General News
2 October, 2023
Local landcare groups and projects benefit from 2023 round of grants
Helping preserve the region’s biodiversity, several local groups and projects are sharing in funding worth $3.98 million as part of the 2023 Victorian Landcare Grants. The State Government led initiative, which helps volunteers protect and restore...
Helping preserve the region’s biodiversity, several local groups and projects are sharing in funding worth $3.98 million as part of the 2023 Victorian Landcare Grants.
The State Government led initiative, which helps volunteers protect and restore landscapes, has this year supported more than 500 ventures across Victoria, including 33 from the Ripon electorate.
Grants of up to $20,000 were allocated locally for projects headed by the Avoca & District Landcare Group, Moolort Landcare Group and the Landsborough Landcare group — while volunteer groups like the Amphitheatre Landcare Group, Clunes Landcare and Waterways Group, and the Eddington Landcare Group, also received funding of $500 each for their administration and running costs.
“Landcare originated in our region, and we have so many incredible volunteer groups who work tirelessly to care for our land and waterways,” Member for Ripon Martha Haylett said.
“This funding recognises their efforts and supports our local landcare groups into the future.”
Among the region’s projects, the Moolort group’s proposal for its wetlands, located roughly between Maryborough and Castelamine, secured $15,000 in funds, set to be used towards improved research into the swamps.
“The Moolort Plains is nationally recognised for a diversity of significant wetlands — freshwater meadows, red gum swamps and lignum wetlands — managed within a highly profitable cropping and grazing landscape,” Moolort Landcare Group member Helen Galloway said.
“In recent years, a number of these significant areas have been protected through covenants and management agreements, and landholders have undertaken conservation actions including stock management fencing to encourage natural regeneration, revegetation and weed control to improve their values.
“This project will support an assessment of the values and conditions of significant wetlands on private land across the Moolort Plains.”
Ms Galloway said the funding provided an opportunity to explore the issues impacting the wetlands while also allowing the group to help farmers create a flow of income from these plains.
“Many of these wetlands remain under-valued, underappreciated and remain subject to ongoing threats. As a consequence there is a risk that their future potential as significant biodiversity sites and carbon sinks will be lost,” she said.
“[With this grant, we will] engage with landholders that own wetlands to gauge their interest in participating in the project, and [undertake] site visits to map and document wetland history, its extent, threats, and current condition.
“There is increasing interest in the potential of environmental assets, such as wetlands on farms, to provide a new income stream for farmers through access to natural capital markets and a key step in enabling farmers to access such markets is to understand and document the values of these areas at the farm scale — [we will provide] guidance and support for interested landholders.”
About 30 kilometres away from Moolort, to the north of Maryborough, Eddington’s landcare group was also the recipient of the grant — with $500, the organisation can now pay for insurance and focus on improving environmental outcomes instead of raising funds.
“We’re very happy to have gotten this grant because we operate on a shoestring budget,” the group’s secretary Veronica Palmer said.
“This means that we don’t have to run a sausage sizzle or fundraise another way and without insurance we wouldn’t be an active group.
“Grants like these are so important because without it we would not be able to go on.”