We’ve won an Australian Government tender for supply of Environmental Protection, Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management services to the region.
The South West’s peak environmental organisation has been appointed to a panel of Regional Delivery Partners across Australia under a new five-year agreement.
South West NRM will collaborate with the Government through the departments of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water and Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry on delivery of a series of projects all designed to achieve environmental outcomes with activities to include:
- Natural resource management planning;
- Community and First Nations engagement;
- project design;
- monitoring.
Board Chair Karen Boyce welcomed news that South West NRM would continue a more than 20-year history of delivering environmental projects on behalf of the Australian Government, previously under its former name of South West Catchments Council.
“Appointment to the panel of Regional Delivery Partners is an absolute vote of confidence by the Australian Government in our organisation’s ability to deliver multi-million dollar projects capable of creating game-changing environmental outcomes across the South West’s four million hectares of natural and farmed landscapes,” Karen said.
“Our region is within one of only 36 global biodiversity hotspots which means we have some of the rarest, yet most threatened species on earth within our stewardship.
“We take that responsibility very seriously and look forward to continuing to engage with local landcare groups, Traditional Owners, landholders and the local community on a series of exciting new environmental projects we have in the pipeline.”
While details of upcoming projects could not yet be released, they ranged from restoring native species on the brink of extinction, improving the health of internationally-significant ecosystems and driving sustainable practices in agriculture.
Under its previous five-year agreement with the Australian Government between 2018 and 2023, South West NRM delivered $13.5 million in environmental, conservation and sustainable agriculture projects.
Highlights of the work included:
- Saving 10s of thousands of native animals by:
- Reducing feral cat activity by almost half in target areas through deployment of an Aussie pest control invention called the Felixer.
- Containing 44 domestic cats through cat enclosure rebate program for pet owners.
- Planting 15,000 trees over 9.5 ha with community members;
- Applying cutting-edge e-DNA science to:
- Detect presence of critically-endangered Margaret River burrowing crayfish and inform conservation efforts.
- Improve productivity for avocado and canola farmers by tracking pollinator behaviour.
- Revegetating 247ha at South West wetlands of international importance to improve ecosystem health;
- Revegetating 20ha to provide food for nesting and endangered Carnaby’s cockatoos;
- Increasing expected survival rate of 126 rehabilitated western ringtail possums by 62 per cent through behaviour change initiatives;
- Revealing clear cost and productivity benefits of a sustainable approach to growing pasture, compared to traditional methods through a year-long farming project;
- Training farmers in monitoring their greenhouse gas emissions;
- Reducing runoff into the Vasse Wonnerup Wetlands through a nitrogen use efficiency trial promoting improved nitrogen management regimes.
For more information on previous achievements, please visit the below page of our website.
