0:06
Hi and welcome to this webinar on the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust Rainforest Conservation Offer, which is upcoming in the North Coast region of the BCT from June of 2026.
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My name is Andy Westcott, I'm the regional manager for the North Coast team and presenting with me today is Dave Andrighetto, also from the North Coast team.
0:24
And we'll take you through some details about the conservation offer.
0:27
First, I'd like to acknowledge that we're I'm coming to you from Bureau Π Country.
0:31
Dave from Bunjalung NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of NSW and recognises their ongoing connection to land, water, biodiversity and culture and that Aboriginal cultural values are often present on privately owned land and are associated with ongoing cultural practises and learning.
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We pay our respects to Elders past, present, future and commit to genuinely collaborating and partnering with Aboriginal people in our private land conservation efforts, including in the delivery of this offer on Bungel and Country.
1:03
So what Dave and I will do in this webinar is break it into four parts and give you a bit of an overview on 4 topics.
1:08
So the first will be who the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust are and what exactly a conservation agreement is.
1:15
Dave will then take you through this particular offer, the Rainforest Conservation Office offer, and provide some basic detail on the eligibility criteria as well as the target of biodiversity values for the offer.
1:27
We'll then jump over and have a look at the offer process, including the timeline and all the key stages that need to be met along the way, before we wrap up with a bit of an overview of the next step, including some opportunities to have support from our North Coast staff over the coming months if you're interested in participating.
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So we'll start with a look at who the BCT is and our conservation agreements.
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So the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust is a statutory not for profit organisation that was established under the Biodiversity Conservation Act back in 2016.
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Our purpose is to partner to protect and enhance biodiversity on private land.
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We do that through a number of different mechanisms.
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So the first is we lead a range of programmes and initiatives that are delivered in close collaboration with land holders, communities and our stakeholders.
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And that includes programmes like the one we're talking about today in the conservation offer, but we also provide expert ecological advice, education and support to BCT agreement holders, but also to broader landholders, stakeholders and the community.
2:28
Another part of our remit is to provide public education and awareness of the importance of biodiversity conservation and private land.
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And we do that through a number of different education programmes for communities, but also for future generations of conservations through our school based programmes.
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The work we do here at the BCT is important because NSW is homes with some globally significant biodiversity values and with more than 80% of private of land in New South Wales on private ownership.
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Private land conservation is critical to our efforts to reverse biodiversity decline nationally and internationally.
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And our outcomes today include supporting over 2600 conservation agreements and that's leading to the protection of 600,000 hectares of land in perpetuity.
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And because that Land's protected in perpetuity, it's contributing to expanding Australia's national reserve system and also helping us to meet our national and international biodiversity goals.
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So what exactly is the conservation agreement?
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So the the offer Dave will talk to you about in this webinar, the end result of that is a conservation agreement with the BCT.
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That conservation agreement is an in perpetuity conservation covenant that's registered on the title of the property and runs with successive landholders.
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So the site is protected in perpetuity on title.
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It contributes to the National Reserve System because of that in perpetuity protection.
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And but the important to note here is that land remains under private ownership.
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So what the conservation agreement does do, it does place some restrictions on the Land Management within the designated conservation area that restricts things like clearing, logging and agricultural activities within the conservation area.
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But the agreement will also set out a number of management actions that need to be delivered within the conservation area and the funding that's associated to support the implementation of those.
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And that's to ensure the agreement area is both protected and enhanced long term.
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So that'll include things like weed and pest control, as well as some wildlife friendly fencing and potentially fire management.
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Sitting alongside that conservation agreement is ongoing landholder support from the BCT.
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So through our landholder support officers and ecologists, there's ongoing support in sort of Land Management questions you may have when delivering that conservation agreement.
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But we also deliver a scientifically rigorous monitoring and reporting programme through our ecological monitoring module and the agreement areas we've monitored every five years under that programme.
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So when it comes to the conservation agreements, there's contributions on two sides of the equation, the first being the land holders.
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So what the land holders are bringing into this equation is the land to be protected on the conservation area, but also a commitment that they're going to manage that conservation area ongoing in line with that agreement and supported by that BCT funding.
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On the BCT side of the equation is that legal mechanism to protect the site through the conservation agreement as well as those ongoing annual management payments.
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There's also an ongoing annual review and report process here where you'll report to the BCT on the progress in delivering your management actions and receive support in doing that and, and be part of that scientifically rigorous monitoring and reporting regime we spoke about earlier.
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In terms of benefits, again, apart from on both sides of the equations that contributing to those national international biodiversity conservation goals, on the land holder side, there's the assurance that that land is protected by that conservation agreement forever and that there's ongoing management payments now available to you to deliver your conservation goals.
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The LIMB and the ongoing Land Management support from the BCT, which we spoke about, but also rate relief from council rates over the designated conservation area.
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On the BCT side of the equation, the benefits include adding more protected areas of high biodiversity conservation, conservation value to our conservation estate, which contributes to the national expansion of the national reserve system, increases the protection of threatened biodiversity values and it contributes to the achievement of global goals like the 30 by 30 targets from the Global Biodiversity Framework.
6:28
Thanks for that, Andy.
6:29
I'm going to talk about have a specific Rainforest Conservation Office office offer.
6:38
We'll just pause and we'll just refresh this one.
6:43
Thanks for that, Andy.
6:44
Today I'm going to talk about the rainforest conservation offer, which is specific to this project.
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For full details about the eligibility and offer process, we recommend have a look at our website and having a look at the landowner guide.
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The project aims for BCT to work with land owners to protect and manage threatened rainforest ecological communities on their land.
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The required management actions that'll form part of the agreement include track maintenance, establishing and maintaining fences to exclude livestock and and preventing unauthorised access.
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Developing, Developing a Vegetation Operation Plan to plan how you're going to achieve your vegetation management goals with the available resources and then undertaking those actions.
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So things like weed control, infill planting, fire in ecologically appropriate locations, et cetera, pest monitoring and management and then agreement monitoring, annual reporting.
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With this offer, there's one optional action and that's about primary weed control in low condition areas.
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The management actions are funded.
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So there's you can see in the landowner guide there's a range of payments that come collectively with those actions.
8:13
So we recommend that you spend the time to have a look at those the the guide and have a look at those rates and ensure that they're adequate for you to achieve your goals.
8:24
The annual reporting cycle starts from the first payment which is made by BCT.
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The landowner then implements the actions and at the end of that year submits an A report to PCT PCT reviews the report and that triggers the next payment to be released.
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And that cycle is ongoing for for the entire agreement for input patuity, the eligibility to be participate in the project starts.
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There's two criteria, one with landowner criteria and one with site criteria.
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So I'm going to start with the landowner criteria.
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The landowner must own the land to apply for the project.
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You must be an Australian citizen or company, meet the fit and proper person test and be willing to enter into an inperpeted perpetuity conservation agreement.
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The conservation area has to be located within the offer area.
9:27
So for this project, we're really targeting northeastern NSW in the core SE QLD barring Bar Colindale slash Scenic Rim Ibra sub region, which is bound by QLD bordering the north, the ocean to the east, the Richmond Range on the western perimeter and the Richmond Range, Richmond River, sorry, down to roughly Korokai Ballina on the eastern southern periphery.
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So you've met the first criteria, you're in the office area.
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Your next criteria is to have a proposed conservation area that's a minimum 20 hectares in size.
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So we'll look at an example fictional property here.
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The property is 37 hectares and the proposed conservation area is 20 hectares in size.
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The remainder of the property is used for things such as residence, agriculture, etcetera.
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What's important in in developing your proposed conservation area is thinking about your totally property property plan to to ensure areas that in land uses that conflict with the agreement requirements aren't within the agreement area.
10:45
So things like your asset protection zone, yeah, any areas you might want to graze or use for agriculture as examples.
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The third eligibility is having the target conservation asset on your property.
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So for this programme you need to have a minimum of 15 hectares of rainforest in moderate to good condition.
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That's a target threatened ecological community.
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The remainder of the site where needed can be non target vegetation in moderate to good condition to reach that 20 hectare requirement.
11:24
So going back to that example property, it's a 35 hectare, 37 hectare property, sorry.
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The conservation area is 20 hectares, rainforests is 15 hectares of that conservation area and wet sclerophyll forests makes up the remaining 5 hectares.
11:41
That's a pretty early standard scenario that we're likely to see in our region.
11:48
So that target conservation asset that we discuss is a rainforest threatened ecological communities and there's three of them relevant to the programme, which is lowland rainforests, lowland rainforest on floodplain and literal rainforest.
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So how do I know if I've got one of these threatened ecological communities on my property?
12:09
If you have rainforests in your property and you're in the Opera area, it's likely to be a threatened ecological community and we encourage you to submit an AIOI.
12:17
If you're interested, you can check resources such as local council vegetation mapping or state governments trees near me as to help you make that determination of what the vegetation is and as part of the EOI process, BCT will assist you in in in assessing the vegetation on your property.
12:41
You would notice the in that criteria.
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There's a discussion about moderate to good condition.
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So what is moderate to good condition vegetation, It's mature regrowth to old growth vegetation.
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It's vegetation with a complex diversity and structure.
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And what it isn't is camp floral forest.
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So often we get it mixed up between rainforests and camp floral forests in our region.
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If you've got nothing but camp florals in the canopy, that's not really, that's not what we're targeting for this offer.
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So you might have some land and you're interested in a conservation in agreement, but you don't meet those eligibility criteria.
13:23
If you you can have a look at the BCT website to look at what other alternative available offers are available.
13:30
Subscribe to our newsletter to be up to date up kept up to date when office become available or consider a third party agreement such as Land for Wildlife or Wildlife Land Trust Agreement.
13:47
Thanks, Dave.
13:48
Andy, for the last part of the webinar, we'll take a look at the full process of the offer, including some of the key timelines.
14:00
Thank you.
14:01
So the offer runs essentially from now through till May of 2027.
14:07
So the phase we're at now is essentially the landholder guide which Dave spoke about along with a number of other resources are available on the BCT website where you can go and review that information and check your eligibility, check if you if the offer is for you.
14:20
If it is from the 1st of June through to the 29th of June, the expression of interest phase is open.
14:26
There's a simple form that will be available on the BCT website to submit your interest in participating.
14:31
That'll include mapping a draught conservation area for consideration.
14:35
Important to know here that expressing interest doesn't bind you to continuing through the process.
14:40
It's merely saying you know you're interested in having a look at what the next steps are.
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But if you don't submit an expression of interest, you can't be considered moving forward in the offer.
14:48
So once those expressions of interest close on the 29th of June, the BCT will go through a short period where we prioritise the expression of interest we've received.
14:56
And then we'll reach out to the landholders who have been successful in moving along to the next phase, which is the site assessment planning phase, which will run from August to October of 2026.
15:05
So in this phase, the BCT will arrange a time with you to come out to your property.
15:11
Our ecologists will go and assess the environmental values of the site.
15:14
We'll also work with you to draught up what a proposed conservation area looks like on your property, talk through and decide on the management actions that are applicable to the site and start to draught up a conservation management plan, which would ultimately sit against the conservation agreement on the site.
15:30
As we move through the phase, the next one would be to develop and review an in principle offer for that site.
15:35
So based on that, that management plan that's being drafted in that August to October phase, an in point principle offer based on that, that conservation area, the agreed management actions will generate an indicative price which the PCT will provide to you and that'll be set in today's dollars and that'll be in October to November of 2026.
15:54
At that point, landholders can choose to continue in the process or they can choose to withdraw.
15:59
Those choosing to continue are entering essentially the application phase where you're accepting that in principle offer and submitting an application to proceed toward a conservation agreement.
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That'll be from the 30th of October toward the 15th of November of 2026, at which point we move into the assessment and final offers part stage of the programme.
16:18
So in this component, the BCT will look at all those applications that have been received, rank them and assess them for value for money.
16:25
And based on those in principle offers, successful land hurdles will be identified and notified and a final offer for an ongoing conservation agreement will be made with those annual payments for landholders who choose to accept that final offer.
16:38
And it will move into drafting the conservation agreement and registering that agreement on title from April to May of 2027.
16:45
All this information is spelled out in a bit more detail on the landholder guide.
16:49
But as we move through the slides, we'll also talk some further opportunities to talk to us about the process.
16:57
So in terms of next steps, there's a there's a few things to work through.
17:01
So the first is, as we've kind of said quite a few times here in during this webinar is to jump online and have a look at the webinar for the sorry, have a look at the land holder guide for the rainforest conservation offer and think about what opportunities it might present for you and your property.
17:15
And from there, we recommend looking to see if your site is within the eligible offer area.
17:23
So the same location you'll find the landholder guide.
17:27
There's also an interactive tender area, sorry, offer area map, which you can assess if your property falls within the offer area.
17:34
Expression of interest forms will then be available from the 1st of June.
17:37
And as we said, that'll run from the 1st of June through to other 29th of June 2026 to submit your expression of interest.
17:44
But in the lead up to that phase, if you're needing assistance and more information, there's going to be a number of opportunities to talk to us.
17:53
So some of those are through some information sessions which will be 1 to one slots with BCT staff.
18:00
We're booking out 20 minute, 20 minute slots across four different days.
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The Woollen Bar on the 2nd of June, Byron Bay on the 3rd of June, Coyogle on the 16th and Holstonville on the 17th.
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There's a link on the website to register for those events to come along and have a chat with our staff and we can work you through the expression of interest for me if need be and answer any questions you might have.
18:20
Alternatively, you can visit the offer website, which is also there on screen, email the info@bct.nsw.gov dot AU email with any questions you might have or reach out to the BCT hotline, which is also at the bottom of the screen there.
18:34
So that brings us to the end of the of the webinar.
18:38
As we've said, LED holder got first port of call, but then all those opportunities on screen now to reach out for further assistance are available to you.
18:46
So thanks for your attendance and we hope to see some of you at the information sessions.
