Sit at the kitchen table with Jill and Ken Hooper and there’ll be Ken, mug in hand with a label that reads ‘The Boss’, and Jill, yet to pull up a chair, buzzing about the kitchen and calling out a quip or two to back up something Ken’s said.
Despite the moniker on Ken’s mug, there’s no real boss around this table, rather a pairing of equal proportion.
Ken, is the big picture thinker who sees the whole property in his mind and has a long-term plan for restoring it.
Jill, looks to the minutia and observes the day-to-day signs of changes at Moona-Bingel: a former grazing and cropping properties on the Edward River, 30 kilometres out of Deniliquin.
Moona was purchased by former dairy farmers, the Hoopers, in 2002, closely followed by Bingel in 2006. In 2018, a conservation agreement with the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust, for 970 hectares, was signed, and has supported the past five years of a 20-year commitment to restoring native landscape along the river.
“You look at the photos of what this place was like when they came here in 2002, and it is just pretty barren and a monoculture of introduced weeds,” NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust senior landholder support officer Nigel Jones said.
Nigel said what’s been achieved through the efforts of two people has been “mind blowing” and proof of the restoration effort that can be realised with time and persistence.
“I get great motivation and inspiration from for my work coming to see people like the Hoopers because it's real,” Nigel said. “They're doing it every day. They're out here doing weed control, restoring areas. They've dedicated their lives to it.”
That satisfaction with what’s been achieved at Moona is something Ken and Jill feel keenly.
“It is a wonderful experience to take on something like this,” Ken said of his retirement project to save River Red Gum Wetlands, areas of Grey Box Grassy Woodland and Sandhill Pine Woodland.
“The knowledge Jill and I have gained is absolutely phenomenal. The challenges have been great and the meeting the challenges is rewarding.
“The lifestyle of living on a property where you've restored the vegetation, maybe restored the floodwaters, learned how to do it, made a few mistakes, made a few gains, and learned by your mistakes: it’s absolutely incredible and rewarding.”
The couple has, through their relationship with the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust, protected their work with an in-perpetuity conservation agreement. The agreement gives them comfort in seeing the work live on, but also the financial support to realise their vision for restoring the landscape.
It’s not the first time they’ve built a legacy for the future, having bought, restored and passed over Victorian property Wirra-Lo, to the Wetlands Revival Trust for ongoing protection, research and care by Traditional Custodians.
“The significant work they did to re-establish wetlands assisted with environmental water flows was profiled last year on the ABC’s Landline program in March of 2023,” Nigel said.
“And conservation agreement-holders from both NSW and Victoria have travelled to Wirra-Lo to look at this incredible wildlife oasis and celebrate the biodiversity legacy Ken and Jill have created for the community.”
They’re achieving the same in the Riverina with Moona and Bingel.
“We now have that protective covenant on the property, which means it can never be cropped again, or, you know, flogged with livestock or anything like that,” Ken said.
“We're putting so much time and effort into this. We didn't want anybody to come along and be able to undo it,” Jill added.
“What we're absolutely proud of is the fact we are doing something to this land that should be done to it. We're going with the land. We're not fighting the land,” she said.
“I can tell you, there is just a feeling about it. I still can't explain it to this day. A lot of people, when they come here, they find there's this feeling about it. There's something there. We just felt comfortable.”