With the addition of Mulloon’s new Assistant Regenerative Farming Manager, Louis Convery, the Science and Monitoring team has been working closely with Mulloon Creek Natural Farms to identify opportunities for collaboration that support nature-based solutions, data-informed decisions, and more holistic approaches to land management.

For many years, Mulloon Institute founder Tony Coote and late Yuin elder Uncle Max Dulumunmun Harrison exchanged ideas on the urgent need for culturally attuned water management on farmland. These conversations underpinned the establishment of the Mulloon Institute. This crucial relationship provides a model to explore the relationships among people, Country and community.

On 6-7 November, Mulloon Creek was the venue for an important gathering that affirmed that relationship: the Country-centred and Creative Residency. This event marked the launch of an exciting new initiative—the First Nations Water Stewardship Skills Certificate—made possible through a Climate-Smart Agriculture Program from the National Heritage Trust.

This 3-year project will see Mulloon Institute and Wiradjuri, Yuin and Gumbaynggirr custodians co-design an on-Country curriculum dedicated to water stewardship. We are thrilled to be working with North East Wiradjuri Company, Uncle Peter Swain, Darrunda Wajaar Rangers and Back to Country on this project. The shared vision is an accredited skills pathway and new economic opportunities that enable First Nations groups to lead land restoration projects in agricultural landscapes around Australia.

Members of each group joined the residency to explore how we could put Country-centred approaches at the heart of our work: Emma Syme, Ciaron Dunn, Darren Skinner, Uncle Peter Swain, Greg Smart and Uncle Macca (Anthony McNight). Our gathering shone even more brightly with Clint Hansen of Maaman Marra Boodjar, and Alan Beattie and Peter Twigg of Noongar Land Enterprises joining us from Western Australia. They are collaborators on another exciting new co-design project kicking off with a Climate-Smart Agriculture grant, LiFT: a toolkit for building Landscape Function & Resilience.

The residency began early with a Grandfather Sun ceremony led by Back to Country. We moved through yarning circles and creative activities led by David Hardwick and two creative collectives, Kandos School of Cultural Adaptation and Boho Interactive, who will help design curriculum tools that favour oral and visual communication. Ciaron showed us that the water molecule was a spinning boomerang, and Peter and Emma shared poetry and song. Clint helped us recognise ‘nature’s own contouring’, we planted 40 trees and cooled our feet in Mulloon Creek. Ideas were exchanged thoughtfully and generously, attuning us to Country and the gift of living knowledge.

On the second day something special happened: a shared vision of a Country-first approach to land regeneration emerged, and the group decided to form an open alliance on current and future projects on which this group works together underpinned by the development of a Memorandum of Understanding and the following statement:

We are an interwoven team working together, and with land managers, to heal Country. We will use a Country-first approach, resulting in First Nations people leading and actively participating in landscape restoration and renewal. 

We will weave together knowledges and foster holistic ways of working to create more resilient landscapes for people and all living things. This is Country. 

Mulloon is honoured to be working with these wonderful organisations. We can’t wait to play our part in facilitating new partnerships and pathways, particularly in farming contexts, that empower First Nations people to be on Country, and lead projects to restore and regenerate Country.

This project is supported by the Australian Government through funding from the Natural Heritage Trust under the Climate-Smart Agriculture Program.

Mulloon ran a Landscape Rehydration Introductory Workshop in Toowoomba on 10 October 2024. It was supported by the Australian Mohair Marketing Organisation (AMMO) with funding from the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund. 

Thirty people participated in the 1-day event in rather cold and drizzly weather conditions, learning about the principles of landscape rehydration and how to read the landscape.  The 30-ha host property, owned by Peter and Dianne Tatham, is run primarily for mohair production using holistic management principles.   

Mulloon’s Tony Wells (NSW-based Landscape Planner) and Sam Skeat (Regenerative Agriculture Consultant based in Queensland) led the participants on the learning journey that involved two excursions around the property to interpret landscape patterns and inspect erosion issues and discuss restoration options. The day finished with the participants experimenting with small in-stream structures in the property’s flowing creek. 

We are thrilled to announce… the Mulloon Rehydration Initiative has WON the BIODIVERSITY category in the Banksia NSW Sustainability Awards, 2024!

This prestigious award celebrates achievements in conservation, habitat restoration and species protection. It recognises individuals, organisations and initiatives leading the way in sustainable management practices, ecosystem rehabilitation, and innovative research and technology for preserving biodiversity.

Mulloon Institute Board Matt Egerton-Warburton (Chair), Carolyn Hall (CEO & MD) and Wilf Finn were on hand to receive the award from Trish Doyle, Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change, the Environment and Heritage in Sydney on Friday 15 November.

This win is a significant honour, reflecting Mulloon Institute’s unwavering dedication to environmental regeneration and education through our landscape rehydration programs. We are deeply grateful to everyone who shares this journey with us, who believes in us, who works with us, who supports us and helps us amplify our message of hope.

Congratulations to our fellow finalists for their outstanding contributions, it is an incredibly strong field of competitors to be standing alongside:

• Australian Museum’s FrogID Project that is vital for monitoring native frog populations, helping scientists track environmental changes and preserve biodiversity. By engaging the public in citizen science, it enhances awareness and protection of vulnerable ecosystems across Australia. Mulloon Institute uses and promotes the Frog ID Project as a valuable biodiversity resource across Australia; and

• Broger’s End, Kangaroo Valley which supports biodiversity through habitat conservation, sustainable farming, and native vegetation restoration, creating a thriving environment for local wildlife and healthier, more resilient ecosystems.

And a BIG thank you to the Banksia Foundation and judges. This recognition at these 2024 NSW Banksia Sustainability Awards builds on our story of hope, attracting increased visibility to our work, and opens doors to new partnerships, collaborations and expanded funding opportunities.

The Mulloon Rehydration Initiative (MRI) is the Mulloon Institute’s flagship project in southern New South Wales. It is rebuilding the functionality and resilience of the Mulloon catchment, its riparian corridor, tributaries, floodplains, wetlands, hills and woodlands, and is forming a critical biodiversity corridor in the region.

This recognition would not have been possible without the outstanding contribution of our Principal Landscape Planner, Peter Hazell, who has been the cornerstone of the catchment project since its inception in 2011, alongside our Founders, Tony and Toni Coote. We are deeply grateful to the MRI landholders, whose enthusiastic participation has been integral to the success of this project.

We also acknowledge the advice from Yuin knowledge holder Greg Smart from Back to Country who recently said, “what we do to Country, we do to ourselves”. The MRI has taken enormous steps to heal Country, restore biodiversity back to the landscape, returning water to the floodplain, and has made Mulloon Creek Natural Farms more productive and more resilient to drought, bushfire and flood.

The evidence-based success of the Mulloon Rehydration Initiative now places the project in a position to be scaled up and rolled out across different ecosystems across the nation. We already have catchment projects underway in Western Australia’s Wheatbelt region, and the central desert rangelands in Northern Territory. You can read more with our Case Studies.

This is a real opportunity for New South Wales to lead the nation with a restoration economy.   

The MRI has provided a story of hope, of what can be achieved when grassroots rural communities come together and aspire to make change in how their landscapes function and how they manage their landscapes. It has shown communities that catchment-scale projects are possible, that funding can be found, and that support from natural resource managers, regulators, scientists, and politicians can coalesce around participatory projects. It demonstrates how rural communities can deliver a better future that combines safeguarding the richness of nature, with sustainable and financially productive agriculture and adaption to climate change.

A remarkable day was had in early November when nine artists, performers and game designers joined 20 members of the Mulloon team for a Creative Residency. The day involved sampling many creative approaches to exchanging knowledge, and embracing oral, visual and tactile kinds of communication. We asked: 

• How can we share knowledge in ways that appeal to diverse learners, and can be activated out in the field? 

• How can we tune into the ‘pattern language’ of landscape at different scales?  

• How can we quickly gain a holistic view of a problem we want to solve? 

• How can we transform social-ecological systems so they can support future life?  

The ‘artist-facilitators’ each brought something to help explore these questions: clay modelling of hydrology, climate science games, blanket-based social sculpture, Landscape Function Analysis sketching, a magnetised felt Landscape Kit, a Soil system roleplay, Ceremony, a flag-based land art installation and more.  

Our guests included: 

Lana Nguyen, presenting on A Climate For Art (ACFA) and several agri-culture and art/land regeneration projects 

Lucas Ihlein & Kim Williams of Kandos School of Cultural Adaptation (KSCA) & Pootopia, who presented their ingenious humanure solution: The Turdis 

Erika Watson of KSCA, who’s hand-sewn woolen blankets moved our bodies into more intimate relation with the earth, pasture and each other.  

Ang Collins, Nathan Harris and Julia Johnson, deft game makers from Boho Interactive who brought climate science, systems and banter together with the lightest touch. 

David Hardwick from Soil Land Food, who’s participatory ‘Day in the Life of Soil’ revealing intricate interconnections between plants, micro-organisms and water.  

Peter Swain, Dabee Wiradjuri Custodian and KSCA member who conducted a moving Water Ceremony on Mulloon Creek.  

Mulloon CEO Carolyn Hall shared many of her learnings from her recent training trip in Indonesia.

And Dr Laura Fisher, Creative Adaptation Partnerships of Mulloon, also KSCA, who invited the group to install dyed silk flags to tune into the invisible flows of water, energy and nutrients in the landscape.  

Everyone was energised and inspired by the day, which will hopefully be the beginning of many collaborations and projects. We were also able to welcome new staff members Kate, Sophie, Mitch, Sharni and Brooke – very exciting! Thank you to everyone who contributed!  

Over the past year, Erin Healy from Mulloon Institute has collaborated with dedicated landholders in the Northern Tablelands through the Communities of Practice Project (CoPP). This initiative, funded by the Future Drought Fund – Extension & Adoption Grant, empowers communities across Australia to implement nature-based solutions for drought resilience. 

The Mentoring Program, an extension of Mulloon’s educational curriculum, helps land managers enhance their decision-making and technical skills. Participants engage in online meetings, in-person visits, and access comprehensive resources to develop and implement their own landscape rehydration projects. 

In late 2023, CoPP-NSW launched with a field day and bootcamp in the Swanbrook catchment, near Inverell. This event generated significant interest, resulting in nine one-on-one mentoring programs that built confidence and skills in landscape rehydration. By May 2024, participant Cody Law successfully completed his project during the Boots-on-Ground Day, showcasing practical applications of the techniques learned. 

By July 2024, nearly all mentees had finalised their project plans. With secured funding, many have begun or completed their projects, serving as tangible demonstrations of landscape rehydration for the community. 

The success of CoPP-NSW is reflected in the engaged community of practice fostered in the Swanbrook catchment and beyond. Landholders are actively restoring waterways and local water cycles, collaborating with neighbors, Landcare, and local land services. This collective effort not only enhances climate resilience but also strengthens community bonds. 

The impacts of this work are exciting, and the journey toward sustainable land management and resilience continues with great anticipation. 

The Professionals Intensive curriculum has been developed with the support of the NSW Government, through its Environmental Trust. The delivery of this pilot was supported by the Federal Government’s Future Drought Fund, through the Communities of Practice Project (CoPP). 

Mulloon Institute recently hosted a successful field day at Cathcart, NSW, attracting around 30 local landholders from the Cathcart and Bombala areas. The day began with a foggy morning, showcasing the small water cycle over Dragon Swamp Creek in full force. As the fog lifted, the weather transformed into a balmy, blue-sky day, perfect for the outdoor activities planned. 

Key figures in the event included Charlie Maslin, who helped initiate the field day, John Moreing, who generously hosted the day’s field walks on his property, and Mark Shepard from Snowy River Interstate Landcare, whose efforts made the day possible. The event kicked off with a series of indoor presentations at the Cathcart Hall by Erin Healy, Peter Hazell, and Penny Cooper. These presentations covered essential topics such as reading and interpreting rural landscapes, understanding the fundamentals of water in landscapes, and assessing the health of a farm’s hydrology. 

Following the indoor sessions, attendees participated in a casual hose demonstration, which provided practical insights into landscape rehydration techniques. The remainder of the day was dedicated to field walks along Dragon Swamp Creek at the Cathcart Commons and John’s property. These walks allowed participants to learn about the principles of the small water cycle, the importance of plants, and strategies for managing water across the entire farm landscape. 

The field day also focused on building confidence in reading landscape patterns and processes, inspecting creek, gully, and runoff areas, and discussing long-term plans to mitigate the extremes of high rainfall years and drought cycles. The event was a great success, with the group fully engaged throughout the day. Mulloon Institute looks forward to more collaborative projects that may emerge from this enthusiastic and knowledgeable community.

This event was made possible with funding and support from South Coast Rural Relief, NSW Environmental Trust and Snowy River Interstate Landcare.