The Land for Wildlife (LFW) program is a voluntary property registration scheme for landowners who wish to manage areas for biodiversity and wildlife habitat. LFW encourages and assists landholders to include nature conservation along with other land management objectives. The program is free for landholders to join and is not legally binding. Registration in the scheme will not change the legal status of a property.

Land for Wildlife was established in 2002 on the Central Coast of New South Wales, operating within the local government areas of Gosford City Council, Wyong Shire Council, and Lake Macquarie City Council and due to the popularity and benefits of the program has extended services to Cessnock City Council area. This program, administered by the Department of Environment and Conservation’s Conservation Partners Programs throughout the state, aims to support the maintenance and enhancement of native biodiversity on private (or community owned) land. Through this program landholder were given further information on wildlife and habitat and were provided with a Land for Wildlife sign to display on their gate.  

During its period of operation from 2002 to December 2008 Land for Wildlife has been very successful and achieved a number of positive outcomes including:

• over 250 property inspections completed, during which landholders received advice on sustainable land management practices;
• in excess of 1700ha of land registered with the program;
• over 130 Land for Wildlife signs distributed to registered properties throughout the region, promoting the program and conservation in general;
• approximately 11 landholders have applied for more binding conservation agreements, including agreements in perpetuity;
• 9 schools registered, conserving 14 ha of bushland and providing a unique education tool for teachers;
• 1 property open day with over 50 landholders and dignitaries in attendance and 24 training workshops were conducted during the project, giving landholders the opportunity to network, visit successful local rehabilitation sites and learn about topics including seed collection and propagation, plant identification and biodiversity monitoring;
• 84 species of local provenance seed collected from 31 properties and reserves across LMCC, GCC, WSC & CCC;
• 220 days of Bush regeneration removed 16.4252ha of weeds and planted 815 trees over 73 properties.

In 2008 the format of workshops was changed to suit a range of interests. The round robin workshop involved three or four different topics being covered in one workshop. These were shorter than the previous format yet still provided participants with enough information to improve their management practices. It also exposed people to topics such as seed collection they may not have attended if it was the only topic covered. These were also run on Sunday mornings to avoid family sport activities and on Saturdays to target working people. These proved to be very popular with the first of the series attracting 26 people of varying ages and backgrounds.

Bush Regeneration Team
Since commencing in August, 2006, the 3 person Bush Regeneration Team has spent 220 days at 73 different properties. During this time they cleared over 16.5ha hectares of weeds. Often landholders have worked alongside the team in order to develop skills in bush regeneration techniques and plant identification. As a result, landholders have contributed 667 hours of their time towards the bush regeneration work carried out.

Regional Seedbank
The development of the regional seed bank endeavors to supply local provenance floral species to provide landholders with a good quality supply of local provenance seed. Maintaining local provenance species plays an integral role in preserving the diversity of local native floral species.

Access to the seed bank is currently limited to Land for Wildlife members who have an interest in revegetation / restoration of native vegetation on their property with local provenance seed. Landholders are required to attend one of the seed propagation workshops to show a level of commitment to propagating their free seed. 31 landholders have had local provenance seed collected from their properties contributing to the regional seedbank. 84 different species collected from across 9 sub catchments.

Seed has been made available to landholders based on their catchment and the species collected from within that catchment, seed provenance is tracked using the Greening Australia seed supply system. Landholders have taken up this offer and are propagating their own seed for revegetation purposes. Many of the landholders assisted the seed collectors on their property and learnt skills that will enable them to collect and propagate their own seed in the future.
 

Contact:

Central Coast & Lower Hunter Regional Coordinator

Tony Wells
Community Environment Network
PO Box 149
Ourimbah
NSW 2258

Ph:   02 43 494754
Fax: 02 4349 4755
Email: landforwildlife@cen.org.au