Game Council New South Wales was established in 2002 under the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002 ('the Act') as a New South Wales statutory authority, subject to the control and direction of the Minister for Primary Industries. Its aim is to provide for the effective management of introduced species of game animals, as well as promoting responsible and orderly hunting of those game animals on public and private land and of certain pest animals on public land.
The Act specifies a range of functions for the Game Council centred on administering the NSW game hunting licensing system, representing the interests of game hunters, making recommendations and providing advice to the Minister on game and feral animal control, liaising with other stakeholders in managing game and feral animals, promoting and funding research into game and feral animal control issues and engaging in such other activities relating to the objects of the Act as are prescribed by the regulations.
During 2008, the AECGroup conducted the first Public Benefit Assessment (PBA) of the Game Council.[1] The PBA is updated each year based on survey data from licence holders and in the 2009-10 financial year there was again an increase in public benefit reported. Game Council's activities are reported as a community service and a cost-effective method of achieving its natural resource management objectives, specifically game and feral animal control.
Voluntary conservation hunting provides a number of genuine, measurable Natural, Social and Economic benefits to NSW. Each year an Environmental Scorecard[1] is published to track these benefits. The 2010 scorecard lists the following:
The NSW Natural Environment benefits from:
The NSW Economic Environment benefits from:
The NSW Social Environment benefits from: