It’s been a fantastic start to the year, with landscape planners, Mitch Lennon and Brooke Cunningham heading to Lorinna, Tasmania to deliver a two- day bootcamp. They received a genuinely warm welcome and had a wonderful few days with this small community located in the valley along Lake Cethana in north-west Tasmania.

The Mulloon bootcamp was part of a bigger picture of landscape resilience and preparedness for the Lorrina community, incorporating a catchment approach to water and fire management across a forested catchment with increasingly changing rainfall patterns. The underlying geology of basalt rock shelves and limestone karsts, combined with steep topography added complexity to the hydrological equation across the landscape.

It was a fun filled couple of days, with a relaxed atmosphere dappled with laughter and gentle support as neighbours came together to share, learn, collaborate and support each other. Not to mention the homecooked catering which I’d argue was some of the best in Tassie!

The notorious Tassie weather played along, giving us ample opportunity to spend most of the time outside, with everyone enjoying digging in and getting their hands dirty. There were many incredible questions, invoking in-depth discussion, as we dove into the specifics of landscape processes, and how water moves across and within the Lorinna valley.

The evenings were spent enjoying more of the incredible community hospitality with neighbours, kids and dogs coming together to share food, stories and swims with picnics by the lake. Thank you, Lorinna Landcare, for making this event happen, and for the warm hospitality you extended to Mitch and Brooke.

Right – Demonstration and discussion of how water moves in the landscape.

Participant comments 

Can you tell us how useful the Landscape Rehydration Toolbox session was and how relevant it is to your property? 

“This was such an important session and so very relevant for me in managing my farm and landscape. My property has three major creeks and several ephemeral creeks, so it has given me ideas and skills for managing the water more effectively.” 

“Very impressed with the expertise in both teaching skills and content. Your sessions were very clear with plenty of time for questions and clarification. You were very patient with questions that ranged well outside the topics at times.”  

What are the main ideas and concepts you picked up from the Bootcamp? 

“Observation and measurement is vital. Every action has a consequence. Intervention risk vs benefit – often low risk has high benefit”.  

“Assessing risk, not creating damage elsewhere. Plants, plants, plants. Potential dangers of thoughtlessly chucking rocks in waterway”.  

Can you tell us more about what we did well? How could we improve? 

“Lots of hands-on and practical demonstrations kept it super engaging, while the PowerPoint sections were great for quickly and illustratively covering the theory”.  

This workshop was hosted by Lorinna Landcare with additional financial support from Nation Partners.

Right – Discussing causes of erosion and options for repair.

In November 2025 Kelsey, Emma, Rob and Adam at North East Wiradjuri Co took another step along their skills journey. Tam and Laura from the Mulloon team joined them at Wirrimbirra in the Capertee Valley, NSW, on a stunning day to build rock ramps to address two active headcut sites. 

The task first involved assessing catchment size, measuring the width and depth of each site and working out the optimal shape of the headcut repair footprint. We then removed the top layer of grass, moved earth to soften the gradient of the sites, and laid coir matting, mulch and rock to form a ramp. The removed grass sods were then repositioned around the ramp, and seeds scattered to support plant takeover as soon as possible. The enthusiastic landowners had mixed plenty of goat dung and remnant wool with the mulch, which will supply more fertility and material to these plants. Photo monitoring sites were established so that future changes can be tracked after rain events.  

The team worked hard and enjoyed putting learnings into practice. NewCo members have now created pin weirs, brushpacks and rock ramps, and thus have an array of natural infrastructure options to choose from when they embark on their own mentored projects in 2026! 

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

Right: NEWco mentoring participants building skills on Country