The 2015 Women in Agriculture Program aims to empower women in Central Western rural communities through targeted training, mentoring and built support networks to strengthen resilience, foster new career pathways and increase the profile of women in the industry that will flow-on into the future.

The Connecting Our Waterways project aims to improve landscape function and productivity by restoring or increasing the connectivity of riparian vegetation on farms in the Watershed Landcare district. Watershed Landcare is seeking expressions of interest (EOI) for funding from landholders in our region to conduct on-ground works to enhance riparian vegetation or increase the connectivity of riparian corridors on the land they manage.

The Landcare driving sustainable land use project aims to restore or improve landscape function and productivity by encouraging farmer innovation and change in two key areas: grazing management and farm trees/revegetation on farms in the Watershed Landcare district. Total funding of $21,300 is available to contribute to activities that increase groundcover and perenniality of pastures, improve soil health, and/or improve ecosystem function. Individual landholders can apply for up to $5,000 in funding to conduct on-ground works to enhance their grazing management and vegetation on the land they manage.

The Green Army is a Federal Government program aimed at achieving positive environmental outcomes while giving young people training and practical experience. The Mid Western Regional Council recently sponsored a Green Army project in the region. The team is run by Conservation Volunteers Australia and has nine participants aged between 18 and 24. There are five different sites where they are working; Adams Lead Reserve in Gulgong, Peoples Park in Gulgong, Rylstone common, Flirtation Hill in Mudgee and Putta Bucca Wetlands. The program runs over a period of six months.

The Friends of Putta Bucca Wetlands seek to restore an area of cleared land within the boundaries of the Putta Bucca Wetlands Reserve (PBWR). We seek to a restore a woodland of trees native to the local area and once much more extensive in the region, including within the PBWR. This woodland restoration will focus on restoring an open grassy box-gum woodland dominated by Yellow Box (Eucalyptus melliodora) but will also include other native trees including Rough-barked Apple (Angophora floribunda), Kurrajong (Brachychiton populneus) and shrubs such as Acacia implexa, Acacia decora and Bursaria spinosa. This woodland type is listed as a Critically Endangered Ecological Community on the Commonwealth EPBC Act 1999 and an Endangered Ecological Community on the NSW TSC Act 1995. It is highly valuable from a biodiversity conservation perspective for both flora and fauna.