The National Landcare Conference was held in Sydney from August 23rd – 25th 2022.

We had a wonderful contingent from South Australia, including several representatives from the Landcare Association of SA and 2021 SA Landcare Award winners.

Read on for a break down of our favourite parts of the conference!

Day One

One of seven field trips to choose from, we kicked off the Conference with a cruise down the Hawkesbury River to Bar Island. This is a site of the Floating Landcare project, and has been transformed from almost completely cleared to a thriving habitat for bandicoots! ?
Next stop was the Warada Ngurang Community Nursery in Pennant Hills for a Smoking Ceremony and tour. Over 200 native species are propagated and grown here, and distributed to the local community for free ?

Day Two

One of the best parts of every conference is catching up with old friends and meeting new ones! We were also treated to a poignant and inspiring keynote presentation from Prof. Mark Howden about climate change and the impact of Landcare, and heard from LASA’s own Nat Sommerville speaking on the Landcare Farming panel, alongside fellow South Aussie farmer, Mark Stanley.
We also heard a collaborative talk from Landcare NSW and Landcare Australia sharing the Landcare-led Bushfire Recovery Project as a highly successful story of collaboration between the National Landcare Network, Landcare Australia and communities around the country.

We finished off Day Two with the National Landcare Awards. The 2021 SA Landcare Award winners automatically became finalists in the National Awards and were supported to attend the event and conference by Landcare Australia and Green Adelaide. While we didn’t have any South Australian winners, all of our finalists did us extremely proud!

Day Three

We kicked off Day Three with a wonderful presentation by Senator the Hon. Tanya Plibersek, Federal Minister for Environment and Water. It was heartening to hear that grassroots Landcare has renewed support from the very top with Senator Plibersek saying “Landcare are my people. I really love what you do. I love what you stand for.”
Toward the end of the day we were captivated by the talk by Victor Steffensen from Firesticks Alliance, speaking from the heart in a truly inspiring presentation about indigenous land management and the need for collaboration, not consultation.