On other properties, landowners are eradicating weeds, controlling feral animal populations, and fencing off waterways or patches of native vegetation to allow trees to re-establish.
There are also conversations underway as to how traditional land management practises could be reintroduced to the Midlands landscape, and how Aboriginal cultural values on stewardship properties could be identified and protected.
Change in the air
It's still early days, but Matt’s "very encouraged" by the progress he's seen so far. About 2,600 hectares are now protected through this conservation project. Fields of Kangaroo Grass are going to seed and more regeneration is occurring over summer. Eucalypt saplings are popping up in places where new trees have struggled for decades, and new populations of several threatened plants have been found, including Tunbridge Buttercups, Grassland Flaxlilies and Lanky Buttons (daisies).
“We did baseline surveys of the properties when we first started, and from there we’ll do detailed surveys every three years,” says Matt. “The first of those subsequent surveys has just been completed, and the initial results are promising.
"We’ve seen increases in native species diversity, as well as the overall condition of our survey sites.”
Bush Heritage and the Tasmanian Land Conservancy are aiming to double the amount of land protected under these stewardship agreements, focusing on native grasslands, by the end of June 2017, with a view to eventually protecting around 8,000 hectares.
But as much as anything, it's the cultural change occurring in the Midlands community that leaves Matt most hopeful. "There are farmers offering us more land. They're saying to me, 'When's the next round? I'd like to do more.' And that's what you want to hear."