Private Land Conservation on the North Coast Landcare-BCT Partnership
The North Coast has a strong private land conservation movement that achieves excellent outcomes for wildlife habitat protection, connectivity and regeneration – all key Landcare objectives. Connecting landholders – including BCT agreement holders – to Landcare networks is likely to significantly increase their knowledge, skills and technical capacity to deliver best practice conservation. This 2022 partnership program will involve networking, learning events and communicating stories about landholder journeys in private land conservation.
Landcare and the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust are working with regional Landcare networks to raise awareness and support private land conservation efforts across the state.
Regional Landcare Networks have been funded to develop networking, education and communication activities with private landholders. These projects will build understanding of private land conservation and increase opportunities for regional Landcare and BCT staff and volunteers to meet and share their knowledge and skills.
Private landholders in targeted areas will be provided with opportunities to network, participate in education and training activities and share their stories of conservation on their own land.
North Coast Private Land Conservation 2022
Networking events – July – Sept 2022
The project is targeting a primary audience of BCT landholders / agreement holders in the identified cluster areas. North Coast Regional Landcare will work with local networks to deliver an event that brings Landcare, BCT staff and landholders together.
Presentations will include BCT staff presenting on current activities, funding opportunities and other support for landholders.
Landcare can engage landholders not currently connected with local networks and share information, resources, how to become a member, follow social media, and/or subscribe to the local Landcare newsletter to be informed about upcoming events, training and workshops.
Landholders will have the opportunity to network with fellow private land conservation people in their local area and engage with BCT and Landcare.
Identifying what training and events landholders want will be a key outcome. Landholders can also sign-up to the other property planning and citizen science activities.
The 2022 project is targeted towards BCT agreement cluster areas chosen in consultation with regional BCT staff. The areas selected include:
• Kyogle, Border Ranges, Collins Creek, Loadstone
• Hastings Comboyne, Pappinbarra, Birdwood
• Dorrigo, Eastern Dorrigo
• Clarence south, Nymboida.
Next steps in the 2022 program:
Citizen Science Program – wildlife camera trapping for monitoring fauna.
The program is seeking to establish a network of citizen scientists across the BCT landholder network who will be trained in all aspects of camera trap use, fauna identification and data management. The project includes expert training and provision of camera traps to deploy on BCT agreement properties.
Property Planning – online training and support
Landholders will be invited to participate in an online property planning course which will be held over several sessions focusing on the steps towards having a strategy for managing biodiversity on their land. These include understanding what’s on your property, mapping ecological values, identifying assets and determining management priorities. Specialist staff will guide landholders through the planning process.
Communicating stories in private land conservation
A key process for promoting private land conservation and encouraging others to get involved is telling stories about landholder journeys in private land conservation, whether it be starting out or being long term managers of conservation land. Case studies will capture stories about the people and their conservation achievements.
Promotion of the amazing biodiversity of the North Coast and the important role private land conservation plays in protecting it will be documented through short stories, video and a private land conservation calendar for 2023!