The Australian Museum is Australia's premier natural history museum and leading scientific institution - it aims to "research, interpret, communicate and apply understanding of the environments and cultures of the Australian region to increase their long-term sustainability".

The partnership aims to demonstrate both organisations' commitment to biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.

The two initial partnership projects, BioMaps - National Project and BioMaps - Pilbara case study (supported by the Rio Tinto WA Future Fund) will increase our knowledge of biodiversity, especially the value of Australian production lands, and investigate how best to apply this new knowledge to natural resource management.

BioMaps - National Project will develop a national map that integrates information on land use practices and biodiversity data collated from a wide range of government, industry and scientific sources.