Peter and Judy Stewart
Peter Stewart didn’t need to be encouraged post-retirement to move from Gippsland to the Benalla district. He was already looking forward to the thought of warmer weather, and when his wife, Judy, told him that she’d bought about 100 acres of land with Broken River frontage, his interest and enthusiasm grew by the minute.
But, with this excitement also came the realisation that the river frontage needed plenty of work to bring it back to a healthy state.
“It was fairly well eaten out – a bit of a wasteland”, said Mr Stewart, referring to the eroded and barren landscape. “The previous owner had heavily farmed the area with cattle. There was little or no plants under the trees and riverbanks were badly damaged and susceptible to erosion in times of high water.”
While the Stewarts noticed the previous owner had planted trees and erected a fence along the river, the cattle had eaten the young trees when grasses had run low and had dragged the fencing wire out into neighbouring paddocks.
So the Stewarts set about restoring the riverbank. Firstly, they put in fencing to help protect the irrigation channel and an irrigation pump that had received the close attention of hungry stock.
Then, when Judy received a letter in the mail about Waterway Grants from the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority (GBCMA), she got in contact with them to get help with other work. “They said they’d give us a hand to fence it (the frontage) off and do some other work,” said Mrs Stewart.
The Stewarts and the GBCMA began by planting approximately 700 trees, removing introduced Willow species, fencing off approximately 15 acres of river frontage and putting in off-river watering systems. Approximately 50% of fencing materials and 75% of the watering system was funded by the GBCMA.
The Stewarts now let cattle graze in the river frontage area for short periods of time, and let them out when they start eating the trees. The Stewarts don’t believe they have lost any productivity by fencing off this area. “We’re actually increasing productivity because we can manage the use of each paddock with the new watering systems,” said Mr Stewart.
The end result is well-managed river frontage that allows the Stewarts to maximise agricultural productivity whilst addressing some of the environmental issues threatening the river. The changes are clearly noticeable to the Stewart’s neighbours, whose property overlooks the Stewart's river frontage. “They’ve certainly grazed it sensibly, and the banks now aren’t being eroded or destroyed”, said Maria De Crespiny. The De Crespinys also fence off their side of the river to protect it from stock access.
For landholders interested in looking at alternative ways to improve their river frontage, Mr Stewart recommends speaking to the GBCMA. “I’d recommend talking to the GBCMA to see if you can improve your property by doing a couple of things we’ve done. It’s worked for us.”
