Northern Riverina Woodlands conservation tender

Introduction

Hello and welcome. My name is Matt O'Connell and one of the presenters today about this Northern Riverina Woodlands conservation tender. We're going to run some questions through Slido, which you hopefully you can see on the right of your screen.

There's also a closed captions function if you want to get some, some captions at the bottom of your of your screen.

We're going to record today's session. The tender is a competitive process.

So we welcome you submit your questions through Slido in in an anonymous way.

So yeah, I'll get straight into it. My name is Matt O'Connell.

I work for Regional Delivery of Biodiversity Conservation Trust. You're here to learn a lot more about the Northern Riverina Woodlands Conservation tender. The information that we cover today, it will be things like the process and the timelines, eligibility criteria, the woodlands that we're targeting and how private landholders in the tender area can find out more and submit expression of interest into the into the tender.

The project website is there on the screen. That's a very important hub for information on nsw.gov.au/bct-nrw. But before we go any further, I'd just like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands that we're coming from today for Mason and I, the presenters.

We're coming from Wiradjuri lands and I'd like to pay my respects to the elders past, present and emerging. The Wiradjuri people are the largest Aboriginal group in NSW and they also are where the tender area is applying for applicable to.

So this is the overview of what we're going to go through to today. A little bit about who the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust is and what private land conservation is. A little bit more about the tender and the project itself and what agreements established through the tender conservation agreements.

And then yes, some specifics around the eligibility and the targeted values that we're looking for.

And then a bit of a wrap up at the end on the time frames and the key stages.

There'll be plenty of time for questions. The presentation component will probably take about 25 minutes.

It'll be shared between myself and my colleague and then we'll have an opportunity for questions at the end.

The NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust

As I said, the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust (BCT), we are a statutory authority.

We were established in 2017 and our funds that we hold in a Trust are one of the functions of the Biodiversity Conservation Trust. And we're all about, private land conservation programs in NSW and we support landholders and we have some options for payments and grants and education.

The tender is all about a reverse auction model where people can set a price and and bid to participate. So it's one of the ones that has an options for payment.

We already have over 1800 in-perpetuity agreements in NSW covering as you can see there 589,000 hectare thereabouts and about 400 of these are the ones that are supported with with ongoing annual payments.

!Why Private Land Conservation?

So why do private land conservation? It's I suppose, we recognise that people depend on nature and we and private land owners need to be part of that solution.

And the main reason for that is 80% of NSW is privately managed and without in-perpetuity and active management of land you find that the biodiversity values on that land can decline over time. So active management is something that's actually needed.

So I suppose BCT, we're all about important native vegetation and threatened species, those kind of things promoting connectivity in the landscape. Private land conservation is just one way to achieve that and and get some connectivity in the in the landscape between those other other reserves that are out there.

So the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust has gone through a process to identify where the priority areas are. And we've got our, what we call our investment strategy to do that.

We've looked at things like good high environmental values, connectivity in the landscape, comprehensiveness and adequacy and representativeness of what's been reserved and what's at threat or at risk.

And so in this little diagram, you can see there on the screen, the orange and the, and the yellowy areas are the higher priority landscapes. And that's effectively the sheep wheat belt in NSW.

And that heavily coincides with the with the area that we're opening up this tender for.

So this is a little video on what conservation tenders are all about.

And I'll just show you that. Are you a landholder in New South Wales? Do you have biodiversity to protect on your place? If so, then the Biodiversity Conservation Trust, which protects biodiversity and brings benefits to landholders, may be of interest to you.

One of the ways we do this is through our conservation tenders. The tenders focus on high value biodiversity areas and gives eligible landholders access to funding for the management of conservation on their property.

There are four simple steps involved. To find out if you are eligible, go to our website and fill out the Expression of Interest form. Field staff will work with you to identify the environmental values on your property.

You can then submit a tender or bid naming the price per annum you would like for conservation.

Bids are then ranked by value for money and successful land holders enter an agreement receiving annual management payments. Your contribution will help conserve Australia's biodiversity for future generations. To find out more on this and other programs, head to our website www.bct.nsw.gov.au.

So that little video is also on the project website just as you sort of saw it gives you a little bit of an overview about what conservation tenders are all about.

What is a Conservation Tender?

So a conservation tender is what we call a reverse auction and it's a competitive process and it's all about establishing fit for purpose and value for money conservation agreements on private land and eligible landholders in that tender area can submit an expression of interest. And then after that and we work through them a management plan with them, they have an opportunity to bid to undertake the agreed management actions for that management plan and the tender area.

The Northern Riverina Woodlands conservation tender is the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust's 27th tender.

So we've run a few tenders around NSW over the last eight or nine years and as I said, this is number 27.

The conservation agreement is the core part, I suppose of what, what BCT is all about with the tender. You can see there in the diagram or the picture on the right. It can apply to part of a property, typically where the good quality habitat and vegetation is. And it's a bonding covenant registered on the title of the of the property.

It's an in perpetuity covenant or agreement, and we attach or contain within that covenant what we call a conservation management plan. And once it's established, you can get access to the conservation management payments, some advice from BCT, and we come out and do ecological assessments as well.

The management plan is is the key part of the conservation agreement. It's developed with BCT staff as part of the process.

It covers how and what and where that the conservation values will be managed.

So it covers things like pest, animal control, weed control, fencing whether grazing is allowed or excluded, any habitat enhancement and total grazing pressure and fire.

So it's a key part of the of the tender bid process. When you participate in in a tender and bid, you commit to undertaking the management actions that are outlined in the management plan.

So conservation agreements with the Biodiversity Conservation Trust have a sort of a cycle.

So landholders are responsible for implementing the conservation management actions outlined in the management plan. They're also responsible for filling in an annual report of the site management and how things are going and what's been achieved. And then BCT will assess whether that is on track and support the management of the site. And then we will release the payments and we'll pay for the payments for the next year's management. And we also monitor the the biodiversity outcomes achieved at the property or at the site as well. It's sort of an annual payment management cycle. I'm going to hand over to Mason now, who's going to talk in more detail about the specifics for the Northern Riverina conservation tender.

The Northern Riverina Woodlands Conservation Tender

OK, Thanks, Matt. Good day everyone and hope all is well and hopefully everything's looking good around your way, I know it's a bit dry, but we'll see how things go for the rest of the season.

Well, the Northern Riverina Woodlands conservation tender. is up in the Northern Riverina, so loosely covers a lot of the area that's covered with the Northern Riverina Football League. So if you know that area, you're probably you're probably in it. Why we chose the Northern Riverina to deliver this tender was for a couple of reasons. One is that it's a highly cleared landscape already, but there's really good patches of bush that are still there and they're still in good condition in other places.

So trying to conserve what's left was really important.

There are threatened species and threatened ecological communities there such as the Malleefowl which is in trouble in the Northern Riverina and so are things like Mallee birds and woodland birds.

And while these few more conservation areas won't solve the issue overnight, it's a good starting point to try and get some of those areas protected and help land owners to to manage the biodiversity values.

There's also a lot of small nature reserves in this area as well, and they're often very small by themselves, but they're supported by bushland that's on private property that's around it that sort of make them a viable sort of conservation area. So if we can assist land owners to protect those areas and to get management payments to manage them, that would be a good outcome for those small conservation reserves already.

Now the BCT does a planning process that happens every few years.

And a couple of years ago we identified the Northern Riverina as the place to target. It's it's also one of the areas where there hasn't been a conservation tender offered in this area or much of this area for a while. So that was another reason why we thought it would be a good idea to give land owners in this area an opportunity to participate.

This is the tender area and to be eligible to put in for it, you have to be within this area.

You can see it's bordered by the Lachlan River to the north, sort of north of Griffith.

It's got Barellan. To the east, it borders the Back Creek and and to the West there you can see it's along some stock routes and that sort of area there. But you'll be able to see if you're in the area when you put your application in.

We often pick these areas because they also have a similar land use, they have similar climate and similar geology.

So we try and make it a tight little area. So everyone's on a fairly similar area.

If you're not sure about the eligibility and the process, please refer to the landholder guide.

It's got all the information that's required for you to know in there and you can download that off the website.

To be eligible, you have to be owner of the land, an Australian citizen, a fit and proper person and are willing to enter into an in-perpetuity conservation agreement. So you have to be willing to to set aside an area of your land in-perpetuity for future land owners and for future generations. And the good thing about the these funded conservation agreements is that those funds will continue for the next landowner or the next generation.

The site has to be 50 hectares of vegetation that's in good to moderate condition and it has to at least contain 20 hectares of the threatened ecological communities. So some of those threatened woodland communities, which I'll talk about in a minute, or at least 50 hectares of the woodlands that we're really targeting. Those priority woodlands that are often on arable, more productive plains and, foot slopes.

And we also have some other eligibility things that you can check out, but one of them is the minimum of 50 metres wide.

So what are some of these threatened ecological communities? One that probably everyone's has seen before is the inland grey box woodlands.

Often these patches there's only a few of these patches left, often on road reserves and railways, but some land owners do still have them on their place. They can look like the picture you're seeing in front of you there where the tree covers still pretty good, but they could also be represented as scattered paddock trees or even just native grassland.

One of the other threatened ecological communities in this area is the Mallee Broombush. Often it's dominated with blue mallee or bit of bull mallee.

Sometimes it has broombush, sometimes it doesn't, and generally it's lacking spin effects.

Myall woodland, or Boree woodland, is these areas where it's a bit heavier soil, mostly a grassy understorey and it has these Myall trees or Boree trees scattered throughout them. Often that'll vary from grassland to open woodland.

Sandhill pine woodlands, another one of these threatened ecological communities. Often that's found on sand dunes, some sand plains, but also old streams, so old creek lines that are full of sand now and it's dominated by a white cypress pine and often with a shrubby understorey.

But often you'll find these in different types of condition as the mid-storey might drop out with with grazing. Some of these areas, especially if you're close to irrigation, often converted to for horticulture like oranges or loosen crops. So they're a threatened community as well.

The poplar box grassy woodlands is a bit similar to that grey box woodland where it's often scattered trees with a grassy understorey and this is found typically to the west and north of the tender area.

There's a few other threatened ecological communities that you might find in in the area such as Buloke woodland, box gum woodland, which is often dominated by yellow box or white box trees, and this Acacia melvillei shrubland, which is what you can see in that picture there.

So it doesn't have to be a threatened ecological community for you to participate in this tender.

We're also looking for woodlands that while they're not threatened at this stage are probably at risk of being further cleared or degraded, particularly in this area. And some of those areas, in some of these areas or most of these areas are generally on the arable slopes and plains. They're often on the same plains.

Most of these have been 50% cleared already and there's a list full list of these in the landholder guide.

If you're interested in looking up some of those specific plant community types.

One of the examples is sandplain mallee. So you see that a lot more to the west of the area.

Pretty much all sandplains are probably going to be a priority area.

Another one is the gum coolabah, pine and poplar box woodlands, which can be down on the sand plain, but generally starts to occur on those foot slopes where it's still a little bit rocky.

So again, generally, if you've got a patch of bush that is on the on the plains or the foot slopes, you're probably going to have contained woodland that's is targeted by this tender.

Now there is other veg types out in this landscape, which we say they're non priority woodlands, but it's still OK to let those put those in your conservation bid. So areas like the rocky hills.

So there's a few really nice rocky ridges throughout the tender area that have good vegetation on them.

While they're not a target, they can be included and same as some of the river red gum floodplains and black box floodplain areas.

Now they can be included as long as you still have that minimum 50 hectares of threatened ecological community or a minimum 50 hectares of that priority woodland type. Now, just like the eligibility all these patches have, you have to have a minimum 50 hectares of good to moderate quality veg and patches of veg. You can have multiple patches, but all of them, each one of those have to be 50 hectares in size.

So we keep talking about good to moderate vegetation and that's how we decide decide what's good condition or not.

Now this makes a difference because being a a government organisation, we want to invest in the best quality patches of bush that are out there.

So the community gets best value for money in these publicly funded conservation areas. So our BCT staff will go out and do a veg assessment and it'll determine whether the veg is good, moderate or poor condition and we'll break it into little veg zones.

Now you can have up to 10% of the conservation area in poor condition and sometimes it's hard to avoid that.

It could be old quarries, could be old sheep camp, or just a area which just makes sort of just practical sense to have it in the conservation area. But they can be areas that might, you might want to do some sort of active restoration on. Now if these areas are that priority woodland type and you want to do restoration on them, that's OK. And they will be exempt from that 10% rule.

You can have up to 100 hectares of restoration of priority Woodlands in a poor condition, but they must be what we determine a high recovery potential. So areas that are likely to recover. Some good examples of this are in these little pictures to the right there.

You can see at the top there that's some mallee that's been harvested for oils.

And while that might score as poor condition, given time, it'll probably turn back to a good conditioned vegetation and may require some additional plantings in amongst it. The middle one there, you can see we got moderate to good veg to the right there and and a wheat crop or something like that to the left.

As long as you're within 50 metres of that good to moderate veg, you know that should recover OK and might require some additional supplementary planting. There's some places which have all the vegetation still there, but it's been cleared in the past or whatever and it just needs some time to to come back. And that's what that bottom picture sort of shows.

The two types of restoration activities that we're sort of promoting in this tender is just to allow things to naturally regenerate.

And this can happen just by taking off things like reducing or removing grazing or might be reducing harvesting for for timber or oils or brush and it'll return should return back to good condition or, or even just controlling things like feral goats or deer or any other threatening processes.

The other activity is through doing supplementary plantings. Now this could be direct seeding or it could be planting tube stock.

And you can see in this picture here, there's an area that was formerly cultivated which with just a little bit of help from some direct seeding and being close to some good vegetation, the grasses, and that should get back there.

This is an area which really a good place to do some supplementary planning and this is allowed in this tender and encouraged.

And sometimes it might be you have all the trees. I have a story there, just the mid stories being missing from them from great hundreds of years of grazing. But all these things you can talk to our staff about and we can help you develop a bit of a plan. But we understand in these highly cleared landscapes, adding to these really good patches and expanding them and linking them up is really important if we're going to conserve biodiversity in this landscape.

OK. In summary, I guess if you've got patches of bush on your place, especially if it's on the plains or slopes, that sort of arable sort of country, it's likely you've got the right vegetation we're after. It's a good opportunity for land owners to get a bit of money for to look after the patches of bush that they've got and and we're here to support. And as Matt will probably talk about in a bit later, put an expression of interest in is throwing your hat in the ring, but it doesn't commit you to anything. So I think I'll hand over to Matt there and, look at the landholder guide and feel free to reach out to some of us in BCT if you have any issues about eligibility.

Thanks, Matt. Thanks, Mason. So yeah, put pop your questions into the Slido. We're going to answer them after I give this little summary and wrap up of the project. You've probably already gathered that conservation is at the core of what this tender is all about.

Timeframes and Key Steps

The conservation agreement that we establish through this project, you know, it's attached to the land title, it's in-perpetuity and it requires management of that land for conservation purposes. Yeah, the tender is a rigorous and competitive process.

So even though there's an opportunity for people to to bid and, and set a price for the conservation management of the agreement area, it's still a competitive process. The good thing about the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust is that we have the funding secured in a trust fund and we also index annual management payments to the consumer price index.

And as Mason alluded to, future owners of the of the land are bound to and by the agreement that's established. And they will also receive the ongoing management management payments as long as everything's ticking along well.

So this is the broad timelines for the project. It's also in the landholder guide on the on the project website.

We're doing information sessions this week and we're calling for expressions of interest from today and they're closing in mid December.

The site assessments, that if you prioritise for site assessment, will occur in February next year. And then we'll negotiate the management plans with the landholder and establish the relevant actions that are needed for the for the property.

And then there's a bid that the landholders are asked to do in May and then we assess those bids in in June. And we prioritise the ones that are the best value for money.

And we will be communicating with the people who have after that in late June, July.

And then there's a process from around July onwards where we start drafting up the actual agreements, and the first annual payments happen once both parties have signed and it's established and it's registered on the on the land title.

As I said, the EOIs are closing on the 15th of September. So we've got 5 weeks for people to submit an expression of interest.

The link to the the form is on the project website.

And you can self assess whether your property is in the tender area. So there's a little interactive map there that you can just type in the address of where of where you live or your property is and you can work out whether you're in the tender area or not because that's a pretty important one of the eligibility criteria. It's a very large tender area. So that's 2 million hectares. That and the pictures there that Mason went through before. And then once you've submitted an expression of interest, you'll be asked to give us an idea of where your proposed conservation area is on the property.

Because it doesn't have to cover the whole property. Of course it can. It can be as long as it's 50 hectares or 20 hectares of threatened ecological community can be on part of the property. And we can assist you with that step and you can reach out to us through info@bct.nsw.gov.au the email address there or find us through 1300 992 688.

The key steps as outlined. Submit a no obligation expression of interest.

You're basically putting your hat in the ring and saying that you're interested in in participating in the tender, map up the proposed conservation area on your property, and then work with BCT in February when we're out there having a look and then through April, drafting up the what we call the management plan.

The bid is due on the 10th of May. And if that bid successful, we'll be offering an in-perpetuity conservation agreement and establishing those agreements later in 2026.

Where to find more information? So apart from coming along to these information sessions, have a look at the project website.

Just email us or call us on that number and we can we'll get back to you. One of the project team will get back to you.

I think that's pretty much concluding the presentation and we're going to questions.

So I'll stop talking for now.

Questions

Matt, I see there's a question here about can revegetated areas be included? Yes, like they can be. You know, if it's pure reveg that was from a cleared area, it still might not score great, it might only be moderate or whatever, but those areas can can be included and they'd be great to be protected as well. But those areas often are very important for biodiversity and to create, function in the landscape so animals can move around and feed and that type of thing.

So they can be included.

And one of the other things Matt, you mentioned about making sure that you map your conservation area was really important that land owners map that conservation area as well as they can. Don't just put a tiny little bit in and think you'll add more lighter put on in the area that you're going to consider to put into the conservation area because that will look at those areas, determine whether you're eligible or if you're prioritised. So try and get that map as accurate as, as you can.

And if you have any trouble, talk to one of our staff. We can help you with that map. It's just one of those things to spend a bit of time to think about.

Mason and I are heading out to to do some face to face information sessions over the next couple of days. So if you do live in the tender area and you've got the opportunity to register for one of those, you can register through the project website or you can refer on to somebody or a neighbour or a friend.

As I said, if you want to reach out to us, you can just send us an email or ring us up on that 1300 number and we can answer all your questions or even help you with some of these online forms.

And those kind of things that are involved in submitting expression of interest and mapping up your conservation area.

There's a couple other questions that have popped in there. How often do BCT monitor the biodiversity? Well, once a year, the landowner has to submit an annual report, which has photo points in it. That's done every year. But the BCT ecological staff will do a baseline monitoring, it's monitoring points on the property once it's been signed. And then it's roughly every five years that we get back to those sites to track how biodiversity is going and help work with the landowner if things aren't going the way it should be or most generally, things are going well and improving or at least staying the same. So every five years we're committed to going back to that.

But those annual reports with their site photos are also a really great point, great thing for monitoring as well, where we can actually see how that site's changing.

There's another question about can the areas established under the tender and with conservation agreements be used for biodiversity credits or for carbon credits? The short answer is, no.

So the native vegetation that's protected under a conservation agreement through the tender can't be used for offsets or for set asides or any of those kind of things. They form part of the conservation estate in New South Wales. So I suppose if you're if you're looking at other, other opportunities in the out there like biodiversity stewardship agreements or establishing a carbon project with the federal government, then I suppose the tender may not be the product or the offering for you.

Doesn't mean that you could put part of your property under for one of those elements and another part for for something else.

But the agreement that's established through the tender is part of the conservation reserve network in NSW. But just on the the carbon credit thing, if the carbon credits have already been set up on the site before it becomes a conservation area, we can still put a conservation area on areas that have carbon credits on them, but you may not be able to attract carbon credits after you got a conservation agreement on it. It's not our department that determines that, but I think that's the rules at the moment. There's another question here about if I express an interest this time, does it mean I'm excluded from this in the future? I don't believe that's the case, Matt, that you can express an interest if you don't get in it this time, you can participate next time or go in any or participate in any other programs that might be in the future.

I'm not 100% clear. So the expression of interest, all you're doing is indicating that you're interested in participating in the in the tender. You still have to allow us to come out and do site assessment work in February and then we establish a draft conservation management plan with you for the property and then you have to bid on that in May. And then we prioritise and offer successful land holders an agreement from June onwards. It doesn't exclude you from potentially applying in another tender if it's run into the future. I think that answered the question.

But if it doesn't, by all means ask another one.

So there's another question about are pink zones eligible? All areas are eligible to be put in for this tender as long as they're not an existing offset or biodiversity stewardship agreement or if it's not publicly owned. So I think that's right. You have any more to add to that, Matt? Effectively, yes, pink zones unless they're part of the reserve estate, what we call the reserve estate.

What Mason was saying they're an existing set aside or they're an existing agreement then they are eligible to to be included within within your proposed conservation area.

I probably should just clarify on that one, Matt. So people that have existing agreements with us, with the BCT, as long as they're not an offset agreement or a biodiversity stewardship agreement they potentially still can participate.

And you just look at that in the landholder guide to see if that's OK. So if you do have a conservation agreement with us already or you have a registered property agreement, as long as it's not an offset, generally you're OK to participate, but just check the landholder guide on that or give us a call and we'll talk about your particular situation.

There's a one about the fencing there, like who's responsible for the cost associated with the fencing and can the area be accessed for tasks such as vermin and control. So I guess in the management plan and the costings you put in, you put that in the fencing costs into your bid. So not only what needs to be done upfront, but also you have to factor in what it's going to cost to look after those fences going forward and when they would likely need to be replaced.

Vermin control is essential. That's what we want land owners to do. So that'll be a part of your management plan where you talk about controlling particular pest species and and such and same as you know, weeds and that sort of stuff. So there is to be managed for biodiversity doesn't mean no one can go in there, it's just you're managing it for biodiversity and trying to get the best outcome for that patch of bush.

Doesn't seem to be too any more questions. So if you've got a burning question, you better get it in there.

Otherwise, reach out to us and we can answer them either at a face to face seminar or over the phone.

I'll leave it to you, Matt, to wrap it up.

Well thank you very much. My name is Matt O'Connell. Mason Crane has been doing this presentation with me.

The project website is the core place to go as a starting point.

You can find how to contact us information, you can find the landholder guide, you can register to an information session, you can self assess whether your property is in the tender area, you can submit an expression of interest and so forth and so on. So all of the things that you need to to participate in the tender as the starting hub for that is on the project website. We really appreciate your time and the questions that we've had today. As I said at the start, we're intending to publish the start of this presentation on on the web and we'll put that on the project website as well.

You can obviously go back and have a look at that and and see any information that we've presented to you today.

But thank you for your time. We think we'll call that a wrap.