
4 minute read
Landholders engaged
Plenty of space to grow. Landholder Tom Brown with Greening Australia’s Drew Liepa. Photo credit Annette Ruzicka.
2022 IMPACT
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168 landholders with signed agreements in FY22
To continue scaling up our work, we are partnering with private landholders across Australia to rebuild nature on parts of their properties (including unproductive or marginal land) using our nature-based solutions.
Greening Australia manages information from registered landholders through our GER-X Land Portal. In the past year over 1,000 private properties have been registered and assessed through the portal. Once a property is assessed online, our land restoration team contact the landholders to discuss possible options for rebuilding nature and generating production benefits.
Every farm is unique, so we tailor projects to each landholder’s business, preferences and priorities, maximising outcomes for their operations and for the landscape.
This year we began creating more opportunities for landholders to engage with us face to face, by attending regional field days across Australia, including in WA, SA and NSW. These days are a great opportunity for our teams to chat about a wide range of topics with interested landholders.
Due to growing demand for carbon sequestration and biodiversity repair, at the time of publication we have secured agreements to work on double the amount of private land together in our 2023 planting season compared to this year’s season.
“We need to recognise the valuable role that landholders play in supporting biodiversity and tackling climate change, and provide support and incentives to help them conserve and actively manage these matters of national environmental significance for all Australians.” – Brendan Foran, Greening Australia CEO
To learn more about our nature-based solutions visit: greeningaustralia.org.au/ nature-based-solutions
Register to discuss your property with us: greeningaustralia.org.au/ landholder-registration
Tom Brown, Gippsland, Victoria
For Gippsland farmer Tom Brown, being one of seven farmers involved in Greening Australia and Canopy’s 440-hectare Environmental Planting carbon aggregation is providing an opportunity to restore the environment and improve the health of his land, whilst also generating a source of income: “We’ve been planting on parts of our farm for years but working with Greening Australia will enable us to do this at a far larger scale. The important thing for us is also the biodiversity benefits that come from planting native species, because what we’re trying to do here is help the native fauna and reinvigorate the land,” said Mr Brown. “Parts of the farm are hard to manage in that there’s some steep areas and some slopes across the farm, but the planting of the trees means we don’t have to worry about those parts of the farm anymore.”
Stephen Barrett, Katanning, Western Australia
“There’s so much landscape that’s slowly degenerating, if we can do whatever we can to slow that down or even reverse it, we’ve got to take those opportunities. With planting shelterbelts for example, that’s helping reduce erosion and create more shelter, not only for our livestock but wildlife as well,” said Mr Barrett.
Julian von Bibra, Midlands, Tasmania
Five years ago, we planted the first 29,031 seeds and seedlings for Officeworks’ Restoring Australia initiative in the Tasmanian Midlands, on farmland belonging to landholder Julian von Bibra. Through his ongoing involvement in the initiative, today on the property 191,613 trees are growing strong across 273 hectares of land.
The restoration of land has been felt firsthand by Julian, who has seen a micro-climate change on his property together with improved river health and water quality, and renewed biodiversity of the land with native animals returning and birdlife increasing.
“As farmers and landholders, it’s not just about the produce we take to market, we have the responsibility to manage the landscape for future generations and at times this can feel overwhelming. Having the support of Greening Australia and Officeworks is so important, it makes the bigger picture more achievable and provides the resource, expertise and funding to restore parts of the landscape in ways that complement our agricultural needs,” said Mr von Bibra.

Landholder Julian von Bibra with Greening Australia’s Dr Elizabeth Pietrzykowski among five-year old plantings through Officeworks’ Restoring Australia initiative.
Photo credit Hayden Dib.