In November we are asking you all for a bit of feedback to help us plan for the future. Thanks so much to everyone who has replied so far. We have had feedback via email and also at our AGM. Here are some of the comments so far. Please keep the feedback coming.

In regards to Mid Lachlan Landcare :-

Question 1) What has been the most valuable to you in the last 5 years?

Tree planting native species.

The social aspect – it has been really wonderful these last few months to attend the social gatherings and have such interesting, friendly, welcoming and motivated people to talk to

Growing the Grazing Revolution program and the support it gave during the drought, it really helped make the hard decisions.

Support for paddock tree plantings on farm to address habitat for rare and endangered species, plus shade and shelter for livestock

Farm visits and hearing people’s journey of change, their successes and also things that went off track and what they learnt from those experiences.

Networking, farm visits, collaborations with soil carbon & other projects, group brains better than individual .

CIBO Labs and Pasture key biomass satellite monitoring workshops and dung beetle breeding

The opportunity to mix, talk and share ideas with like minded good people.

And so many other great answers to this question. We really appreciate this feedback!

Question 2) What should we do in the next 5 years?

I would love to see something on Bees and keeping one or two hives (even better Kenyan top rail hives), propagation of native trees and how we can do even better at maintaining productive pastures along side regenerating native vegetation.

Some stuff on environmental markets/ecosystems services/natural capital- and how to measure the value of these access these markets?

Projects around the planting of trees on farm and the associated benefits are great, the best ways to plan and execute the plantings (identify suitable places on farm that perhaps may otherwise be non-productive anyway?).

It shouldn’t be all about change, stay with the good stuff

Could landcare push the healthy pasture story. Trees and habitat are of course also vital but healthy pastures can lift productivity and pull carbon into the soils. They can be very beneficial to birds, and insects as diverse feed sources

Erosion, streambank slumping and loss of trees along our creeks and rivers – loss of old >100yo trees with habitat hollows.

Funding opportunities to encourage landholders to value the ecological aspects of the land they caretake are encouraging and important.

If you haven’t supplied us with any feedback as yet we would love to hear from you. Please email us your answers midlachlanlandcare@midlachlanlandcare

It doesn’t look like Landcare are going to run out of things to do anytime soon 🙂