Why did you do it?
The Branch River is a tributary of the Karuah River on the NSW Mid-north Coast. The Karuah starts in the Barrington Tops World Heritage area and travels down to Port Stephens. Through MidCoast Council’s annual ecological report card monitoring, the Branch River has consistently scored lower than desired. This project addressed key actions from the Karuah River Catchment Management Plan.
What did you do?
8 neighbouring landholders protected 270ha of wetlands and 30ha of riparian corridor; a major demonstration project was undertaken on one property which restored 600m of degraded gully including 1.27km of fencing, and 4 ha of replanting. MidCoast Council (MCC) utilised NSW Government funding and their own contribution to seal key sections of the Branch Lane which was seen as a key contributor of fine sediments to the Branch River by the local community. MCC doing its bit on its own land was key to asking landholders to do something on theirs too.
An initial funding contribution from MCC was used as seed funding to partner with Landcare Australia, Hunter-Local Land Services, MidCoast 2 Tops Landcare Connection and local farmers to deliver this project.
What have you learned?
Patience and trust from project partners and funders was key to enable such a large project, using multiple funding streams to take place across a much longer time-scale than was initially planned.
The importance of:
Why does it matter?
This model of multiple different, but linked, activities across multiple sites (private and public) to achieve a common catchment management goal is key.
The importance of creating and maintaining relationships and partnerships; informal relationships and formal agreements such as MOUs are both important.
The importance of seed funding which can be used to leverage further funding, multiplying outcomes.
These three items are crucial for innovative catchment management projects.
Author and Contributor:
Drew Morris (Catchment Management Coordinator, MidCoast Council), Kirby Byrne (MEMS Project Officer, Hunter Local Land Services), Rob Porter (Environmental Project Manager, Landcare Australia) and Joel Dunn (Local Landcare Coordinator, MC2TLC) have worked with Rod Zemaneck and the neighbouring members of the G8 and a revolving cast of government and non-government staff over too many years to count to bring this project to bare- although in reality it’s really only just begun, and there’s plenty more to do.