<< BACK TO CONTENTS Working with local communities and Traditional Owners can bring about great results. Louissa Rogers, North Central CMA A small plant with a big message A pilot project on the Campaspe River is discovering how welltimed environmental flows can bring back vegetation, and even revive threatened species, when riverbanks are protected from cattle grazing. With the help of the Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation and local landholders, two grazing exclusion plots were erected on the banks of the river at Strathallan and Rochester. One was in a cattle-grazing area and the other on a public reserve. “It allowed us to see the impact environmental flows can have on vegetation in specific areas with other variables excluded, especially when we keep cattle and other stock off the waterways,” North Central CMA Environmental Water Manager Louissa Rogers explained. “The big news was the discovery of a threatened plant species — the small scurf-pea — in one of the plots. It shows that working with local communities and Traditional Owners can bring about great results.” Left and right: A small scurf-pea at the Campaspe River, by North Central CMA Reflections – Environmental watering in Victoria 2016–17 | 86
90 Publizr Home