Leanne Leihn shares her father's passion of revegetation as he had been keenly replacing trees on the farm that had been cleared by former generations who rightly believed from the knowledge and culture of the time that clearing land was the best way forward (sometimes encouraged through government subsidies).

So too, Leanne is doing what she believes is right for herself by restoring the landscape.

For Erik it has been a priority to control erosion using fencing and plantings.

Leanne and her husband Erik, have been regenerating their own block following a range of farm business and planning workshops, including completing a Holistic Management Course.

Leanne was particularly impressed with how the course incorporates and prioritises social values into the development and decision making of the whole farm plan as well.

Water placement and fencing were identified as weak links that required strengthening.

The plans were drafted and revised a few times prior to making changes, with the Whole Farm Plan process followed the pattern: Plan, Revise, Re-plan for water, fencing and habitat.

The fencing and habitat development has halted the erosion to the stage that Erik believes it is now starting to repair.

The Leihns have managed to build resilience into this landscape, part of what they set out to achieve. The endurance is in developing the stable community of trees, shrubs, native grasses insects, birds and reptiles.

Leanne's is excited to start seeing increasing evidence in numbers of her favourites such as the Diamond Firetail Finches and the Olive Legless Lizards. Antechinus (Marsupial mice) are also evident.

Aside from the re-planting and fencing, simple policies such as retaining fallen timber hollow logs ensures that the microfauna has adequate habitat to flourish.

Beef cattle and dorper sheep were the chosen livestock enterprises in The Whole Farm Plan, as both were robust and resilient enough to thrive on native grasses.

They are also easy to de-stock if grazing planning alerts them to potential feed shortages.

The Leihn's have had some assistance from the Catchment Management Authority (CMA) Water and Wire Grants with installing water and fencing around gullies.

This has eliminated the need for earthworks to control gully erosion!

The measure of success of the Water and Wire Grant is evident in the increase in number and density of summer active native perennials, a massive reduction in run-off due to standing ground cover, quicker response to rainfall events and an improvement in soil quality.

There is still a lot of learning required however the changes are progressing.

It doesn't stop just on the farm for Leanne, with aspirations of improving communication amongst the whole community to link Government-Business-Community on environmental issues and programmes.

Leanne believes the active grassroots community Landcare groups have successfully withstood the funding challenges of sporadic political support over the past 10 years, which is certainly the case for the Boorowa Community Landcare Group which Leanne co-ordinated for several years; a group that still deals with the issues relevant to the membership.

Leanne believes that Landcare is the catalyst that ensures the community and Local Land Services (LLS) continue to work together to address the important issues of balancing farm profitability and productivity with increasing environmental biodiversity, and building community resilience.

Boorowa Community Landcare Group (BCLG) has a couple of events coming up for landholders to learn more about grazing management.

On Saturday, April 16, BCLG will host a Grazing Revolution Field Day at Tony and Jenny Magee's (also recipients of Australia Day Landcare award in 2016) at Rye Park from 9.00am- 3.00pm.

Dr Dean Revell from Revell Science to talk about how to incorporate perennial forage shrubs into profitable and sustainable grazing systems.

Ben Hanrahan from Greening Australia, will discuss Whole of Paddock Rehabilitation (WOPR) site preparation and funding options.

Paul Cavanagh, local grazier and BCLG member will introduce the afternoon session, talk about grazing and assessing pasture availability. Bookings essential.

These events will be free to Boorowa Landcare members, non-members $10 (includes individual membership for 2016). Please contact Linda Cavanagh on 6385 1018 or 0459 681 018 for more information and RSVP for catering purposes at landcare@boorowa.net.au