Catchment Management Plan

Action Plan

After inception, Little River Landcare Group (LRLG) engaged an external consultancy to develop a Catchment Management Plan (CMP). The plan aimed to prioritise issues facing landholders and the community within the Little River Catchment and identify management strategies for dealing with these issues for long term sustainability. The problems identified under the CMP were: acid soils, dryland salinity, soil erosion, water quality, riparian zones, native vegetation, pasture productivity, weeds and pests. Regular community consultation, confirms the need for continued management of these issues in today's society. Not addressing these issues will see them continue to worsen, leading to a loss in agriculture productivity and landscape resilience throughout the region. The plan outlines management actions, in a coordinated manner, to ensure effective use of future funds. Although some problems can be fixed individually, many such as dry-land salinity require coordinated action.

Long term priorities for action include:

• Provide community members and landholders with the necessary skills and knowledge to manage natural resources in a way that will achieve a viable and stable district.
• Promote and support landholders to manage land in an integrated manner to achieve long-term sustainability.
• Help people to be better informed of the facts to help protect and enhance biodiversity and landscape function.
• Promote and support bio-security measures that help reduce pest animals and invasive weeds to levels that do not result in economic losses or environmental damage.
• Involve groups and individuals that are presently uninvolved to increase our Community of Practice (CoP).

The plan involves three stages:

• Stage 1 - Physical Data
• Stage 2 - Management options
• Stage 3 - Cost & Benefits

Stage 1 - Physical Data

This stage describes the condition of our catchment in terms of climate, soils, geology, land capability, hydrogeology, vegetation and fauna, biodiversity, land use and socioeconomic information.

The "Physical Data" Reports are listed below.

Open / print the files below:

Stage 2 - Management Options

Stage 2 prioritises the issues to target and covers 20 "Best Management Options" (BMOs) for our catchment and what actions to take. The BMOs are on-farm management strategies to help landholders 'stop' or 'reverse' land degradation in our catchment. Not all BMOs are relevant to all situations, but each landholder can make selection depending on their individual situation, location, goals, land use and limitations. The BMOs can be grouped into different areas:

• Land Management
• Native vegetation
• Water
• Pest animals
• Farming systems
• Social

Stage 3 - Costs & Benefits

Stage 3 covers the costs and benefits of putting the Plan into practice in the future. Costs and benefits area calculated for a list of 14 BMOs. Each BMO is analysed based on whether it is achievable, affordable, whether there are tangible benefits and whether it is consistent with the Regional Landcare priorities.

The results of this analysis concluded that the following 7 BMOs were the most suitable:

• Use of soil ameliorants (e.g. lime)
• Strategic/ rotational grazing
• Native vegetation conservation
• Conservation farming
• Perennial mixed pastures
• Strategic tree planting
• Buffer strips for riparian zones

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To download a complete copy of the Catchment Management Plan, visit our Publications