The Commonwealth Government of Australia, through the National Heritage Trust, has been providing funding for a wide range of environmental and sustainable agriculture initiatives for over thirty years. The National Landcare Programme is the latest iteration of this series of organisations focused on landcare responsibilities. The programme coordinates several sub-programmes and funding stream components. These components include a National Stream of funding for national projects and for meeting international environmental obligations, a Regional Stream of funding with 56 geographic natural resource management organisations, an Indigenous natural resource management organisation and a Marine natural resource management organisation. In this Strategic Analysis Paper, FDI will describe and discuss the history, structure, objectives and achievements of the National Landcare in preparation for a more detailed analysis of the various components of the Programme in the future.

Key points:

• The National Landcare Programme and the Landcare Network are a key part of the Australian government’s commitment to natural resource management, having invested over $1 billion since 2014.
• The National Stream of the programme supports many important initiatives that will protect and restore the environment and make agriculture more sustainable and productive. These initiatives will be directly funded by the Australian government.
• The Regional Stream of the programme supports Australia’s 56 regional natural resource management organisations in providing local and regional initiatives to help protect their local environment and deliver more sustainable agriculture.
• The programme, through the Indigenous Natural Resource Management organisations, supports Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to draw on their significant and unique knowledge, skills and responsibilities.
• OceanWatch Australia has been recognised as the natural resource management group for Australia’s marine environment with responsibility for the delivery of the government’s marine natural resource management related programmes.