Biodiversity Conservation Trust (BCT) NSW CEO Erin Giuliani speech to NSW Farmer Conference

Hello everyone, it’s great to be at the NSW Farmers Conference, here on Dharug Country.

My name is Erin Giuliani, I am the Chief Executive Officer at the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust. I started in the role earlier this year, though it feels like much longer (and that is not because I am not having a fantastic time – there has just been a lot of great things the BCT has been involved and achieved this year, and I hope to share some of those with you today).

Before I run through some of that, I’d like to say that the productive and strong relationship between NSW Farmers and the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust is one that I hope to foster during my time with the BCT. So, thanks for the opportunity to be here today.

About the BCT

Our core purpose is to partner with landholders and to enhance and conserve biodiversity on private land.

Currently, the BCT is supporting some 2000 landholders across NSW, in the management of more than 2.2 million hectares of land, containing some of the most threatened vegetation in the state and country. Our landholders are protecting 127 threatened species, some not protected by national parks or reserves. So, it is a vitally important role that NSW landholders play in the conservation of biodiversity and to global and national biodiversity targets. I am sure some of those landholders were here at Rosehill this week at this wonderful event.

Of the landholders who have a conservation area on their property, the majority have agreements that are in perpetuity: this is a significant contribution to our state’s future and the future of biodiversity on those lands.

Landholder choice is key in the way the BCT conducts its business, and there are many reasons why landholders choose to work with us. Conservation agreements allow landholders to secure additional revenue streams to protect, restore and manage native vegetation and biodiversity on their land, often alongside or as part of their agricultural business.

Importantly, we’ve heard that these payments are a valuable addition to the natural resource management activities already carried out by farmers and landholders: a report commissioned by us and authored by Frontier Economics (in May 2022) found conservation agreements offered reliability of income due to annual payments being relatively constant across seasonal conditions.

The average income from conservation agreements in the Central Tablelands, our research found, can make up to about 8 per cent of overall farm income when times are good, but can double, jumping up to 16 per cent of farm income during tougher times.

Conservation of biodiversity on private land can have important flow-on effects to the community and local economy too. Local contractors who carry out vital works in a land management action plan, such as fencing, or weed management, often are employed from the surrounding community, bolstering local economies and building important local connections too.

In addition to payments, our program of landholder education and support ensures the sites are maintained for their conservation value in partnership with us. Once we sign an agreement with you, the ongoing management of the land is

supported by BCT staff who bring local and ecological knowledge, and can help to build networks between BCT agreement holders, to ensure knowledge is shared and scaled.

As well as our funded conservation agreements, hundreds of landholders have successfully applied to our grants program to support conservation activities such as weed or pest control, fencing to secure conservation areas, and native vegetation restoration.

Working together

With a combination of local landholder support, funding and education, we can demonstrate that agricultural production and land conservation can work together to actively manage threats such as invasive species and climate change on our plants, animals and ecosystems.

I recently visited graziers, Bev and Col Hamilton, at Narromine, who have held a funded conservation agreement with the BCT since 2019. They shared with me how they graze the conservation area under their agreement—and I saw first-hand the positive impact this has had on their business and their interests in natural resource management.

They have recognised the value of their agreement as a “regular income that removes the peaks and troughs of climate vulnerability”.

The property is a working example of how land can be managed for conservation while maintaining and even improving the production capacity of grazing land.

You can learn more about their experience on our website. Bev and Col contributed to a recent webinar recording about how they manage their conservation agreement alongside their agricultural production.

Future plans

Looking ahead, our current work gears us towards protecting a greater proportion of private land for conservation. Our future plans, which we’d love to consult with NSW Farmers on, is built on a state-wide biodiversity investment strategy that places a high value on our least protected landscapes, as well as decision-support tools developed for the BCT by CSIRO.

In 2023/24 we have a number of planned conservation tenders – where landholders bid for annual payments to protect native vegetation - fixed priced offers and other investment and partnership activity to protect threatened species and habitats across NSW. The first is due to be released in late August in the Upper Hunter Valley. Ben Fitzpatrick, our Regional Manager in that area, is here today to field any interest for any local landholders!

Our plans target high priority habitats, landscapes and species in NSW, including threatened ecological communities, threatened species, over-cleared vegetation types, and koala habitat.

As some of you will know, our aim is to protect another 200,000 hectares of land to the state’s protected areas and add 50 unique landscapes to the state’s conservation efforts. We are well underway with those efforts and confident that by 2025, we will meet this target.

Partnerships and Investment

Along with our private land programs, a new BCT branch has been formed to develop corporate partnerships and philanthropic opportunities to harness private investment, to increase non-state investment in private land conservation.

These new initiatives complement the investment of the NSW Government and most importantly, accelerate private land conservation.

Finally, with 70 per cent of biodiversity located on private land, it is vital we continue to work with private landholder networks, such as NSW Farmers, to share our story and the success of landholders who hold conservation agreements with us. This is particularly so in light of global and national protection and conservation targets – which cannot be met without the support and participation from NSW landholders.

Our BCT landholder support officers, across the state, may well be known to your members in their communities, and I am always very happy to discuss your needs and establish opportunities to work together.

I am also available today to hear your views on how we can work together, at a state level, and local level. Please do come up to me and introduce yourself.

Thank you.

(This speech was given at the NSW Farmers Conference on 19 July, 2023)