Meet Your Bushland – a Mornington Peninsula landholder engagement program

 

This program helps to connect landholders with the native bush on their properties. It pairs them with a local bushland restoration specialist and a member of their local Landcare group for two events:

  1. a walk-and-talk on the landholder property, focusing on the sections of the property with the highest habitat values
  2. follow-up tour of a separate local property that showcases successful conservation efforts, also attended by the bushland restoration specialist and a member of the local Landcare group.

Each landholder will receive a short report outlining the conservation values of their property including a map of the property, the Ecological Vegetation Classes present, a list of significant flora and fauna known or likely to occur, any environmental issues on the property, e.g. weed control, and the supports available to assist such as available grants.

This year we have extended the program to include properties wanting to partially revegetate their property but are unsure how to go about this.

Funding was received from the Natural Resources Conservation League to run a pilot project in 2023-24. Due to its success the program has been continued through funding received from the state government through the Victorian Landcare Grant scheme. and will fund 20 “Meet Your Bushland” properties in 2024-25.

Aims

The aim of this project is to engage landholders in conservation efforts, building a connection with the native bush on their properties, improving awareness of local environmental values and promoting conservation. The ultimate goal is to empower and engage landholders to steward their bushland through weed control, fencing and revegetation.

Additional benefits:

  1. engagement with local Landcare, an ongoing source of information
  2. engagement with neighbouring landholders involved in conservation
  3. community building and knowledge sharing
  4. building relationships amongst Landcare, landholders, & Mornington Peninsula Shire for a co-ordinated approach to biodiversity protection on the Mornington Peninsula

Selecting properties

Properties will be selected in consultation between the three key personnel: the project coordinator, bushland regeneration specialist and a representative of the MPLN.

Selection criteria includes quality and size of existing bush on the property, connectivity with existing or planned Biolinks (i.e. Linking MP Landscape Biolinks and Greens Bush to Arthurs Seat Biolinks), and/or connectivity with public bushland reserves.

Landholders seeking to add native vegetation through revegetation works will now also be considered for inclusion in Meet Your Bushland in 2024-25.

Expressions of interest should be emailed to facilitator@mplandcare.org.au