We continued working with the Thriving on Country Committee on strategies and policies to support an Indigenous-led restoration sector. With seed investment from the Prior Family Foundation, over the next three years, we’ll lay the foundations for new co-designed, self-sustaining and scalable Thriving on Country initiatives.

Photo: Our Reef Assist project on Yidinji Country in Queensland’s Mulgrave River catchment is supporting six Madjaybana Rangers with hands-on learning opportunities. 

We enable more landholders to participate in the carbon market, and restore nature on a larger scale, by combining many smaller planting sites into one carbon project. For the second year running, Greening Australia and Canopy registered Australia’s largest carbon aggregation via reforestation plantings by number of landholders (14) and area (1,228 hectares or three times Melbourne’s CBD).

Photo: 2023 aggregation participant and farmer Clinton Dolan. Courtesy Clinton Dolan.

A five-year research project led by Greening Australia and funded by The Ian Potter Foundation began this year. Bringing together skilled collaborators and research partners, the project aims to plug core practical knowledge gaps around establishing and managing effective, climate-ready native seed production areas (SPAs). 

Photo: Greening Australia’s Melinda Pickup is leading seed research. Credit Jesse Collins. 

On Wirangu and Nauo Country on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, ‘Glandore’ is a property purchased by Greening Australia, having seen the potential for significant restoration. Supported by our partners AstraZeneca and One Tree Planted through the 25 Million Trees program, we planted approximately 700 hectares of four different native vegetation communities at Glandore this year, with more to come!

Our supporters have enabled us to expand our Nature in Cities program to Queensland this year. We initiated a new planting project with the Southeast Queensland Resilient Rivers Initiative, and have teamed up with Brisbane City Council and Brisbane Sustainability Agency on a bold citywide project to establish one million more native plants before the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Photo: Launching the Biodiverse Brisbane Initiative by getting started on planting! Credit Brisbane Sustainability Agency.

We ask landholders to register interest in working with us via our land portal so we can better match their objectives with our programs in advance of a no-obligation chat. The portal also allows us to put together new projects in regions with high interest, and proactively seek funding to deliver them. This year we had over 580 new registrations, and undertook over 200 site assessments.

Photo: Landholder Alice Armistead inspects plantings on her farm in Victoria, delivered through Officeworks’ Restoring Australia initiative. Credit Annette Ruzicka.

Building on the professionalism and longevity of Nindethana’s Western Australian seed business, this year we merged our Native Seed Centre for Restoration in New South Wales into Nindethana to become the main seed hub for the East Coast. Another major highlight for our national seed business was a minority investment by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia to support expansion of the national native seed market.

Photo: Nindethana team members harvesting Craspedia varibilis seedheads.