Connecting Country is a unique community operated organisation working across the Mount Alexander Shire and surrounds. We obtain funding to improve local skills and restore landscapes for a healthy, resilient and productive natural environment.
Connecting Country work with a wide range of land users to support and bring skills and funds to local communities for landscape improvement, dedicated to achieving specific investor goals in the areas of:
- Grants for on-ground projects relating to woodland restoration. (Groups or individuals can apply. Excludes roadsides)
- Education and engagement to improve landscape management
- Monitoring change from our funded projects (vegetation, birds and the threatened Tuan species)
We seek further funds to contribute to additional local needs. Please contact us if you would like to be a project partner or know of grants which can benefit this region.
The success of Connecting Country will rely on active membership. Individuals and/or groups are welcome to join as members. Download a membership form here.
Read more >View organisational structure diagram here
Who are we? Click here to meet the Committee of Management
Local Landcare and Environment Groups.
Connecting Country is a project which aims to collect and collate knowledge and information about the natural landscape in the Mount Alexander region.
Specifically this project will inform and encourage new ways for this community to live compatibly within that landscape.
Underpinning the research is the belief that the social and built community of the future is co-dependent on the survival of a diverse and resilient natural landscape.
Our history..
In 2007, The Norman Wettenhall Foundation developed a work plan that focused on supporting community-led landscape restoration in south-east Australia. The Executive Officer contacted Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests (Mount Alexander Region), an environment group in Castlemaine, to see if there was interest in working collaboratively across the region on a landscape restoration project. A Reference Group was then formed.
During 2008, the project produced a Biodiversity Blueprint that has identified our assets, the possible threats they face and what future actions we can take. It suggests directions, clarifies our priorities in landscape restoration and helps us to reconcile cultural, agricultural and natural values.
In 2009, Connecting Country was awarded funding for three years through the North Central Catchment Management Authority from the Victorian and Commonwealth Government (Caring for our Country). The project has a specific focus on the threatened species – the Brush-tailed Phascogale (Tuan). Click here for more information on our current projects.
You may like to select one of the menu buttons on the top left, or view our existing maps, our new interactive map portal or contact us.
