In mid February 2022, a team of ten young Indigenous men from the Worldview Foundation visited the Mulloon Institute’s ‘Duralla’ property to learn about and participate in landscape function restoration as part of the Mulloon Rehydration Initiative (MRI). They were joined by the foundation’s mentor and Team Leader Albert Barker and Employment Manager Ciaran Keating from the Worldview Foundation along with the institute’s Technical Officer Max Brunswick and Trainee Director of On-ground Works Penny Cooper.

The Worldview Foundation’s team come from many areas, ranging from the Cape York Peninsular in far north Queensland, to Condobolin in western New South Wales.

Their visit began at a site on the hill at Duralla where landscape rehabilitation began in 2016. This meeting place affords an excellent view of the broader Mulloon Creek catchment. Here, the landscape features of the catchment are visible – from Mount Palerang at the head of the catchment, to the braided network of Mulloon, Sandhills, Shiel and Reedy Creeks – allowing a perspective to be developed on the scale of work undertaken at TMI. The group took time to consider the Indigenous history of the area and the original function of the landscape, compared with the altered post-colonisation, landscape function evident today.

The Worldview Foundation delivers holistic life management programs and employment training, education and opportunities for disadvantaged Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. The young Indigenous men were proud to be working on Country and healing Country through participating in revegetation with the MRI. They assisted in the setup of a planting site and learned the particular method of planting used by the MRI team. Despite the hot and often rocky planting conditions, together they installed 100 native trees, shrubs and groundcovers in just a few hours. The TMI team were impressed with the way in which individuals engaged with the project, asked questions, took on new skills and information, and worked with a spirit of commitment, interest and fun.

Mentor and team leader Albert Barker said, “We all love to be out on Country and in nature, learning about the environment”.

The MRI project spans 23,000 hectares and 50 kilometres of creeks and tributaries. The ridgeline where the work is being carried out is a conservation zone and the ongoing work of the initiative is continuing to revegetate this area. The revegetation of this area will improve the quantity and quality of native habitat, and the cycling of water and nutrients in the broader landscape, which will in turn will deliver multiple benefits for the farming enterprise.

The MRI is jointly funded through the Mulloon Institute and the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program. The plants and some equipment are funded by the NSW Environmental Trust.

We sincerely thank Worldview Foundation for their contribution to MRI and we look forward to future collaborations.