After years of persistent drought, the Central West has experienced nearly four years of above-average rainfall after the drought-breaking downpours of 2020.
For local grazier and conservationist Tracee Burke those rains brought much-needed relief to the parched landscape and ignited a biodiversity resurgence on her Burkeway conservation area near Gooloogong.
The NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust and conservation agreement-holder Dr Guy Fitzhardinge welcomed members of Rabobank’s global sustainability team to Pennyroyal, at Mandurama, in the state’s Central West, last month to learn more about private land conservation’s role in delivering biodiversity outcomes across a property portfolio.
As conservation agreements across the Riverina reach their five-year anniversary, we are seeing significant ecological changes from the initial baseline data collected.
Many of these agreements were established with the founding of the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust (BCT) and are now being revisited, with a new round of surveys to evaluate shifts in biodiversity and environmental health.
It's no secret the unauthorised clearing of vegetation has a major impact on our native flora and fauna.
Our staff are frequently asked to clarify vegetation clearing rules and allowances under conservation agreements, especially in relation to the installation of wildlife-friendly fencing and track maintenance.
More than 187km of direct seeding using more than 50kg of locally sourced native shrub seeds has been completed by Murray Seed Services staff on four of the nine NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust agreements established through the Restoring Murray Woodlands Biodiversity and Carbon conservation tender.
Motion cameras and Song Meter sound recorders on private conservation agreement sites across NSW have been busily recording and capturing fauna data as part of our newly launched citizen science project, Land Libraries, with some finds the first recorded sightings of a species in a locality.
