New England & North West Regional Awards 2021
New England & North West Regional Awards 2021
A day to celebrate and inspire the New England and North West NSW Landcarers
Community Participation -
LP024-R003
The issue
There are many landcarers, both landholders and other community members, achieving great things in natural resource management. They may be improving habitat, increasing biodiversity, reducing soil erosion, increasing ground cover, improving soil health orparticipating in many other on-ground activities which are providing the public benefit of improving our natural landscapes and building resilience to offset a variable climate. We needed a way to showcase these people, while at the same time sharing their knowledge with others so that more people can make changes to improve their own landscapes and public lands.
The solution
With funding from the National Landcare Program and NSW Local Land Services, a committee of regional landcarers met regularly to coordinate a one day event in Inverell, NSW, to celebrate the achievements of our Landcarers and thank them for their contribution to our natural resources.
We engaged two speakers - Colin Seis and Geoff Bassett, who inspired and educated attendees on what can be achieved through the adoption of regenerative practices including multi-species pastures, pasture cropping, rotational grazing, biodiversity and chemical minimisation.
An awards luncheon was held where our Regional Award winners were announced and presented with their trophies.
The impact
Bringing landcarers and communities together to celebrate their achievements not only gives nominees and winners appreciation and recognition of their work, but also allows them the opportunity to meet like minded people to build connections and contacts to support them in their future endeavours.
Awards ceremonies also demonstrate what can be achieved and inspire others to work towards improving natural resource management in their own landscapes and communities.
Additionally, we found that some peri-urban landcarers were excited to hear what farmers were achieving on the ground, and that many were planting trees instead of knocking them down - increasing their biodiversity to begin restoring landscapes to their original condition and increase soil health, carbon sequestration and a multitude of other flow-on effects.
Key facts
- It is important that our Landcare Champions are celebrated and recognised for their efforts
- Holding combined regional awards events allows the opportunity to share ideas and inspire similar works in other parts of the region in the future