About Us

We share the Landcare history of the Kiewa Valley from our lifetime member Lindsay Jarvis, chatting to our president Rowan Wallace.

First Nations people managed the Kiewa Valley landscape sustainably for thousands of years before European Settlement.   The first white settlers began arriving in 1824 following the exploration of Hume and Hovell into North-East Victoria.

This commenced largely with the land grab of squatters around 1835, followed by the establishment of large grazing runs through the 1850s and 60’s, until the Land Act of 1898 saw the acquisition of land for closer settlement transform large estates into closely settled communities engaged in agriculture.

Government policy at this time dictated that purchase of land meant new settlers had to clear a certain amount of land each year. This led to the wholesale clearing of large areas across the Kiewa Catchment.

Major changes to the Kiewa River began in 1937 when work began on the Kiewa hydro-electricity scheme, which significantly changed the seasonal pattern of the river flows.

By the 1950s, landholders found the Kiewa River was running faster. Bank erosion was becoming a serious issue, and farmers along the river found that their land was disappearing. In an attempt to address these issues, which were now widespread across the state, the government implemented river trusts. The Kiewa River Improvement Trust was gazetted in 1953.

Protecting the environment had become an interest to the Kergunyah community in the late 1960s with the introduction of Keyline and the formation of the Kiewa Valley Keyline Group. There was also an interest in protecting the land through revegetation, which had arisen when the River Trust was looking for solutions to increasing flood damage.

To address this interest, the Shire of Yackandandah hosted a meeting in 1983 with guest speaker Professor Warwick Chambers from Melbourne University.  The interest generated from this meeting led to the establishment of the Kiewa Catchment Farm Trees  Group, which had an emphasis on planting trees and protecting existing vegetation. The group was very popular and ended up having members right across the Kiewa River catchment.

Around this time, Heather Mitchell, president of the Victorian Farmers Federation, and the Premier of Victoria, Joan Kirner, formed the concept of Landcare.  As a result, the Kiewa Catchment Farm Trees Group changed its name to incorporate Landcare. The Kiewa Catchment Landcare group was established in Kergunyah in 1986.

Maurie Smith became president of the group and in 1991 he established a nursery at his farm in Bruarong.  It was initially funded through a $5000 grant from Trees Victoria, growing and distributing 15- 20,000 trees per year grown from locally collected seeds. When the government provided funding for coordinators, Maurie became the first Landcare Coordinator for the area.

Landcare became a national program in 1989 with bipartisan support from the Hawke Government. The ‘Decade of Landcare’ was launched to bring together community, government, business, and industry to restore the landscape following 200 years of land degradation. As Landcare became more widespread, the idea of uniting the Groups of the Kiewa Catchment into a Network formed. Subsequently, Kiewa Catchment Landcare Groups was formed in 1997 to deliver and manage Landcare across the Kiewa Catchment.

Built on the back of many years of environmental movement, the network has now thrived over the last 27 years, ebbing and flowing to meet community and landscape needs and priorities.