NSW Landcare Muster in Tamworth - Landcare finds its Voice!

Time: 12.30 pm to 5.00 pm (lunch and afternoon tea provided).
Venue: Wests' Diggers Club, Kable Ave Tamworth.

Attachments (see below):

• Background paper
• Program

LANDCARE is a vital part of improving land management and nature conservation in NSW. There are currently 1,854 groups with 47,658 individuals in NSW who call themselves landcarers. Landcare membership in NSW has grown by about 7% in the last 9 months.

With this level of participation, it is obvious LANDCARE has some clout, and the ability to help develop sound natural resource management policy.

With this level of participation, Governments – both State and Federal – are keen to engage, help and listen.

BUT - COMMUNICATION WITHIN AND WITH LANDCARE IS NOT EASY

NOR DOES LANDCARE SELL ITS ACHIEVEMENTS AS WELL AS IT SHOULD

SO LET’S DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

Here is the background......................

In June 2007, the Hunter Region Landcare Network, supported by Landcare Australia Limited and Lake Macquarie City Council hosted a ‘Landcare Gathering’ at Myuna Bay, on the shores of Lake Macquarie. This gathering was prompted by the feeling among many landcarers that landcare, since the NSW Government’s ‘NRM Reforms’ was not receiving the strong, bipartisan support for its activities that it had enjoyed in the past. The gathering was an effort to discuss this and other issues with a view to strengthening Landcare’s voice across the state through mutual support, sharing success and by improving communications.

A working group was formed, and is organising the ‘Landcare Muster’ in parallel with the Namoi Landscape Management and State Landcare Forum 2007, to be held in Tamworth in October.

The plan for the day is to form the ‘NSW Landcare Community Reference Group’. This group’s role is, in the short term, will be to organise a yearly ‘Landcare Muster’, to support the re-invigoration of the (existing) NSW Landcare Committee, and to enable ‘grassroots’ input into that Committee. In the medium term this body could provide nominations to the NSW Landcare Committee and in the longer term… well who knows, by evolution rather than revolution, we could end up with a completely independent peak body for the landcare movement in NSW.

The 'Landcare Muster' on Wed 24 October is being organised by the Working Group, hosted by the Landcare Networks in the region:
Liverpool Plains Land Management Committee,
Tamworth-Manilla Landcare Association, and
Southern New England Landcare

and funded by Landcare Australia Limited

Please circulate this information throughout your networks, to Landcarers and anyone else who is interested in community participation in NRM. It is important that a broad cross section of ideas and regions is represented!

The day after the 'Landcare Muster' the 'catchment tours' segment of the Namoi Landscape Management and State Landcare Forum 2007 is on, with the Forum commencing on the Friday.

Hope to see you there!

regards

David Walker
Executive Officer
Liverpool Plains Land Management Committee
PO Box 546
Gunnedah NSW 2380

ph 02 6741 8332
fax 02 6742 2940
mobile 0428 418 332
email lplmc@lplmc.com.au