The state government has provided $5.5 million for seven major landscape projects across South Australia. 

They include a number of large-scale environmental projects, including removing Tasmanian Blue Gum wildings on Kangaroo Island and a project to reverse the decline of bird numbers in the Mount Lofty Ranges.

The Landscape Priorities Fund provides annual grants for the state’s landscape boards, working in partnership with other organisations, groups and individuals to invest in large-scale integrated landscape management projects.

Funded projects seek to address large landscape management issues such as landscape scale restoration, supporting bushfire recovery, climate resilience and adaptation, sustainable agriculture, and threatened species and ecosystem recovery.

Environment Minister Susan Close says the fund plays an important role in the management of landscapes across South Australia, recognising the environmental pressures placed on them and the need to address this.

“We’ve prioritised projects that will address the most important landscape management issues facing the respective regions.

“The potential of these projects to arrest significant environmental harm will see great outcomes achieved for our natural environment and local communities.

“It’s important as a government to keep working together with communities to maintain and enhance the health of our landscapes, so that the environment and the local economies can continue to prosper.

Projects funded in this latest round:

BOARD PROJECT AMOUNT

Hills and Fleurieu Reversing the decline of Mt Lofty Ranges birds $820,000

Alinytjara Wilurara A multi-agency response to managing Buffel grass  $1,180,000

Northern & Yorke Delivering Environmental and Cultural Flows $413,000

Murray & Riverland Building resilience of Ngarrindjeri Yarluwar-Ruwe $480,000

SA Arid Lands Resilient Rangelands – Managing biosecurity $800,000

Kangaroo Island Tasmanian Blue Gum Wildling removal $780,000

Limestone Coast Karst Springs Land Purchase and Restoration $1,000,000

TOTAL $5,473,000

For more information on landscape boards and conservation grants visit the website. www.landscape.sa.gov.au