Gunnedah has lost the last of the Liverpool Plains Land Management (LPLM) staff this month, as executive officer, David Walker, finishes up after a decade due to a major cut in the National Landcare Program budget in 2014.
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Mr Walker said the Landcare budget suffered a $400 million cut, so Landcare groups around the state had lost staff and many were closing up because there was not enough money to keep them going.
In a media release on August 26, 2013, then Shadow Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt, and then Shadow Minister for Agriculture, John Cobb, said the Coalition would “place Landcare back at the centre of our land management programs”.
However, on May 13, 2014, a media release from Mr Hunt revealed the government would instead be providing $525 million over four years to the “Green Army”, which aimed to involve those aged 17-24 in supporting environmental action across Australia. The Green Army is part of the Government’s Economic Action Strategy.
Last year marked 25 years of Landcare in Australia but Mr Walker said even strong Landcare groups were now struggling to stay afloat.
“There’s no money for us to do work,” he said.
“There’s no money for projects.”
Mr Walker has spent the past 12 months working part-time to wrap up projects and is now unemployed.
“The maximum number [of staff] we had in 2008-9 was five, and then 2012, it was two, and for the last year, year and a half, it has been one,” he said.
“In an attempt to provide greater compliance with national priorities, the federal government introduced regional organisations intending to work with Landcare but in many situations, they were seen to replace Landcare.
“There was less and less of our funding available.”
Mr Walker said he moved to Gunnedah in 2004 and his first LPLM project involved working with 90 farmers over 17,000 hectares of the Liverpool Plains, to improve conservation and farming practices.
The LPLM and local farmers have enjoyed a positive working relationship for 23 years, according to Mr Walker and he thinks the government’s new approach will hinder the progress that has been made.
“There are plenty of farmers that don’t like working with the government but they’ll work with local farming organisations,” he said.
“It’s about the fact that the farmers have ownership of the fact that they want to and need to change their practices, rather than being told by the government.
“For farmers, to have a relationship based on trust and respect…is also very important.”
Mr Walker said the NSW government was currently implementing a “really good land care policy” but it won’t “hit the ground hard” until next year, so it will be too late for Landcare groups.
“It hasn’t been large enough and soon enough to save a lot of the organisations like us,” he said.
“In many ways, I’m just another person whose job has come to an end.
“Life moves on. Plenty of people change government policies or change economic circumstances.”
In the past decade, Mr Walker said there were many projects he had enjoyed, such as LPLM’s koala project, which involved the restoration of koala habitat, building on the success of revegetation completed in the 1990’s.
“There have been plenty of good things that have been part of what I’ve been doing,” he said.
“I’ve really loved working in the Liverpool Plains.”
The LPLM office will remain open until the executive committee decides to close it, according to Mr Walker.
