Abstract
Since the 1960s, biodiversity conservation has grown in importance, resulting in the development of a host of relevant policies. Biodiversity conservation policy-making has concentrated on the development and implementation of policy, with limited efforts focused on the evaluation phase, the end result being a gap in the policy cycle at a critical stage. In response to this existing gap, an evaluative framework has been developed based on the principles of policy environmental assessment. The framework was designed to address the complexities found in the conservation of biodiversity. Following framework development, the appropriateness and user-friendliness of the framework was tested via application to a number of natural resource management policies in Western Australia. The application process, which included analysis of the selected policies via use of the framework and face-to-face follow-up interviews with key policy-makers, was completed by a group of purposively selected policy workers from government organizations, non-government organizations and academic institutions.