Biodiversity in Practice: Building Local Solutions in the Dawson
Project Overview
The Dawson Catchment Coordinating Association (DCCA) will lead the Building Local Solutions in the Dawson Project in Central Queensland. This project will focus on practical, community-driven actions that improve farm productivity, natural resource sustainability and strengthen rural communities.
DCCA has seen a strong need for hyper local, hands-on approaches that respond to the specific challenges faced by each area. The project will train extension staff and landcare groups in skills to measure and manage biodiversity, helping them provide tailored support to local producers.
By building peer-to-peer learning into neighbourhood producer groups, the project will encourage collaboration, increase the uptake of good practices, and deliver real biodiversity benefits across the region—all while supporting broader state and national environmental goals.
Project Goals
- Support landholders with practical training and deliver targeted environmental projects.
- Build skills, provide employment pathways and expand community knowledge of sustainable practices.
- Improve catchment health, supporting sustainable agriculture and enable ecosystem service markets.
- Identify hyper-local biodiversity challenges and opportunities.
- Addresses the critical disconnect between biodiversity knowledge and its practical application in agricultural businesses.
Key Activities
- Work with local Landcare groups and producers to identify biodiversity challenges and opportunities specific to our region’s land types and soils.
- Build producer skills and confidence in biodiversity measurement, monitoring and management through tailored training sessions focusing on practical tools.
- Establish a local demonstration site to trial and monitor how biodiversity actions influence productivity and environmental outcomes over time.
- Foster peer learning through neighbourhood groups which will help producers embed sustainability into daily decision-making for both biodiversity and business outcomes.
- Share the most effective, locally tested, actions graziers can take to improve biodiversity on their own properties at a “10 Practical Actions” Field Day.
