Tools and Resources
Your hub for the best support, advice and guidance to improve on-farm natural assets, while supporting sustainable and profitable agriculture.
Your hub for the best support, advice and guidance to improve on-farm natural assets, while supporting sustainable and profitable agriculture.
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This booklet highlights ten discrete projects that farmers can undertake to improve the health of natural assets – such as dams, shelterbelts or riparian areas – on their properties.
Planting guide for North East Victoria, the NSW Murray-Riverina, South West Slopes and parts of Central Tablelands and Central West.
Native vegetation in and around a farm dam has many benefits for water quality, farm productivity and biodiversity. This brochure provides guidance on the types of plants suitable for revegetating dams, and includes lists of recommended plants.
Rocky outcrops come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from huge granite boulders strewn across hilltops, to small collections of scattered rocks in a paddock.
Keeping fallen timber and dead trees in the landscape is one of the best things you can do for biodiversity and landscape health on your farm.
Watercourses and their accompanying riparian areas hold enormous value for farming operations and are important assets for production and biodiversity.
Well-designed shelterbelts provide a multitude of benefits to farm productivity and wildlife conservation.
Thousands of farm dams dot the landscape and, with appropriate management, can help restore biodiversity by providing much needed wetland habitats for native wildlife.
BirdCast is a scenario planning tool for biodiversity on farms. Using decades of data on more than sixty birds, BirdCast indicates which birds may live in woodlands on your farm in spring and demonstrates the potential for biodiversity in a range of scenarios.
The Sustainable Farms Field Day Toolkit is for people who are organising, or partnering to organise, a field day.
A report commissioned by Central Tablelands LLS outlining a methodology for measuring practice change.
Webinar recording: Hear about the latest research on the biodiversity and productivity benefits of enhancing farm dams, what to plant where and other practical tips for planning a farm dam enhancement project.
Join us for an online discussion about two fascinating species of birds – noisy miners and choughs. Plus, how to create the habitat that will bring back the birds we want on farms.
Hosted by ANU Sustainable Farms and the Wheen Bee Foundation, join ANU Professor Saul Cunningham, Sustainable Farms’ ecologist Angelina Siegrist, and Anna Carrucan from Wheen Bee Foundation discussing native and European pollinators and their effect on grazing and cropping.
In an era of climatic uncertainty and increasing droughts, farm improvement projects that restore degraded land, enhance natural assets and improve drought resilience are becoming ever more important. However, sustainable funding of these projects presents a challenge that requires novel solutions.
Join ANU Sustainable Farms ecologist Dave Smith and Birdlife Australia’s Ben Humphries for a webinar all about birds on farms!
This webinar covers Sustainable Farms research into the best way to design shelterbelts for maximum productivity benefits, and benefits for woodland bird biodiversity.
Join Sustainable Farms ecologists Dr Mason Crane and Eleanor Lang, and Local Land Services District Vet Eve Hall, to discuss enhancing farm dams for multiple benefits.
A webinar on the management of Endangered Ecological Communities (EECs) in Central West NSW, presented by Daniel Florance from Sustainable Farms.
Join Professor David Lindenmayer from the Australian National University and Sustainable Farms ecologist Dr Mason Crane for a webinar to learn about biodiversity recovery after bushfire.
Marcus Richardson runs a beef property near Albury in NSW. During the drought, he spotted an opportunity to protect some of the farm’s most vital assets – the dams. In this video, he explains why and how he decided to protect and enhance his farm dams for multiple benefits.
This farm near Batlow burnt badly in January 2020. Heavy rain followed on the bare, burnt earth, and farmer David Waters was worried that his dam – and the family of platypus that lived there – would suffer.
Ever thought about building a wildlife island on your farm dam? Artificial islands are great for habitat and refuge ???
ANU Sustainable Farms is based on 20 years of long-term ecological monitoring.
In this book, eight farmers connected with Sustainable Farms share their stories of land management in the woodlands of southeastern Australia. The stories are based on interviews conducted by Natasha Fijn.
Discover the incredible biodiversity on rocky outcrops and the importance of conserving these crucial landscape features.
Australia’s little known woodlands once covered huge areas of the eastern side of our continent. Discover the often-overlooked beauty of Australia’s woodlands and native plants and animals they support.
This report provides a baseline snapshot of farmers within the Sustainable Farms project area to enable measurement of progress and ultimately the long-term impact of the initiative.
An account of Sustainable Farms 2018 performance against key performance indicators
An account of Sustainable Farms 2019 performance against key performance indicators
An account of Sustainable Farms 2020 performance against key performance indicators
Report by Sustainable Farms produced for Meat and Livestock Australia
In our second podcast on fire in farm landscapes, Sustainable Farms Ecology Research Director Professor David Lindenmayer explains that managing farms for biodiversity doesn’t necessarily mean increasing fire risk.
Summer 2019-2020 brought unprecedented bushfire conditions to south-eastern Australia, with millions of hectares burnt so far this fire season.
In this podcast from Sustainable Farms, Gordon Taylor talks to Dr Max Whitten (former Chief at the CSIRO Division of Entomology) about the role of honeybees in Australian agriculture.
In this podcast from Sustainable Farms, Dr Max Whitten, former Chief at the CSIRO Division of Entomology, talks to podcast host Gordon Taylor about dieback in paddock trees.
Join Sustainable Farms Senior Research and Extension Officer Mason Crane as he talks about Squirrel Gliders, the subject of his PhD.
Welcome back to the Sustainable Farms podcast. In this episode, field ecologist Mason Crane speaks to Gordon Taylor about farm revegetation projects.
Many farmers are concerned that government financing schemes particularly in times of drought can lead them into unrepayable debt, and risk of property foreclosure down the track.
How does investing in the natural assets of a farm, like shelterbelts and farm dams, enable farmers to be more resilient in drought, while at the same time help to support the biodiversity on farms?
Director of Sustainable Farms, Michelle Young, talks about why the project has been established and its key goals and activities.