WALN continues to represent WA landcare on the National Landcare Network Board and Member’s Council. 

Our Chair Keith Bradby sits on the National Landcare Network (NLN) Board with the Chairs from other States and Territories, with Helen Watkins and Mick Davis, members of the WALN Executive Committee representing WA on the NLN Member’s Council. Blair Darvill, WALN Executive Officer is also a proxy member of the Member Council following up on WA actions when required.

At our recent WALN Executive Committee meeting Keith Bradby was pleased to report that discussions are continuing on the proposed merger between the NLN and Landcare Australia, and that the Federal government seems very supportive. Discussions regarding ongoing funding for NLN and the State and territory networks are also progressing.

Helen Watkins, now Acting Deputy Chair of the NLN Member Council, reported that the Council is progressing nicely with all States and Territories contributing collaboratively. The Council is currently focusing on collating feedback on the recent National Landcare Program (NLP2) funding with the view to developing a collective national position prior to the next Federal election.

Concerns have been raised nationally about the conduct of the recent National Landcare Program Smart Farms and Small Environment Grants funding processes.  Groups are increasingly having to put amounts of time into funding applications which often have little chance of success and the transfer of grant management to the Australian Government’s Department of Industry, Innovation and Science seems to have produced a number of strange rulings, and is costing much more than when grants were handled by the Department of Environment.  Blair Darvill has been pursuing these issues with vigour.

From an operational perspective, Blair also reported that WALN has agreed to help NLN coordinate a plenary session on networking at the upcoming 2018 National Landcare Conference in October. This opportunity will allow WALN to showcase some of the networking approaches that are working for us here in the west.