Around one-third of Victoria consists of public land, including about 3,000 protected areas with a total land area of 4 million hectares or 39,273 km2 (18% of the state’s total area, 75% of Victoria’s wetlands and 70% of Victoria’s coastline). These are all managed by Parks Victoria and consist of:

  • 45 national parks, totalling 28,023 kmor 11.32% of the state’s area, which offer the highest level of protection to diverse natural areas
  • 91 state parks which are similar to national parks, but are generally smaller.
  • 3 wilderness parks which are large areas with native plant and animal communities that are relatively unaffected by humans
  • over 2,700 nature conservation reserves
  • 5 Indigenous Protected Areas which are “areas of land and sea managed by Indigenous groups as protected areas for biodiversity conservation through voluntary agreements with the Australian Government”
  • more than 80 metropolitan, reservoir and regional parks covering more than 100,000 hectares.