Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority welcomes Caring for our Country funding

Projects to build and share community and Traditional Owner natural resource management (NRM) knowledge, protect the region's unique environment and support farmers to adopt soil management best practice will be funded through almost $17 million of funding secured by the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority (CMA) from the Commonwealth Government's Caring for our Country (CfoC) initiative.

Goulburn Broken CMA CEO Chris Norman said the seven projects had been developed, after consultation with the Catchment community, to align with Commonwealth Government funding priorities and 2013-19 Goulburn Broken Regional Catchment Strategy (RCS) objectives.

"The RCS outlines the long term vision for improving the resilience of the Catchment's biodiversity, land, water and people," Mr Norman said.

"It recognises that different parts of the Catchment will be affected in different ways by climate variability, water policy reform, and land-use and agricultural production changes.

"These seven CfoC-funded projects will help improve and protect the Catchment's natural resources in an ever-changing environment."

The projects are:

Building Traditional Owners' Capacity and Participation in NRM, which involves increasing Indigenous involvement in NRM project planning and implementation; encouraging landholders, via a series of workshops, to incorporate Cultural Heritage and Traditional Ecological Knowledge into land management; and support for the successful Yorta Yorta Youth Journeys.

Building NRM Community, Skills, Knowledge and Engagement, which involves conducting ecology courses (Box-Ironbark and Floodplain); Seedbank activities; and through the Local Government Reference Group supporting eight local council environmental officers and VicRoads, Goulburn-Murray Water, Conservation Management Networks and Goulburn Broken CMA representatives in biodiversity management.

Building a resilient Barmah Forest, which involves preparing a plan to help guide activities such as eradicating Cabomba from the Broken River system, controlling pest plants, and reducing the feral pig population; and building Barmah Forest Traditional Owners' NRM capacity through direct involvement in projects.

Protecting significant woodland and wetland ecosystems, which involves providing incentives to landholders to protect and enhance nationally significant woodland and wetland ecosystems in the Catchment; identifying and addressing threat; and securing 375 ha of covenants.

Protecting Threatened Species , which includes revegetation and protecting vegetation to improve habitat for threatened/vulnerable species including the Superb Parrot, Euroa Guinea Flower, Warby Ranges Swamp Gum and Regent Honeyeater

Beyond SoilCare II - builds on a previous CFOC-funded project, Beyond SoilCare, to improve land managers' soil management knowledge and skills to help them increase productivity, adapt to climate variability and manage threats such as erosion and salinity across the Catchment.

A Regional Landcare Facilitator position has also been funded through the initiative. The facilitator will work with land managers and the 94 Landcare and Land Management Groups, seven Landcare Networks, five Conservation Management Networks, and five Sustainable Farming Groups within the Goulburn Broken Catchment.

Mr Norman said Goulburn Broken CMA had secured the largest portion of the $109,691,878 of funding allocated to Victorian CMAs.

"Strong partnerships with community, agencies, councils and other groups are the key to our continued success in delivering on-ground works that improve the resilience of the Catchment's land, water, biodiversity and people," Mr Norman said.

"These partners were involved in the planning and development of these projects and will play a vital role in rolling them out over the next five years."

For more information about CfoC Regional Delivery, including a full list of successful projects, visit www.nrm.gov.au or call 1800 552 008.