We held a pest control demo day with Project Platypus as part of our collaborative Partnerships Against Pests project. Participants learned about feral cats, foxes and rabbit control, and we had demonstrations of canid pest ejectors, rabbit warren fumigation and ripping, and boxthorn pulling.

Murtoa College student Alyvia writes an article on her class’s involvement in tree planting at Rupanyup Reservoir in winter/spring 2024.

In this activity, we developed a priority list of weeds for the area informed by the community, through our Partnerships Against Pests project with Project Platypus. Read on to learn more about gazania, horehound, bridal creeper, amsinckia and boxthorn!

This spring we enjoyed a guided walk through a buloke woodland in Minyip with local nature lover Rae Talbot.

The 2024 Yarrilinks AGM was held at the Wheatlands Ag Museum in Warracknabeal and included a tour of the museum afterwards.

This collaborative project, led by Project Platypus and involving Horsham District Landcare Network and Yarrilinks, aims to build capacity and networks in invasive species management.

Wimmera Landcare helped support community attendance at the Wimmera Biodiversity Seminar this year through a collaborative project funded through AgVic's Partnerships against Pests program.

The Warracknabeal Community Garden recently celebrated its 10th Birthday. Yarrilinks Committee member and Yarriambiack Shire Councillor Corinne Heintze turned out in style to the celebration, which was also attended by Gardening Australia legend and Community Gardens Australia ambassador Costa Georgiadis.

Yarrilinks has recently registered as a charity with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. This has come about due to changes in ATO reporting requirements for not-for-profits.

In July Alicia travelled to Melbourne for the Victorian Landcare Awards with Yarrilinks nominees Jonathan Starks and Adrian Tyler. Jonathan received a commendation in his category.

We also had some year 9 students from Murtoa college help out at the Rupanyup Reservoir, with tree planting and removing old guards for re-use.

Yarrilinks Landcare Network groups received 87% of the funding they applied for in the 2024 Victorian Landcare Grants!

28 Volunteers helped us revegetate 3 ha at Boolite to link covenanted remnant woodland with native vegetation along the Dunmunkle Creek.

We had students from the year 12 VET program at Murtoa College join us for a day of tree planting at the Rupanyup Reservoir. This activity was part of a project management assignment for the students, where they had to get involved in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of a project.

Yarrilinks member Fred Ackland attended the 2024 Victorian Landcare Forum in Bendigo with support from Yarrilinks. Read his thoughts about the experience here!

We learned all about fungi from ecologist Alison Pouliot at this event - featuring stories about fungi from around the world, their role in the ecosystem and the ins and outs of edible fungi.

There are a number of new renewable energy developments in the Yarrilinks area, including the Warracknabeal and Wilkur Energy Parks, and the recently announced Murra Warra to Bulgana transmission line. Staying up to date on these projects can help communities navigate the changes.

For Careers week we had some students help us improve habitat at an environmental water refuge site, and release endangered native fish.

The 2024 Victorian Landcare Forum provided an engagement opportunity for the landcare community to grow landcare across the state. Yarrilinks was reresented by Alicia and new volunteer Fred. The forum also featured a surprise announcement of a 9 month extension to Landcare Facilitator funding.

Alicia submitted 4 Landcare grant applications for Yarrilinks and our other member groups. If successful, these grants will fund the network’s activities over the next year.