Working Together
Landcare groups gathering to meet with local Aboriginal people in April 2017
Landcare groups in the Mount Alexander region work closely with public land managers, Traditional Owners, private landholders, and each other to care for the environmental, social, and cultural values of the land.
If you are a community group intending to undertake on-ground works on public land in the Mount Alexander Shire, you will need to contact the relevant land manager at least 12 weeks in advance to let them know. This is partly so that land managers are aware of works that groups wish to undertake on their land, and partly to give them enough time to work through the process of complying with the recently implemented Land Use Activity Agreement (LUAA) process. More information about the LUAA can be found in the link to the ‘Working with Dja Dja Wurrung Traditional Owners’ page below. The land managers will need to ensure that the proposed Landcare activity is compliant with the applicable procedures under the LUAA (or determine whether it falls into one of the excluded categories).
Public land managers in the Mount Alexander Shire have developed forms for Landcare groups to use for notifying them of works on public land. These forms can be used to notify land managers on a project-by-project basis and at other specific times as the need arises (e.g., if new funding is received), but has the added advantage of enabling groups to fill out the form once a year as an annual plan with all of their planned public land activities included on a single form. This ‘yearly notification’ system was developed following feedback from Landcare groups at a meeting with land managers as a means of reducing the level of paperwork needing to be undertaken by volunteers, while also allowing groups some flexibility to reschedule works or working bees according to weather, volunteer availability and other factors.
Below is some information and key contacts for the process to follow if you are a Landcare or Friends group intending to work on public land. For help with any further questions, please contact hadley@connectingcountry.org.au
