Eyre Peninsula landholders to receive funding through vegetation pilot

The Enhancing Remnant Vegetation Pilot – which the Eyre Peninsula Landscape Board is helping to facilitate at the local level – opened last year to provide farmers with opportunities to diversify into less drought-exposed income streams, in a bid to make farm income more secure while improving biodiversity outcomes through better land management.

The Eyre Peninsula has been one of six regions across Australia involved in the Australian Government’s Enhancing Remnant Vegetation Pilot.

The Eyre Peninsula Landscape Board’s Planning and Assessment Officer, Andrew Freeman says it’s encouraging to have 17 farmers from across our region involved with this pilot.

“With this funding, the Australian Government is recognising that land managers play a key role in biodiversity stewardship and is providing tools to help them adapt to climate change and create new income streams,” Mr Freeman says.

“We hope this pilot program is continued to give additional land managers opportunities into the future to undertake biodiversity stewardship on behalf of all Australians.”

Dominic Deleo, who owns land near Wanilla is one of Eyre Peninsula’s successful applicants who will receive payments to carry out activities such as installing fencing, weeding, undertaking pest control and replanting.

“We’re very happy to have secured funding through this project. As custodians of this piece of land, it means we can work to ensure better outcomes for biodiversity conservation on our property and the broader environment,” Mr Deleo says.

“Over the next ten years we will undertake fencing to exclude stock from conservation areas, weed control, revegetation and monitoring of existing remnant corridors.”

Grantley Telfer, who owns land near Tumby Bay is another successful applicant, says they are pleased to be part of the vegetation project.

“It gives us an opportunity to fence off some scrubland that we haven’t been able to do until now,” Mr Telfer says.

“The great thing about the pilot project is that it also considers that there is ongoing care required to the land and a value is placed on the work done to eradicate feral animals and weeds. This new approach is a real incentive to farmers and I hope that it becomes the norm for government grants for landholders managing vegetation once the pilot program is seen to work.”

Participating in the pilot will provide farmers with opportunities to diversify into less drought-exposed income streams, making farm income more secure and improving biodiversity outcomes through better land management.

Farmers are required to actively manage their vegetation over and above what is already required by law; and are entering into 10-year agreements with the Australian Government to generate genuine biodiversity outcomes.

More details about the Enhancing Remnant Vegetation Pilot can be found on the Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry website.