curious landscapes

Over 60% of NSW land face limitations, such as low rainfall, steep terrain, or poor-quality soils, restricting its productivity and creating fragile ecosystems vulnerable to the impacts of agricultural activity.

Driven by early colonial settlement and public policy seeking to ‘improve’ land for rural productivity, there are now many of these vulnerable landscapes that have been heavily impacted through decades of land clearing, weed invasion, and over grazing.

These marginal farmlands are often seen as low-grade land with limited intrinsic value. Good for little more than raising sheep. Over time these sites have often developed as forgotten farmlands, the domain of the hobby farmer, the hunter or rural weekender.

In NSW along the slopes and challenging terrain of the Great Dividing Range there are large tracts of these landscapes, sparsely populated, with limited formal activity.

Clearing of native vegetation, and the destruction of habitat that is associated with it has been identified as the single greatest threat to biodiversity in NSW.

It has been estimated that between 1788 and 1921, 35.3 million ha of native vegetation (44% of the State) were ring-barked and partially cleared. Clearing was most intensive on the Western Slopes, Central Plains and in the Riverina. In many of these regions, less than 10% of vegetation remains.

As NSW plans its green energy transition, several renewable energy zones have been identified, with the Central West Orana zone the first under development. 

The zones are becoming the focus for the investment, planning and delivery of new renewable energy infrastructure such as wind farms, solar farms, batteries, and transmission lines. 

The premise of these zones is to ‘capitalise on the economies of scale to deliver cheap and reliable electricity to households’. 

This shift in land-use priorities and the scale of infrastructure to be delivered means these landscapes are once again facing significant change.

Current NSW biodiversity funding and practice is focused on conservation, in many cases, managing what little is left or simply attempting to limit further clearing. 

The competition between agriculture and biodiversity has often been a contentious issue for many on both sides. Biodiversity is not often considered an economically viable land use outcome for individual land holders.

As renewable energy zones support a low carbon future, they could also enable greater local environmental regeneration.

Many of the forgotten, degraded rural landscapes that these projects sit within have limited agricultural output. If renewable energy projects can provide new income opportunities that co-exist with biodiversity outcomes this could reduce the demand for agricultural production on these landscapes.