Hindmarsh Landcare Network

From this humble beginning, Landcare groups quickly spread throughout Victoria including many around the Hindmarsh Shire.

Hindmarsh Landcare Network

From this humble beginning, Landcare groups quickly spread throughout Victoria including many around the Hindmarsh Shire.

Hindmarsh Landcare Network

From this humble beginning, Landcare groups quickly spread throughout Victoria including many around the Hindmarsh Shire.

Hindmarsh Landcare Network

From this humble beginning, Landcare groups quickly spread throughout Victoria including many around the Hindmarsh Shire.

Hindmarsh Landcare Network

From this humble beginning, Landcare groups quickly spread throughout Victoria including many around the Hindmarsh Shire.

Project Hindmarsh

Project Hindmarsh is the Hindmarsh Landcare Network’s most successful and well known flagship program. The program is a collaborative effort between the Network and a range of stakeholders and agencies. Every year many projects are completed under the flag of Project Hindmarsh by the Network and project partners such as Greening Australia and the Wimmera Catchment Management Authority. Of these projects, a few are selected each year to host the Project Hindmarsh Planting Weekend.

The Hindmarsh Landcare Weekend attracts all sorts from all over. Here we have Minister for the Environment, Ryan Smith, planting one of the million trees with Lucy Tate in 2011 – Photo: David Fletcher

The Project Hindmarsh Planting Weekend is the longest running of its kind in Australia. Each year since its conception in 1997, over 200 volunteers migrate to the Little Desert Nature Lodge for a weekend of fun and hard work, helping to revegetate and restore native vegetation on public and private land.

The initial concept of the project and planting weekends was to patch a fragmented vegetation link between the Little and Big Deserts. This significant milestone was achieved after year 5. Since then, there have been a number of projects linking the Central Wimmera to the Wimmera River, which contributes to the very important vegetation corridor from Lake Hindmarsh and the Western Wimmera to the Grampians and beyond.

The success of this project has been acknowledged at the highest levels in Australia, with the Hindmarsh Landcare Network being awarded the 2008 National Landcare Award.

15 Years Of The Project Hindmarsh Planting Weekend

2012 marks the 15th year of Project Hindmarsh and was celebrated on the 18th and 19th of August by 250 keen volunteers. In its 15 years, the planting weekend has seen a mammoth contribution from volunteers to the tune of 45600 volunteer hours (6000 volunteer days) which is equivalent to over $1,100,000 in labour ¹. When you add in the time contributed from volunteers in organising the weekend, this figure easily exceeds $1,500,000. The weekend has seen well over a million trees planted and many hectares reverted to native vegetation cover. Below is a summary of outcomes from the planting weekends.
To see a map of all sites relating to Project Hindmarsh please refer to the mapping page of this website. There you can see the extent and achievements of the project on a landscape scale. You can also view details about planting sites from years past. Currently there are only a few planting sites listed in detail, however summaries and locations of other weekend sites will be added over the next few months.

The millionth tree a few years on..

Staricks Site 2012 – Photo: Paul Skeen

Outcomes ²

  • Completed works and assessments on over 500 sites
  • Protected over 270ha of Remnant Vegetation
  • Planted over 70ha of Saltbush
  • Planted over 60ha of Shelterbelts
  • Revegetated over 2000ha of native vegetation
  • Revegetated over 300ha of roadside reserves
  • Established over 1.5 million new trees
  • Direct Seeded over 2500kms of seedlines
  • Received assistance from over 4000 volunteers

A forest in the making – Photo: Paul Skeen

  1. Rate per volunteer hour calculated at $24.63 from information at www.outcommunity.com.au (4000 volunteers x 1.5 working days x 7.6 hrs/day x $24.63 = $1,123,128)
  2. Data derived from a 2004 Greening Australia Victoria Fact Sheet and the Wimmera Catchment Management Authority Data Catalog. Numbers are approximate only.

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