See our presentation at the 2025 National Landcare Conference!

Prom Coast Ecolink welcomed the opportunity to present at the National Landcare Conference 2025 in the "Landcare Projects & Innovation" Lunch Session on Monday 22 Sep, facilitated by Mary-Lou Gittins OAM, Chair of Queensland Water and Land Carers.

Scroll for slides and transcript:

[ Prom Coast Ecolink's Chair Anda Banikos welcomed to the stage ]

I invite you to take a moment to reflect on the beauty and diversity of our Australian Landscape. To acknowledge the millennia of love and care this Country has received from its Traditional Custodians. To recognise that much has been lost but we still have an opportunity to heal Country. To join me in resolving to do all I can to protect and enhance our natural environment, to walk with Traditional Custodians, farmers, business operators and the community for our common benefit. To leave a healthy Country as a legacy to our children and our children's children.

Prom Coast Ecolink is a connecting Landcare organisation, based in South Gippsland at the southernmost tip of mainland Australia, on Kurnai Country. We connect Nature to Nature and People to Nature. Our vision is for a network of biolinks connecting the rainforest to the coast. To achieve this, our work includes events, projects and advocacy. Each one of our citizen science events and biodiversity survey projects takes us a step closer to achieving landscape-scale positive change that connects groups and individuals working to support biodiversity in our region.

The most significant regional achievement in our area is that a Biolinks Map is being developed by the South Gippsland Landcare Network. Prom Coast Ecolink has been on the working group for this project since its inception. The data from our flora and fauna surveys on the Hoddle Range feed into this Biolinks Map and document habitat nodes worthy of conservation and potential wildlife linkages between these nodes. We use the title The Halfway Hoddle for this collection of surveys because the Hoddle Range connects the Liptrap Coastal Park with the rainforest of the Strzelecki Ranges. It contains a diverse mosaic of native vegetation, with significant remnant patches on private and public land and its biodiversity has not been fully documented.

A whopping 94% of the land in South Gippsland is privately owned, so to have a meaningful system of biolinks, the support of private landholders is critical. Prom Coast Ecolink engages with landholders and works with them to conduct flora and fauna surveys on adjoining properties. Aerial mapping tools and existing biodiversity data are used to identify properties that are or could become biodiversity linkages in the landscape. The survey maps become valuable tools for landholders to manage their land collaboratively for biodiversity protection and weed and feral control.

The current work on private land adds to data from similar surveys we commissioned in 2023 at the Hoddle Flora Conservation Reserve (in the heart of the Hoddle Range) in collaboration with Parks Victoria. We have recently been awarded a grant from Marinus Link to continue our survey work with Parks Victoria, this time in the Cape Liptrap Coastal Park, which links along waterways and fence lines to the Hoddle Range. Discussions have also begun with South Gippsland Water and the South Gippsland Shire Council to secure biodiversity mapping of the Hoddle Ranges land under their tenure. The high level of community support for the current surveys has strengthened the case for these government landholders to follow suit.

While the survey work is ticking along quietly in the background, our connecting with nature events have enjoyed strong community participation. Take a look on our website events page for a full overview - the diversity of the events mirrors the biodiversity of our region - from rainforest to coast. We are very pleased that some of our recurring events, like the lyrebird and platypus surveys have become annual diary highlights for citizen scientists - both local and from further afield.

You have probably heard this quote from Baba Dioum "We will protect only what we love and we will love only what we understand." The spark of curiosity and wonder ignited through our nature based events promotes the understanding and love that will protect our land and waterways.

We are immensely grateful to our sponsors and partners, their support has allowed our volunteers to put their energies into our projects and events.

Thank you for listening, we hope to see you in South Gippsland - we would love to share the magic with you!