Conservation workshop for Tasmanian landholders

Landcare Tasmania, in partnership with Conservation Landholders Tasmania, recently held three community workshops over winter, bringing together 89 landholders and community members across the state.

Photo: conservation workshop in Forth, North-west Tasmania

 The focus of the workshops was to gain and share practical knowledge, skills and connections to better protect and maintain High Conservation Value Areas (HCVA) across their properties and local landscapes. 

Thank you to the Tasmanian State Government for funding these workshops as part of the Landcare Action Grants 2024-27 program. In addition to these events, the state government funding has provided $340,000 towards on-ground projects, protecting and removing threats from 245ha of HCVA.

The Landcare Action Grants have been supported by the Tasmanian Government and delivered by Landcare Tasmania since 2018. To date, these grants have supported 141 community-led on-ground projects and 70 community capacity building and networking events as part of Landcare Tasmania’s ongoing community support. The grants have delivered over one million dollars to onground projects through Landcare Tasmania’s Devolved Grant Program since 2018, with in-kind contributions from the community effectively doubling these investments.

HCVA include some of Tasmania's most important native vegetation, waterways, wetlands, threatened species habitat and ecological corridors.  Protecting these areas is essential to maintaining biodiversity, improving landscape resilience and supporting healthy, productive landscapes.  Landholders play a vital role in managing these places, and these workshops provided practical tools and knowledge to support that work.

Photo: participants at the southern workshop

The events brought together a range of engaging presenters from:

• Department of Natural Resources and Environment’s Private Land Conservation Program

• Tasmanian Land Conservancy

• Conservation Landholders Tasmania

• Mount Nelson Bushcare Group

• Healthy Country Services

• Melaythenner Teeackana Warrana Aboriginal Corporation (MTWAC)

• Esmerelda Enterprises. 

These wonderful presenters shared information on how and where people can find support to continue to look after their special places. 

Participants found the speakers very engaging and interesting, with one attendee stating,

“I REALLY got a lot out of the event so thank you for putting it on. GOLD!” and “The Landcare Tasmania presentation was excellent.”

Another regular Landcare member who attended offered this glowing feedback: “…genuinely glad I came. The attendance of landholders was really good …the presentations were good, some highlights were Lyndon's [Healthy Country Services] reflections on landscape, and Anna Povey's [Tasmanian Land Conservancy] simple truth and frankness about the value of all vegetation for nature and our future.”

Some of the attendees were keen to learn more detail about the 30x30 and the Nature Repair Market. Lucky for them, Landcare Tasmania will be hosting a Nature Repair Market webinar next year. Early in 2027 Landcare Tasmania will be hosting a webinar with the Nature Repair Market and the Clean Energy Regulator teams to help Landcare members build their knowledge of the methods available for use and the process to become involved. 

We are grateful to Conservation Landholders Tasmania (CLT)  for supporting us in facilitating these events. CLT are the peak body supporting private landholders who have, or are interested in establishing, conservation covenants and they hold an important role in advancing nature conservation through the protection, management and restoration of privately owned land.

CLT have two membership options and both are free. CLT is also a member of Landcare Tasmania, so if you become a member of CLT then you automatically become a Landcare Tasmania member. 

Option 1 - Full membership for those with a covenant

Option 2 - Associate membership for those interested in land conservation

 

Visit their website and become a member here

 

Find out more

 

Below you can find a list of useful resources mentioned during the sessions:

• The Private Land Conservation Program's website has a lot of information to help landholders with establishing, maintaining and buying/selling covenants.

  • NRE Covenant Policy 2026

• DCCEEW Achieving 30 by 30 -  on this page you'll find links to all relevant documents and roadmaps related to 30 by 30, including:

  • National Reserve System 

  • Collaborative Australia Protected Areas Database (CAPAD 2024)

  • National 30 by 30 Roadmap

  • National Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) Framework

• Tasmanian Reserves Estate Spatial Layer is the authoritative source of information on the extent, type and distribution of the comprehensive, adequate and representative (CAR) reserve system in Tasmania.

• Nature Economics: Analysis of the case for Australian Government investment in nature. Cyan Ventures and 30 by 30 (2026)

• Natural capital enhances farm production, profitability and financial resilience: findings from a study on 230,000 ha of farmland in Australia (2026)

Tools for monitoring:

• Sign up to the Land for Wildlife Program and Wildtracker to monitor local fauna.  

• Download iNaturalist on your phone to help identify, record and learn about your local environment and contribute to citizen science

• The Tasmanian Natural Values Atlas is our state database to search and record Tasmanian species and natural values. There are over 50,000 species observed through the database. If you'd like to make entries to the database, you'll need to create an account and request that a project be allocated to you- please contact [email protected] to assist you! 

• Recording both pests and native flora and fauna on private land helps paint a broader picture of the distribution and spread of species across the state.