This has been a year of reflections and excitement for Bush Heritage. Reflections on the past 30 years – the impact we have made and lessons we have learnt. And excitement about how we are evolving as we prepare to announce our strategy for 2030.

The environment has, and always will be, the focus of Bush Heritage’s work.

Over and over again our story tells us that the best work gets done when we come together and support each other.

This edition of bushtracks is a celebration of those collaborations - each article a reminder that we all have the capacity to be a force of and for nature when we remember that none of us is alone in our fight to return the bush to good health.

You’ll meet Richard McLellan part way through his Great Sandalwood Transect across Western Australia as he uncovers the reasons why Australia’s iconic Sandalwood Tree is going extinct in the rangelands.

There’s Hayley Sime, (see Our future in the field) a passionate young biologist who’s bringing fresh energy and ideas to our work in north-central Victoria.

Bush Heritage ecologist Katie Degnian gives us an insight into the culture and biodiversity camps that she has been helping to facilitate on Waanyi and Garawa country in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria.

And of course there’s the visionary A20 project, in which Bush Heritage is just one of many organisations contributing to the world’s first acoustic observatory – a continuous five-year soundtrack of the Australian bush.

As we look to 2030 and the conservation challenges that the coming years are likely to entail, it’s clear to me that collaborations such as these – with researchers, Aboriginal people, and other conservation groups and landowners – will strengthen and expand the impact of our work.

We will continue to buy and manage land in perpetuity, too - with climate models informing the management methods that we apply to each of our priority landscapes. I look forward to sharing the details of our 2030 strategy with you later in the year.

Until then, I hope these stories inspire you to go out and be a force of nature.

Heather Campbell, Chief Executive Officer.

Bush Tracks 2021 Winter

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Bushtracks Winter 2021

Bushtracks article 18 June 2021

Our future in the field

Hayley Sime began her relationship with Bush Heritage wearing a ‘volunteer’ hat, but these days her hat rack is crowded – it now includes botanist, intern and strategic planner, such is the nature of collaborating with Bush Heritage.

Bushtracks article 18 June 2021

Learning two ways

In 2016, a desire to keep culture alive and maintain a strong connection to country led the Waanyi Garawa rangers to organise an annual biodiversity survey and culture camp. Five years on, the camps bring together over 100 participants and have a strong focus on the next generation.

Bushtracks article 18 June 2021

Eliza Herbert's happy place

I grew up near the Yarra River – the Birrarung, on Wurundjeri country, Melbourne. It was my playground. When I was younger, my brother and I would go for bike rides along the trail, speeding up through puddles on rainy days so that mud would splash up around us.

Bushtracks article 18 June 2021

Soundtrack of the bush

Australian scientists, in collaboration with Bush Heritage and other conservation groups, have built a world-first acoustic recording network that will change the nature of ecological monitoring forever.