Mosaic Map: NRM funded projects
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Salvaging remnant plants on the farm
Maintaining healthy land in the midst of South Australia's dry grazing and cropping landscape - the Northern and Yorke region - is a considerable challenge but a local sheep-farming family is managing it well.
Andrew and Patricia Weckert's property ‘Valkyrie,' which they work with their son Thomas, lies north east of Orroroo and boasts four diverse vegetation types – Red Mallee, Spinifex, Bullock Bush and shrublands. The good condition of these remnants is due to sound land management by the immediate past owners.
Funding
The Weckerts used $8,000 in Australian Government funding - part of a $300,000 Australian and South Australian Government program via the Northern and Yorke Natural Resource Management (NMR) Board - to protect 425 hectares of remnant vegetation.
Activities
Patricia, Andrew, Thomas and other family members completed six kilometres of fencing (most fence post holes were dug by hand as the post-hole digger could not be transported through the thick trees and rough, hilly terrain). Today the area is a great asset to the region due to its size and cohesiveness.
About 130 kilometres south of Orroroo the Weckerts run another property at Brinkworth, which also has a small portion of original remnant vegetation intact. This was fenced with the support of earlier funding, to bring two original scrublands together.
While their northern property is used for winter grazing, the family's southern farm is used mainly for cropping. When this land is not in crop sheep are brought down to graze stubble and rest the fragile marginal land.
“With the funding we've been able to make more paddocks at Orroroo for our sheep so that we can alter the grazing pattern and rest the land,” Patricia said. “You feel like you're looking after the country as well as making something out of it.”
Achievements
Over the years, the Weckerts have had close contact with a resident echidna and local possums, which share the nearby Brinkworth scrub. These are the dividends of the family successfully creating a corridor for animals to return to and already more birdlife has been visible.
“The understorey certainly starts to take off once you fence it off and there's no livestock grazing,” Patricia said. “It's very exciting being part of bringing the land back. People are starting to think more about what was on the land before they started cropping.”
More information
- Trudie Stanley, Northern and Yorke NRM Board program Manager: (08) 8842 6253
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