We’re Engaged!

… Engaged with our Landcare communities, obviously. Apologies to anyone who clicked the link for a juicier story, but it’s been a social September so this post comes as a celebration of the people in Landcare and this community that is so much more than planting trees. Community engagement is a big component of Landcare for groups and members, and one of my favourite roles as a Landcare facilitator. Lately, I’ve been fortunate enough to be peddling the ground meeting wonderful people across Yarriambiack, Victoria and the country all in the name of Landcare.

The National Landcare Conference, September 20th - 24th 2025

The National Landcare Conference was held on the Gold Coast last week, with representatives from Wimmera Landcare participating across multiple events.

I was proud to be working on the committee of the Next Gen Landcare Summit, which included wonderful guest speakers including Costa (of Gardening Australia and Junior Landcare notability). The day looked at inspiring and engaging the 140+ participants to ensure that emerging youth leaders are given voice in creating change and that Landcare is carried on by the next generation.

The Next Gen Landcare panel spoke across a range of issues facing youth wanting to participate in the Landcare space, with common themes throughout all. But the room welcomed more than just youth (18-35yrs), and alongside the adult (35yrs+) counterparts, Landcarers workshopped together to produce elevator pitches addressing these challenges, including: high expectations of young people, time and busy schedules, capacity to take on more, and imposter syndrome, amongst others, with solutions looking like better support, mentorship, funding and opportunity for youth to lead in Landcare, and the classic solution to “make Landcare sexy” for broad membership appeal.

The Next Gen Landcare Summit afforded participants networking opportunities, inspiration and professional development, and with a focus on young people leading the way, I left the summit feeling like Landcare is in good hands looking to the future.

The National Landcare Conference ran from Monday to Wednesday, included a Gala dinner for the Landcare Awards on Tuesday night, and concluded with regional field trips on Wednesday. Covering a myriad of topics, from the nature repair markets to innovation and technology, community-driven Landcare and health, to sustainable agriculture and soil health, I particularly enjoyed the keynote presentation First Nations Cultural Knowledge for Nature, Agriculture, Land and People, which spoke to the engagement of Landcare and landholders with Traditional Owner lead conservation and land management, and the breakout sessions on Restoring Biodiversity across Landscapes. The experience of being at the conference was energizing, where like-mindedness amongst participants met solutions and inspiration to face challenges and celebrate triumphs as an engaged community across the nation.

Warracknabeal Neighbourhood House Plant Giveaway and Creek Walk

It was a beautiful Spring Day for a Creek Walk in Warracknabeal, where our tech-savvy participants enjoyed a stroll along the creek with a Citizen Scientists gaze, thanks to iNaturalist. A briefing on the app over a cake and a sausage roll at the Warracknabeal Neighbourhood House saw even the most hesitant of technology user adept in identifying creatures of the natural world with the help of the humble mobile phone. iNaturalist allows users to document and upload species for identification across the natural world. By simply downloading the app and snapping a photograph or recording a sound, for example a birdsong or frog calling unseen from the riverbank, dedicated observers and researchers are able to tell the user what they’ve found, while the data is collected for scientific data repositories, including the Atlas of Living Australia. These data stores can then be used for land mapping and environmental conservation and protection projects.

The Creek Walk was not only beneficial for Citizen Science contributions to environmental data but served to acquaint community members with their natural environments and social networks, including Landcare, and from the community group to the National Conference, these gatherings continue to enhearten the global movement that is defined by people coming together for the betterment of community and the natural world.