Exciting news! – A major expansion of the Walker Swamp Restoration Reserve is happening this June
In some incredibly exciting news, I am delighted to announce that Nature Glenelg Trust has just been awarded a $595,000 grant from the Victorian Government, through the Nature Fund Program.
This incredibly timely announcement is the final piece of a $1.19M funding ‘puzzle’ that has now been fully assembled. This funding is enabling NGT to expand the Walker Swamp Restoration Reserve – as shown below – building upon the incredible generosity of our supporters last year, with further additional cash contributions provided by NGT and our long-term partners in the project – the Glenelg Hopkins CMA and the Hamilton Field Naturalists Club.
For those with a good memory, you might recall that way back in 2018 when we first announced the creation of the reserve at Walker Swamp, the Glenelg Hopkins CMA and the Hamilton Field Naturalists Club were also our original financial partners in the project, so there is a wonderful symmetry about this news six years later!
The reason I say that this announcement is timely, is because on the 28th June, NGT will be settling the final stage of land purchase immediately adjacent to (east of) Walker Swamp – as shown on the map above. This new project will allow the land purchase to occur fully funded, without NGT having to go into debt or call further upon the help of our wonderful donors and supporters who have already contributed so much to the project through their contributions last year.
But the project is also about more than land purchase, as this brief description from our project application explains:
Expanding Walker Swamp: a large-scale habitat restoration demonstration site
This project will expand the size of Nature Glenelg Trust’s Walker Swamp Restoration Reserve by 60%. The land purchase and habitat restoration project in the Grampians, will result in a new conservation covenant over threatened woodland habitat, secure recovering wetlands, as well as planning and preparation for a future large-scale woodland revegetation site.
In summary, this project will get us to the point of having everything in place to be ready to convert this cleared area next to Walker Swamp into a large, diverse, functional woodland, using the remnant woodland area at the northern end of this new portion of the reserve (which will also be placed under a covenant) as a reference area and seed source.
A huge thanks to all our partners over the years, and our wonderful community of supporters, for helping us turn this vision into a reality. Like anything worthwhile, it hasn’t been easy, but we simply couldn’t have achieved this amazing outcome without you!
The Expanding Walker Swamp project is being delivered by
with the generous support of
the Glenelg Hopkins CMA,
the Hamilton Field Naturalists Club, and
the Victorian Government through the Nature Fund Program
