Land Conservation District Committees (LCDC’s) were recently notified that they were ineligible for Federal NLP Environment Small Grants. Their ineligibility was a result of their status as Unincorporated and/ or State bodies and not Incorporated groups in the application process.

LCDC’s that applied for the Environment Small Grants have been shocked by the news. For over thirty years they had been successfully applying for Federal environment funding and while the small one off 25th Anniversary Landcare Grants in 2015 were a precedent to these guidelines, most were unaware of the new changes.

There has always been a bit of confusion with LCDC’s among our Commonwealth friends, but over the years a few explanations about how LCDC’s are in effect local landcare groups run by local community resolved the confusion.   WALN has also heard that landcare programs in government schools were also deemed ineligible for these grants, whilst those in private and religious schools are eligible.

The NLP Environment Small Grants are no longer managed by the Department for the Environment, who have facilitators in the State and know their stakeholders. The program has been ‘outsourced’ to an another Government department who have a call centre, generic email and little flexibility, making it all but impossible to explain your situation to a person that doesn’t understands the program or where you are coming from.

So letters were written, emails sent and calls were made from across the country by landholders, volunteers, project officers, program managers, CEO’s and Chairperson’s to attempt to rectify the situation. Members of Parliament, Minister’s and government departments across the state and country have received the message loud and clear, we’re just not sure how they will respond.  We will hopefully hear of some corrective action very soon.

There’s quite a few more next steps that WALN be taking to ensure the current ruling is changed, and this problem doesn’t extend to larger funding programs. Future guidelines need to be made less restrictive and able to accommodate LCDC’s, public schools, landholders who have family trusts and suitable sponsors. We need to make sure that administrative frameworks are efficient and effective and support their stakeholders. LCDC’s need help to update their governance structures and perhaps once again receive some of the support they were originally provided by the State government.

WALN will continue to work on these changes locally and nationally.  WALN would like to thank all those who have spent more time than they ever should have on this, it has once again shown us that when we band together there is a strong collective voice out there that to be heard.