Planting a seed for 2021
Landcare leaders behind a major annual tree-planting event in the Wimmera plan to forge ahead for 2021 and have already selected a destination.
Lawloit Ranges near Nhill will be a site for Hindmarsh Landcare Network’s 2021 Project Hindmarsh – as part of work to revegetate and rehabilitate vast tracts of rural land.
Planting went ahead at this year’s 22nd annual event despite COVID-19 restrictions preventing hundreds of volunteers from participating.
Instead, a small team of network members and Wimmera Catchment Management Authority employees, as part of a Working for Victoria program, helped plant and water up to 12,000 trees.
Landcare facilitator Jonathon Starks said this was the first year the event went ahead without its volunteer workforce since it started in 1998.
“But we already ordered the plants and the sites had already been settled, so we still had to get the plants in the ground,” he said.
Plantout sites were at Jeparit, Tarranyurk, Antwerp and Dimboola based on a major Wimmera River riparian lower-catchment target area.
Mr Starks said planning was now underway for next year’s plantout, set for the July school holidays.
“We’ve got funding for next year’s planting. We need to plan 12 months ahead, so we’ve placed an order for plants for next year, as seedlings take 12 months to grow and only germinate in the winter,” he said.
The landcare network receives funding for the event as part of the State Government’s Protecting Victoria’s Environment Biodiversity 2037 strategy – a plan to stop the decline of biodiversity and achieve overall biodiversity improvement during the next 20 years.
But Mr Starks said the economic impact associated with COVID-19 lockdowns was cause for concern about future funding arrangements for landcare groups across the country.
“We look forward to continuing our planting program. Things might start to get difficult for us and other landcare groups depending on how the state and federal governments’ budgets go beyond COVID-19,” he said.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty with how this pandemic will affect funding for landcare nationally and statewide and how environmental programs might continue in the future.
“But we will continue on regardless.”
Mr Starks said it was crucial the network could continue re-vegetation and landcare management work.
“The long-term benefit of this project and the reason why it was formed was to produce a bio-link for the Little Desert and the Big Desert national parks – there’s a lot of major environmental benefits in restoring that native vegetation and providing habitat for biodiversity,” he said.
“We’ve now moved to protecting remnant vegetation, putting in shelter belts and vegetation on degraded areas on farms.
“Since this project started, we’ve put about two-million plants in the ground.”
Mr Starks said Project Hindmarsh also created an additional benefit of boosting the regional economy and improving social connection.
“It’s something that is looked forward to on our social calendar for our Melbourne and local supporters – a strong focus has always been to bring city and country people together,” he said.
“It also brings a lot of money into the community.
“We always employ local businesses to support us, whether that’s for the catering, for the meals or suppling the buses for volunteers or staying at local accommodation.”