Stronger Country: Reconnecting communities to restore Country

Working with landholders to protect and enhance threatened ecological communities across the southern Flinders Ranges and Rangeland areas.

The peppermint box (Eucalyptus odorata) grassy woodlands and iron-grass (Lomandra spp.) natural temperate grasslands were listed as critically endangered under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. This national listing recognises that their long-term survival is under threat.

Both ecological communities have suffered from heavy clearing and grazing, with many areas now dominated by invasive weeds. These practices have also reduced the diversity of the native grasses, herbs and shrubs across the remaining sites and impacted the habitat of pygmy bluetongue lizards.

The Northern and Yorke Landscape Board secured $1.9m of funding over 5 years (2023-2028) through the Australian Government’s Natural Heritage Trust Program to deliver the Stronger Country project.

Twenty participating landholders will undertake property management planning, revegetation and other land management techniques to help protect and enhance the endangered ecological communities. This work is also designed to benefit the health of their property and their operation’s bottom line.

Through Stronger Country, First Nations communities and private landholders will connect to explore cultural land management practices and any flow-on economic opportunities for First Nations people.

Stronger Country aims to:

• Revegetate at least 80ha of habitat through a combination of tube stock planting and direct seeding with collected local seed.
• Develop 20 individual property management plans, covering over 81,000ha.
• Deliver $530,000 in funding for on-ground work that protects and enhances the threatened ecological communities.
• Undertake habitat condition monitoring and fauna and flora surveys to establish and quantify pygmy bluetongue lizard habitats, and the condition of the two threatened ecological communities across the landscape.
• Facilitate “Return to Country” training and on-Country farm visits for First Nations people.