Ready to make more changes on the farm, and ‘draw a line in the sand, start somewhere and do things a little different’, Codie connected with neighbours and GWYMAC Landcare where he learnt about Mulloon’s work in landscape rehydration and the Swan Brook catchment scoping report.

Codie had previously been reluctant to put money into trying new practices, especially if he couldn’t see proof of it working on a commercial farm, but he was impressed with the rehydration works that Johannes Meier had been doing at Danthonia. ‘What sold me was that Johannes had data from the last 15-20 years showing positive trends in carrying capacity and weight gains, even in dry periods,’ says Codie.

‘Even through periods of really dry times, he showed where they were still running more stock, but had more groundcover and more water in the landscape.’ Codie Law

Following the 2017–19 drought, the Laws had two very good years. But even then, Codie reflects, ‘The balance was not quite right.’ In their lower cultivated country, dams were full and water was just rushing off the landscape, while in high country the dams were empty for six months of the year.

Codie was ‘taken by the idea of slowing the water down and retaining more water in our landscape’. He originally assumed that ‘if you held more water on your farm, then the next person wouldn’t get it. It’s actually the opposite. The more you hold it in, the more it hydrates here and the slower the water will flow down the Swan Brook and then everybody gets access to more water.’

Neighbours Johannes and Glenn visited Yarrawa Park and talked through some of the ways they had managed to slow the flow of water on their properties, ‘averting water from areas where it’s rushing off and sending it around into areas that might traditionally be a little drier,’ says Codie. This appealed to him and helped him form initial ideas about landscape rehydration at Yarrawa Park.

Now the Laws aim to manage water more effectively across Yarrawa Park to ‘improve water quality, increase reliable water supply for livestock and reduce surface run-off from cultivated paddocks, which are causing the active erosion of waterways and threaten dam structures’. Their project vision is:

To protect, enhance and restore the riparian area along the front paddock gully with a series of in-stream structures, exclusion fencing and revegetation. The goal is to provide a buffer reserve between cultivated paddocks and the waterway, as well as slowing and retaining more water within the waterway during flood events and to help prevent erosion.

Working closely with Mulloon Institute, the Laws have identified project areas and interventions ranging from farm systems solutions (such as transitioning crops to multispecies and adding exclusion fencing) to natural infrastructure (such as in-stream structures and farm dam enhancement; see Figure 4 for a list of structures). 

First on the list was constructing a series of structures in a gully that leads to a dam. This became the focus of the Boots on the Ground day. Thirty-eight people joined the activities, led by Mulloon and GWYMAC Landcare with support from neighbouring farmers. The group worked together to construct a pin weir¹²A pin weir consists of brush woven around wood stakes and placed in minor incised gullies, scalded or eroded sites, to trap debris and sediment at the source. The pin weir was not part of the original plan (Figure 4), it was added to suit the conditions at the time of the Boots on the Ground day. and a log sill rock weir structure (see Images 13 and 14). They also transplanted reeds from further up the gully to encourage wetland species and to create more vegetation throughout the gully, helping to protect the soil and filter and slow the flow of water.

Water from the gully flows into a dam downstream of the interventions. The aim is to slow the flow, reducing the amount of nutrients and sediments entering the dam. Codie also plans to fence off a lot of the gully to help protect it from cattle.

Codie and his family all participated in the CoPP events and have valued the opportunity to get together with others and share knowledge and experiences.

‘I guess it gives you a bit of confidence too, because, you know, there’s always somebody to talk to instead of thinking I’m all crazy.’ Codie Law

Codie sees a lot of value in the rehydration works. In the short to medium term, he sees value in improving productivity, which may also turn into ‘financial gain or improved carrying capacity or weight gain or all of the above’. But the other part, says Codie, ‘is that we want to improve what we’ve got for whoever has it next’.

For other farmers who are considering making changes, Codie shares the advice that was given to him:

You just need to start by drawing a line in the sand and saying, “well, from today, we’ll do something different, even if it’s one practice, one area, or one gully.” That’s all we’ve tried to do. Codie Law

Through the CoPP, Ross was keen to work on stabilisation in a gully that runs for 2 km through the western part of the property. Together with Mulloon Institute, he identified several priority issues and areas:

• Poor soil stability – lack of surface roughness and consistent groundcover in cultivated paddocks
• Active erosion along the banks of the main gullies and gully floors in several areas
• Recent high flow events within the two main gully channels have burst through two gully dams, reducing the water security of the property and creating headcuts that are actively eroding otherwise intact reaches of the upstream gully
• Maintaining existing earthworks (e.g. contours) and infrastructure (e.g. fences) to prevent erosion, allow vehicle access, manage vegetation and promote groundcover near waterways

Ross is aiming to address these issues, with a goal to:

Trial small-scale rock weir structures in order to catch lost sediment in the property before the downstream boundary. Build up confidence before working on more incised reaches of the gullies upstream. A secondary project may be managing concentrated flows with graded banks or or trialling coil logs across banks to slow water and prevent bank outlet erosion.

Ross has chosen a part of the gully which isn’t too steep so he can see how it works, gain experience with building a few different types of weir structures, including a rock weir, a log sill rock weir, and a rock ramp, and see how they perform. The weirs are built onto a rock base using materials sourced on site. Ross is using large rocks to create a ‘rock armour’ to stabilise the structures. 

Ross expects that the structures will rehydrate the local area, help stabilise the gully and promote vegetation growth:

So the water ponds up and goes out into the surrounding soil, and encourages stabilisation of the gully…Some places I expect to silt up and retain some soil, causing grass to grow, which will catch sediment, and that will improve the quality of water right down the whole catchment.

Ross has most enjoyed learning about cost-effective techniques, optimal placement of erosion control structures and the value of working together at a catchment scale:

The water quality is a big factor. Watching tonnes and tonnes of topsoil go down the creek is a pretty sad thing. Water doesn’t just stay on your property as a rule, if it falls, it might run through your place and it might run through someone else’s place.

Simple approaches like starting at the top of a gully can make a huge difference, explains Ross. After a neighbour in the higher country undertook gully work, the water quality coming into Inverness is improving. The water ‘comes down through his country, and then it goes into two dams of ours. The quality of that water is a lot better.’

Ross plans to stay connected with the CoPP farmers and would like to see the entire catchment area have stabilised soils and improved subsoil moisture and water tables.

The journey into landscape rehydration was a ‘natural progression’ for Michael. His grandfather had been making contour banks trying to address erosion since the 1940s. Mick reflects that he ‘looks at a landscape and thinks, ok, how can I soften this landscape so that it’ll look after me and look after future generations?’

Understanding the importance of landscape rehydration and wanting to continue to address erosion and soften the landscape, Michael was keen to get involved with the CoPP. He joined the Professionals’ Intensive training at Mulloon Creek, developed his own project, and has been a core part of the growing community. 

About 10 km of Frazers Creek was completely dried out after the 2017–19 drought, and there’s a section of the creek on Belmore where erosion has led to the creek bed dropping about 1.5 m over the last 30 years. Michael has fenced off the area and has noticed a lot more properties are fencing stock off, but he would like to do more to help restore Frazers Creek. He is encouraged by signs of biodiversity: fish have survived and there are crustaceans and bugs. He would like to build up the bottom of the creek and put the big water holes back, however, ‘the regulations we need to deal with are impossible’. Instead, inspired in part by working with Mulloon Institute, Michael is concentrating on the tributaries.

‘It really hit me that there are things you can do on those tributaries and start there, start at the top of your hills…’ Michael Mather

Michael goes on:

…and we’re at the top of the catchment. So if I stop those big runoff events going down and tearing fences out, gouging the beds out, if I can spread the water more and slow it down, it’s going to be of benefit to me. Once the water is in a creek and it’s running off your property, you’ve lost it, you don’t get that back.

Michael’s vision for the rehydration project is to:

Manage, infiltrate and retain as much water as possible in the upper slopes of Mussel Creek to reduce the force of water along the creek downstream of Pineliegh Lane. Stabilise downstream erosion and incision of Mussel Creek from headcut creep¹⁷Headcut creep refers to the upstream migration of an erosional feature (headcut) within a gully or stream. This occurs when fast-moving water erodes the base of a channel, causing the exposed edge (or ‘headcut’) to progressively move upstream over time. and channel incision.

He is installing swales, earth banks¹⁸An earthen structure designed to lift water from an incised channel to spread and dissipate across a landscape. and other structures to slow water flow into Mussel Creek, to spread water across pastures and to prevent erosion in tributaries and drainage lines on their property (see Figure 8). 

Michael put the first swale in himself using an excavator. The swale is about 750 m and it runs across the landscape and into an existing dam (see Image 19). Soon after the swale went in there was about 38 mm of rain. There wasn’t even any grass growing yet, but Michael could see signs that water was infiltrating the landscape:

I went up there on the bike when it was flowing like crazy. Everywhere I went across that bank, it was seeping through the bank onto the pasture below. 

Once all swales have been completed and are working, Michael would like to start working directly in Mussel Creek, which is a second order stream. He plans to ‘place earth, rock and brush structures to help with generating it back to a chain of ponds’. Michael is making use of what’s on the property, pulling out invasive tea trees and pines to reduce growth and scattering the debris over rocks to build soils and grow more groundcover. He has also been laying the trees across the contour to create brush weirs.

Michael plans to monitor the effectiveness of these strategies by comparing the water flow and erosion between treated and untreated areas of their property.

Image 19. Completed swale at project site on Belmore in the upper reaches of the Mussel Creek catchment in February 2025. Source: Michael Mather.

For a long time Michael has been ‘looking at the landscape, not just across it’, and asking lots of questions as part of routine management, such as, ‘Where’s it green now? Where’s it not green? Why did that get more rain than over there? Is there something different there?’

Through participation in the CoPP, Michael has expanded his ways of reading the landscape and the tools he has up his sleeve. He sees the value of using vegetation as a rehydration tool rather than going in with a bulldozer and doing earthworks as a default approach. ‘There are frogs and all sorts of things that live in waterways. So, you know, frogs and crayfish don’t really like bulldozers.’

For those wanting to start a project in their own catchment, Michael is keen to convey that any property can benefit from these techniques: ‘We’ve proved that through the involvement with Mulloon, we’ve got people from right out the other side of Inverell to over near Guyra, it’s not just on the Swan Brook catchment…It’s the same principles and they’ll work anywhere. It’s just reading your landscape and then working out what your capacity is to actually achieve what you want to get done.’

He also suggests starting small and simple, reducing runoff from the top down and not focusing overly on creeks. 

‘You start at the top of the hill, every property’s got a hill, start at the top of that, walk up there and have a look and from there work out where you’re going to go.’ Michael Mather

With care for their waterways front of mind and having tried landscape rehydration in the past, Emma and Joe were keen to build on their knowledge base and connect with other farmers. They were impressed by the reputation of Mulloon Institute and inspired by the rehydration of Mulloon Creek.²²See Mulloon Rehydration Initiative. They could see the potential to do something similar on Mosquito Creek, the main creek running through Waterfall. While Waterfall is situated outside of the Swan Brook catchment, they had heard about the successful rehydration works happening at Danthonia and, lacking opportunities to work with other farmers and specialist organisations in their own catchment, they joined the Swan Brook initiative.

One of the most valuable opportunities that came out of the two-day Bootcamp for Emma and Joe was learning how to create a catchment map and position their property and its waterways within the wider catchment. Emma explains:

We got the opportunity to determine the catchment of Mosquito Creek and that was quite mind blowing. We knew we were at the headwaters of Mosquito Creek and that when it rained we had a torrent of flow coming out of that gully from our neighbours. But looking at the size of the catchment above us was quite mind-blowing.

They soon realised that Mosquito Creek was too big a tributary to work on because it would require extensive planning and approvals, so they ended up choosing to work on two smaller tributaries of Mosquito Creek.

With support from Mulloon Institute environmental engineer and landscape planner, Erin Healy, Joe and Emma chose to work on a gully impacted by erosion (see Image 23). ‘It’s a dry gully that rips through a black soil cultivation paddock. The gully’s been there for 100 years, and it’s up to 7 m deep,’ says Joe.

The project design adds to two existing structures that Emma and Joe built using hay and rock plugs in the upper part of the gully. While these structures have been effective at holding soil and moisture at the top of the gully, the channel remains incised downstream of the interventions. 

Their project vision is to: 

Construct barriers intermittently down the gully to catch and slow the flow of surface water before it drains into Mosquito Creek. The slowing of water will halt active erosion, allow the gully to regenerate and promote vegetation establishment. Where necessary we would like to reshape the banks of the gully to decrease the gradient and encourage better groundcover and stabilise vulnerable soils.

‘It’s a big project,’ Joe says, ‘and there’s a decent fall in elevation and a huge variation in width and depth of the erosion’, but he ‘thought we’d get more learning opportunities out of it with that particular gully’. ‘They are putting in a lot of small interventions using different materials, so there are opportunities to try out different techniques and apply their learnings across the property,’ says Erin (see Figure 10). 

Now that they have finished the planning phase, Emma and Joe will collect materials and build the structures with support from Landcare to do some of the excavation work.

Emma and Joe have gotten a lot out of the connection with like-minded people who are also trying to make a change. Joe reflects:

The hardest part is change for a lot of people. I know it was for myself. But to go to a day like that [Boots on the Ground day at Yarrawa Park], it’s encouraging, it’s just lovely, because you realise what you’ve learned and the progress that you’ve made already, when you can see other people learning that for the first time. Then of course, getting more from the more experienced or the different experiences and sort of expanding a bit laterally.

While it’s still early days for their project, Emma and Joe have confidence in the project, having seen results from rotational grazing and landscape rehydration interventions in other parts of the property, including more groundcover, moisture retention in the soils, stable productivity and wildlife. 

‘Seeing the insects and animals, the wildlife, it’s very clear when you’re amongst that noise down at the creek, how successful it is.’ Emma Ratajczyk

They are hopeful that as they do more of this kind of work, neighbours might begin to notice and it might spark curiosity, and maybe one day a catchment scale project could happen on Mosquito Creek.