The Watson family near Boggabri, NSW, has long been credited for its incredible biodiversity work, led by award winning landcarer, Robyn (pictured centre with CottonInfo's Stacey Vogel and Cotton Australia's Alec McIntosh). Now the cotton farming family is being supported to restore an additional 3.7 kilometres of tree lines along the Namoi River that will deliver ecosystems services to a newly acquired property.
This is the second project in the Country Road, Landcare Australia and cotton industry biodiversity partnership that will see $600,000 from the sale of Australian cotton Heritage Sweats invested in cotton farms in the Namoi region to improve and restore native plant and animal species over three years.
According to cotton farmer Andrew Watson “the work will occur on a property we've recently purchased that had been somewhat denuded in areas. The banks were bare and high river flow was causing turbidity in the river, so by doing this we're going to increase the ecology along the riverbank by planting trees and grasses,” Andrew said.
Cotton Info Biodiversity technical lead Stacey Vogel says these projects are providing much needed funding for farmers to undertake important biodiversity works.
“Using research undertaken by CRDC we can prioritise where and how we restore biodiversity to get the best outcome for threatened and iconic species found in cotton landscapes.
“The partnership not only provides significant funds, it also showcases the benefits of improving biodiversity to other cotton farmers in the region and demonstrates to the non-agricultural community, such as Country Road customers, some of the positive ways cotton farmers are managing biodiversity,” Stacey said.
Country Road has created a beautiful video to launch the Watson project which can be viewed here