Rehydrating landscapes, one catchment at a time

‘Water knows no bounds as it flows over land, weaving through drainage lines and down gullies. Properties with low groundcover and actively eroding drainage lines impact the volume, speed and quality of water that flows through neighbouring properties. Solutions require a whole-of-catchment approach.’ Tam Connor (Mulloon Institute)

Water is the source of all life. But when landscapes aren’t functioning properly, water becomes a destructive force. Degraded soils are unable to absorb rainfall, resulting in water running off the land too fast to sustain plant growth and causing erosion and damage. Because water knows no boundaries, the impact of degraded land can reach well beyond a single property to an entire catchment and beyond. As climatic extremes increase, building soil and landscape function and rehydrating degraded catchments can deliver a myriad of benefits for farmers and communities. The greatest benefits can be achieved when communities of land managers work together to address problems at a catchment scale.

Tackling the problem at a catchment scale requires a community approach. Mulloon Institute is engaging with communities across Australia through a peer-to-peer process involving multiple landowners working together to rehydrate their catchments.

Farmers and project partners at the Boots on the Ground day at Yarrawa Park. Left to right (top): Lee Thompson, Codie Law, Peter Hazell, Byron Norman, Andrew Walsh. Left to right (bottom): Johannes Meier, Michael Mather, Tam Connor.

Creating a catchment-scale ‘Community of Practice’ in the NSW Northern Tablelands

Farmer Johannes Meier lives on and manages the Danthonia Bruderhof community property in the Swan Brook catchment in the Northern Tablelands of NSW. Johannes began paying more attention to water on the property during the Millenium drought when he saw a significant decrease in water flow in a stream running through the property. The stream had ‘almost always run,’ he says, and ‘as the property degraded and the properties surrounding us degraded, [the stream] was actually decreasing and it was just becoming a series of pools and even “dry pools” over time.’ Since then, Johannes has been rehydrating the property using contour banks and wetland restoration methods. He has observed indications that the works are helping to build biodiversity and soil carbon, and says the productivity on the farm has doubled. 

As Johannes started to see the property improve, he began thinking a lot about his neighbours. The essential role of the community in restoring the catchment ‘really hit home hard in the 2019 drought’ when, for the first time in living memory, the Swan Brook stopped flowing for more than 12 months after a long dry period. Lee Thomspon, the local CEO and Landcare coordinator for the Gwydir and Macintyre Resources Management Committee (GWYMAC) recalls, ‘Landholders were suffering, our biodiversity was also suffering within our landscapes.’ 

Knowing that ‘there are ways to make a landscape more sustainable and to hang onto water longer,’ Johannes was keen to see more farmers in the Swan Brook catchment rehydrating their properties. So he, other land managers and the Swan Vale Landcare and GWYMAC Landcare came together to coordinate a catchment-scale response. 

‘Our property, being 2,300 hectares, is about 5% of the catchment…We have a neighbour two properties downstream who has also done a lot of work, really good work in landscape rehydration, putting in contour banks and a chain of ponds. And so between [the neighbour] and our property here, about 10% of our catchment is now rehydrated, which is a great first step and we’ll build from there.’ Johannes Meier

The growing community is now part of Mulloon Institute’s Community of Practice Project and the focus of a Soils for Life case study that will be released in 2025.

Building natural infrastructure at Yarrawa Park

Making a Community of Practice work

The groundwork for building a shared vision for a Swan Brook Community of Practice really began back in 2016, says Lee Thompson. At this time the Swan Vale Landcare group had been coming together to explore grazing management, multispecies cropping and landscape rehydration. Now the Community of Practice is a supportive network made up of interested farmers from the catchment and beyond (all at different stages of their landscape rehydration journey), GWYMAC Landcare, Swan Vale Landcare, Northern Tablelands Local Land Services and Mulloon Institute. 

Through the Future Drought funded project, each land manager is working on their own rehydration project and is in the process of scoping, planning, designing and implementing on-ground projects with one-on-one support from a Mulloon Institute landscape planner (including site visits, phone calls and online meetings). The land managers are applying the theory, techniques and hands-on skills they have picked up at project events (bootcamp, field day and ‘Boots on the Ground’ event). At the ‘Boots on the Ground’ event in May 2024 the group helped fellow farmer and project participant, Codie Law, build a few simple landscape rehydration interventions on his Swan Vale property, Yarrawa Park. The Mulloon Institute has also adopted a ‘train the trainer’ model, offering training for Landcare, NRM and LLS staff who can then support land managers in their local communities. 

The community is building momentum, offering support to one another as many in the group navigate new ways to rehydrate their landscapes and work together beyond their own farm. Andrew Walsh from Northern Tablelands Local Land Services says, ‘Having 10% of the catchment area already under rehydration and sustainable agricultural practices has allowed landholders to observe and compare landscapes and learn from neighbours.’ GWYMAC Landcare coordinator, Byron Norman, attended one of the ‘train the trainer’ events and now runs regular workshops on farms within the community. At the workshops, Byron encourages attendees to observe the landscape and demonstrates a few simple techniques (e.g. using a laser level, putting in a brush weir). Byron says, the workshops are helping to build momentum and ‘have been really popular and people leave feeling enthusiastic about continuing the work.’ Farmer Emma Ratajczyk joined the ‘Boots on the Ground’ event and said, ‘The work that we’ve done today has really demonstrated just how simple it is…you know, you can make a lot of change just with a handful of people and half a day on the ground.’ She now plans to try a few of the simple techniques on her Warialda property.