New Futures for Victorian Landcare

In 2022, Landcare Victoria, Victoria’s peak Landcare body, brought together a range of partners to develop the New Futures for Victorian Landcare (NFVL) project.

Landscape Finance Lab joined Landcare Victoria and other partner organisations Regen Farmers Mutual and Australian National University Sustainable Farms Initiative, to secure $1.3M philanthropic funding from the Ian Potter Foundation and Natural Resources Conservation Trust to finance the project.

Based on the 4 Returns Framework, the NFVL approach brings together stakeholders, organisations, pilot landholders and investors to develop a Landscape Investment and Action Plan.

The first two pilot landscapes in northern Victoria launched in February 2024:

• Buloke and Northern Grampians Landcare Network (BNGLN) – Windharp Horizons project
• Granite2Goulburn Group (G2G) lead by Hughes Creek Catchment Collaborative

The Lab provided strategic guidance to the landscapes early on, in helping to set up their landscape incubation process, and supported implementing partners to deliver a series of stakeholder landscape planning workshops and field trips. These were designed to help the pilot landscapes develop their Landscape Partnerships and Shared Understanding of the landscapes (Elements 1 and 2). Alongside this work, Regen Farmers Mutual has been leading the landscapes through a Landscape Impact Program, to identify landholder opportunities in emerging environmental markets, with a view of developing a landscape scale transaction. 

In August 2024, landscape partners met with investors to discuss their plans for their future and the co-benefits of sustainable agriculture, carbon farming and biodiversity.