legislation and approved policies, procedures and training and then will determine whether remedial activities are required to address decisions, specific risks or whether further investigation is required by a third party.

In 2025–2026, we received 3 requests for internal review to be conducted. Each of the Internal Reviews determined the decision in question to be a Justified Regulatory Decision.

This internal review process increases opportunities for regulatory decision review and provides an avenue in addition to options available through the Victorian Ombudsman and the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner.