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Landholder stories
The BCT supports, facilitates and encourages the conservation of biodiversity on private land. We work side by side with landholders to preserve the state NSW's unique biodiversity.
Celebrating Tessa - Johnson Walker
We would like to recognise the wonderful life and extraordinary conservation efforts of a special landholder who sadly passed away in November 2020.
Mary Theresa Johnson-Walker (Tessa) was known as a visionary in private land conservation, establishing one of the largest Voluntary Conservation Agreements (VCAs) on the North Coast of NSW in the late 1990s.
Purchasing a rainforest block near Dorrigo NSW from a local sawmill, Tessa set up a VCA through the NSW government to ensure its continued protection from logging, naming the conservation area Bobo River Forest.
Read the full story of Tessa and Bobo River Forest here.
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Rob and Wendy Gribble, Royland
Rob and Wendy Gribble have recently signed a conservation agreement for their property Royland as part of the BCT’s fixed price offer.
Royland is situated on Dyers Range south east of Armidale and contains critically endangered Grassy box woodland which provides habitat for a range of threatened species including the endangered spotted-tailed quoll. Read the full story here.
Mike Richardson, Belltrees
The Belltrees conservation agreement is one of the first agreements established with the BCT back in 2018. Since purchasing the property in 1983, owner Mike Richardson has dedicated almost 40 years to clearing invasive species from the 101-hectare valley of subtropical rainforest. Read the full story here.
Jimmy Malecki, The Bog
We paid Jimmy a visit last month to take a walk around The Bog, a 39 hectare conservation area located approximately 60km north of Grafton in the Richmond River catchment area. Read the full story here.
Katrina Jeffrey, Koala Gardens
“As Australians, we all know what koalas are, but we don't actually know an awful lot about them”.
On the north coast of NSW in a small regional area called Tuckurimba, local resident Katrina Jeffrey spends an hour each morning on her quad bike checking the trees on her property for koalas. She has been doing this for over 4 years as part of her mission to help restore important koala habitat in the region.
Katrina has an in-perpetuity conservation agreement with the BCT and was successful in our Port Macquarie koala habitat tender in 2018. She now receives annual funding to continue her important work in koala habitat protection and restoration. She runs field days for local residents to educate and encourage them to get involved in koala conservation, and even has her own website!
Greg Rummery, Brooksdale
“One of the challenges we’ve had in NSW for 20-odd years is a bit of a disconnect between government and native vegetation management, and the landholders. I see the BCT as a way of re-building that bridge and connecting those two.”
Greg is an agronomist with a 15-year conservation agreement with the BCT, which he entered as part of the North West Plains conservation tender in 2018. He grows seasonal dryland crops on his property near Walgett, and he sees conservation as a vital part of using the land successfully. He and his wife are very happy to be receiving payments for their conservation outcomes.
Tony Parkes – Restoration in the Big Scrub in northern NSW
Tony’s story starts in 1986 with his family purchasing an eight-hectare block that was part of a 42-hectare degraded ex-dairy farm at Binna Burra, north eastern NSW. Tony was living in Sydney at the time and was planning early retirement from a long career in corporate finance. The purchase of the property was the tangible expression of a sea change dream. The dream turned to reality three years later when he moved into a new house on the property, which was once covered by lush rainforest of the Big Scrub. Read the full story
Clare Cannon - Woomargama Station’s land management approach
Clare Cannon, the owner of one of Australia's oldest pastoral stations believes a recent decision to protect a third of her property with a private land conservation agreement will eventually increase the value of the farm and its produce. Read the full story
White Leeds Station – managing and protecting ecosystems in the far west NSW
Owned by Margaret Mc Bride and Steve Radford, White Leeds Station is a 10,000 hectare property near Broken Hill. At the time, Margaret and Steve purchased the property a large portion of the land was significantly degraded. However, over time Margaret and Steve restored the land through developing infrastructure and implementing management practices that initially prevented further degradation and aimed to remediate and improve the quality of the environment and ecosystems.
Read the full story
Kooyong Wildlife Refuge – helping to restore habitat for the Booroolong Frog
The Kooyong Farm is a family farm run by Robert Cox and his family. The farm is a Wildlife Refuge and is located near Tumbarumba NSW and lies within the Summit to Slopes area of the Great Eastern Ranges, a narrow band from Kosciuszko National Park to Albury. Read the full story
Downes Family Farm at Brownlow Hill
The Downes Family Farm in Camden NSW is a dairy farm owned and operated by the family for five generations. Prior to discovering biobanking, the Downes family farm was struggling. They faced the choice between going broke farming or realising the capital value of their land. Eventually, the family decided land conservation could be a means of securing the property's financial viability and provide them another farming activity option. Read the full story
Mount Hercules on the Razorback Range, Wollondilly
Graeme Kirk is extremely proud of his 300 hectares of land at Wollondilly on the south-western outskirts of Sydney, NSW. A keen advocate of the region, Graeme uses his property for grazing sheep and protecting native bushland. Using the NSW Government's BioBanking Scheme, Graeme continues his sheep grazing while at the same time generating saleable credits by setting aside land to preserve endangered plants, animals and ecosystems on parts of his property that is not suitable for grazing. Read the full story