Farming landscapes on the NSW north coast are degraded from historical changes to land use and loss of landscape function.
This is evidenced by soil erosion, loss of wetlands, reduction in water quality and catchment health and increasing challenges in maintaining farm productivity.
The Farming Together / SQNNSW Innovation Hub team has been supporting local farmers and partners like Rous and the Northern Rivers Watershed Initiative, to improve landscape function on farms and catchments.
This work helps restore local water cycles, build organic matter in soils and wetlands, slow, spread and filter runoff from heavy rainfall events and maintain soil moisture for longer into dry periods, ultimately increasing plant growth and production.
Reinstating wetlands, installing structures like leaky weirs and contours, improving management based on careful observation, and supporting the role of plants to manage how water and fertility move through the landscape, are pathways to restoring landscape function.
We’ve included some links to useful written and video resources, and posters from northern rivers projects, with more to come in 2026 as work continues.
