The Murray Wetland Carbon Storage project is assisting landholders to rehabilitate wetlands to increase their capacity to store carbon and improve biodiversity. To date the project has rehabilitated over 1,000 ha of wetlands in the Murray LLS (Local Land Services) region.

Landholders in an agricultural focused area were directly targeted. One of the key challenges in the target area was to increase the capacity of landholders to appreciate, understand and manage their wetlands in a landscape driven by economic priorities. To address this challenge, the project implemented a program which invested staff time to build relationships with landholders rather than management payments, used contractors to deliver on-ground works to free up landholder’s time, and allowed for the development of management actions that integrated their farming activities and biodiversity and carbon storage interests.

We expected to experience some hesitation towards the project from landholders due to the strong agricultural focus of the area; however, the targeted landholders had a strong desire to participate and have increased their understanding of wetland management. The project will continue to engage with these motivated landholders through the project’s Wetland Champions program, which will see them promoting future project investment rounds and the values of wetlands to their networks.

The approach used to deliver this project is hoped to provide improved security of investment, reduced risk of future wetland mismanagement and increased engagement in appropriate natural resource management in the future for participants and their peers.