The Regional Catchment Strategy (RCS) themes are Water, Land, Biodiversity and Community, including Traditional Owners.

• The Water theme considers water resources, waterways, wetlands, floodplains, water dependent species and habitats
• The Land theme focuses on agricultural land use and management, as well as engaging the farming community.
• The Biodiversity theme focuses on terrestrial biodiversity, including native vegetation, habitats and threatened species.
• The Community theme considers the contribution of the regional community to NRM and how to maintain and build community involvement into the future
• The Traditional Owner pages describe the values and priorities of Traditional Owners with regards their Country and their role in caring for Country.

The RCS guidelines require an assessment of the condition and trends, threats and drivers of change for each theme. In response, we have identified priority directions and outcomes. Under Water and Biodiversity themes, priority assets (waterways, wetlands and areas of significant biodiversity) are also identified as places to focus our efforts.

Most of the technical content, and all of the priority directions and outcomes for this RCS, are included on the theme pages. The priority directions and outcomes appear on the theme page to which they are most relevant, acknowledging that many are relevant to other themes as well. Implementing the priority directions and outcomes in this RCS is subject to available funding. It is expected that key collaborators named for each theme will work together to seek investment.

Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) is place-based, collaborative, addressing multiple themes and the interactions between them. The RCS Local Areas complement the five RCS themes, describing local issues and opportunities, highlighting directions and outcomes of relevance, (copied from the theme pages) and these are intended to inform place-based ICM projects and programs to deliver this RCS. Strong partnerships and contributions from government and non-government partners, Traditional Owners, community-based groups and the broader community are needed to achieve the vision of the North Central RCS – ‘Working in partnership for a healthy catchment’. 

Through engagement with Traditional Owners of the region we learnt about their holistic perspective. Rather than talking about themes of Land, Water and Biodiversity separately, as we do in this RCS, these elements are all inter-connected. Cultural landscapes have been described as a traditional way of understanding and caring for Country – the Traditional Owners preferred planning unit. Describing and using cultural landscapes is an emerging priority for some Traditional Owners.

Climate change is a pervasive threat that affects all our natural resources, and all future planning will need to be through a climate change lens. We have developed a Climate Change page that can be updated as needed and which brings together all the climate change information in this RCS. Under each theme we have described the predicted impacts of climate change and highlighted some priorities for adaptation and opportunities for mitigation. Climate change related priority directions are identified under each of the themes. An overarching priority direction for the region, which brings them all together, and doesn’t belong under any one theme is:

Priority Direction	Key collaborators
Consider current information and prioritise action to inform renewal of the North Central Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Plan by 2023.	CMA