The Monaro Post, January 10, 2024

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The Independent Newspaper of the Snowy Monaro Region Wednesday January 10, 2024

monaropost.com.au

Your local paper established in 2006

ISSN 1834-0318

SNOWY MONARO FARMER

LOCAL NEWS 2023 year in review

SPORT Rodeo success

Wet weather welcomed

PAGE 13

$3.00

Volume 18, Edition 1

PAGE 17

PAGE 34

PROUD: The Upper Snowy Landcare Network is celebrating the completion of their reconnecting Monaro bushland project.

PHOTO: Karen Forman.

Landcare legacy

By NATHAN THOMPSON WHEN Lauren Van Dyke casts her eye across many parts of the Monaro, she can see years of hard work before her. Lauren is the coordinator of the Upper Snowy Landcare Network, an organisation driven by passionate locals, working together to improve natural resource management in the Upper Snowy and Monaro areas. 2024 has started off in the best possible fashion for Lauren and the network, who are

celebrating the completion of a major project that has reconnected bushland on the Monaro. The project was made possible through a Bushfire Local Economic Recovery Fund $278,490 grant, jointly funded by the Australian and the NSW Governments under the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements. Lauren said the network is proud of its efforts in working with landholders to restore wildlife corridors in the Berridale and Dalgety areas.

the COVID lockdowns and big wet. “This project worked with landholders to build islands of bushland across the central Monaro to re-establish wildlife corridors, habitat, biodiversity, ecosystem services, land rehydration and scenic value. Environmental restoration of this iconic landscape will aid long-term post-fire and post-drought recovery of the region’s two major economies – agriculture and tourism. The grant included fencing out remnant vegetation from

the responsibility of looking after these areas into the future.” According to Lauren, the project achieved a staggering output of 10,705 planted native seedlings, more than 10 km of stock-proof fence erected or repaired, and close to 200 hectares of threatened species habitat protected. “Back in January 2021, we boldly applied for a very significant ($278,490) grant from the Bushfire Local Economic Recovery Fund (BLERF). “We got the thumbs up and we jumped straight in despite

“Bushland on the Monaro has been severely degraded by drought, dieback, clearing, over-grazing and fragmentation for nearly two centuries,” Lauren said. “Encircled by bushfires in summer 2019/2020, the bushland provides a critical refuge for wildlife and flora of the NSW Southern Tablelands. “We are extremely proud and grateful to the funding bodies for placing their confidence in us to roll out this largescale project, and to the terrific landholders who have taken on

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stock and re-planting biodiversity areas on eight properties bridging across remaining patches of bushland in central Monaro. The Upper Snowy Landcare Network acts as an umbrella group to Landcare groups in the central Monaro region as well as running projects under its own steam. The main natural resource issues the committee focuses on are: tree dieback, weed invasion, river rehabilitation, soil health, stream bank and gully erosion.

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