Central Tablelands Local Land Services

The Central Tablelands region is located in central NSW and covers an area of approximately 31,365 km2. It includes the major towns of Bathurst, Blayney, Cowra, Lithgow, Molong, Mudgee, Oberon and Orange and falls predominantly within Wiradjuri Aboriginal country.

The region is home to over 156,000 residents including an indigenous population of 7,012 (4.5% of the population). The area includes properties that make up 4.2% of NSW's annual value of agricultural production, includes almost 10% of NSW's agricultural business and contains 3.2% of NSW's agricultural land. Approximately 7% of the Region's population is employed in agriculture, fisheries and forestry. The Region also encompasses eight Local Government Areas and comprises 3% of the Murray-Darling Basin.

The area has a number of natural resource assets such as national parks, culturally significant areas and is home to a vast range of native fauna and flora with some of these being listed as threatened or endangered.

The Central Tablelands is home to a diverse range of industries including the major retail centres of Bathurst and Orange, the major university city of Bathurst; mining operations are focused around Orange, Lithgow and Mudgee and tourism operations including significant wineries at Orange, Cowra and Mudgee.

Agriculturally, the region is highly diverse, adding to the complexity of natural resource management issues. Evenly spread summer and winter rainfall supports productive cropping systems with grazing the most significant land use followed by irrigated farming, broad acre crops and horticultural enterprises including areas of fruit and vegetable growing and viticulture.