The National Land & Water Resources Audit (the Audit) and Bureau of Rural Sciences worked with state and territory governments to develop a national baseline of native vegetation extent for the year 2004-2005. Native vegetation mapping was collated by the Audit for the Australian Native Vegetation Assessment 2001. This data is maintained through the National Vegetation Information System (NVIS) and now includes mapping to 2004. The NVIS database was first used to approximate the remaining extent of native vegetation for the 2001 assessment. However, this data represented the extent of mapped vegetation rather than a baseline of native vegetation existing at any particular point in time.