The Australian Government is investing $450 million over five years to deliver national Landcare priorities, at a regional and local level, through the Regional Lands Partnership. This investment will help protect and conserve Australia’s water, soil, plants, animals and ecosystems, as well as support the productive and sustainable use of these valuable resources.

Wheatbelt NRM is developing a tender for the Regional Lands Partnership, due at the end of February, and are hoping to secure funding for Landcare priorities in this region for the next five years. As part of the tender Wheatbelt NRM is required to demonstrate our credentials and put forward a partnership model for the delivery of the contract.

The Wheatbelt landscape is mostly privately owned and in order to have a positive impact on the natural resources in our region we need to engage the community who manages them. Our proposed partnership model will continue to focus on the overarching strategy of ‘getting the Wheatbelt community active in improving their environment’ through local participation and bringing the community together with a focus on regional delivery.

The current NLP funding requires that 20% of funding to be spent on community delivery; we raised the bar and are on target to achieve 37%.  This next round of funding also requires that 20% of funding is spent on community delivery and that strong partnerships be formed to improve its efficiency and effectiveness.

Wheatbelt NRM will soon be approaching Landcare organisations in the Wheatbelt who are our members and/or have worked with us in recent years to indicate their support for our tender. We hope that our tender builds the evidence that Wheatbelt NRM is the best-placed organisation to engage with our local community to deliver national Landcare priorities on-the-ground, using local knowhow and expertise.

If you would like to discuss our tender or your potential partnership or support, please contact Natarsha Woods at nwoods@wheatbeltnrm.org.au or phone 9670 3100.