The Painkalac Valley is the largest and most significant estuarine wetland along the Great Ocean Road. For hundreds of generations the Wadawurrung and Gadubanud peoples used the valley as a meeting place for ceremony.
Then, in the mid-19th Century, the valley floor was repurposed by the colonial settlers as agricultural and grazing land, a usage that continued for more than a century. In 1983 the Ash Wednesday fires burned the valley floor, despite the fact that the cleared land had been regarded as a firebreak.
Following the fires there were repeated attempts to develop the valley without success.
In 1999, 42 hectares of the valley land were divided into three building lots. In 2016 individual members of AIDA and the Anglesea and Aireys Inlet Society for the Protection of Fauna and Flora (Angair) formed an incorporated association, the Painkalac Project (TPP), that aspired to buy all the lots so the unique estuarine environment, much degraded over the decades, could be restored. The attempt failed and the three lots were sold.
Lot 2, the smallest one at 4.3 hectares, was bought by Mick Loughnan and Jacinta Halloran who shared the dream of allowing the floodplain to return to its natural state. So far regeneration work on Lot 2 has seen the flourishing of wetland flora plants and the return of several small mammal and bird species dependent on this unique floodplain environment.
The largest of the valley building blocks was Lot 3 which comprises 29.5 hectares. Recently most of this land has been subject to a 99-year lease and used for grazing horses.
Now BioDiversity Legacy – a not-for-profit charity dedicated to enabling community-led ownership and stewardship of land for future generations – has taken over the lease. The plan for the valley is called the Painkalac Project, the name coined by the original community group that wished to purchase the land.
Under the lease transfer agreement, some of the five paddocks on Bambra Road, which constitute about 30% of the whole, will continue to have horses grazing for up to 15 years, while being progressively incorporated into the restoration.
The new future for the valley has been made possible through a donation to BioDiversity Legacy from two local community members, Lecki Ord and Ian Godfrey, both long-standing members of local community groups, the Anglesea and Aireys Inlet Society for the Protection of Flora and Fauna (Angair) and the Aireys Inlet and District Association (AIDA).
A local stewardship group will manage the land, guided by a science-based masterplan for the ecological restoration of the valley. The masterplan will be developed in consultation with the local community, the CFA, Forest Fire Management, the Surf Coast Shire, the Corangamite Catchment Management Authority (CCMA), Barwon Water, the Great Ocean Road Coastal and Parks Authority (GORCAPA), AIDA and Angair. The stewardship group looks forward to working with the Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation as the plan is developed and implemented.
Biodiversity Legacy
Biodiversity Legacy offers a unique approach to protecting land for biodiversity by supporting the establishment of community-governed not-for-profits and facilitating the transfer of land titles into these safe ownership structures. These not-for-profits – called local landholding entities – are purpose built, by local people, with Biodiversity Legacy’s support to ensure effective governance, to ensure that conservation properties are protected over time. Biodiversity Legacy may also step in as an interim landowner, to protect title until such a time that an appropriate local landholding entity can be set up.
Biodiversity Legacy has supported a growing network of like-minded people to protect and effectively steward land in this way. The approach benefits people as well as biodiversity, since it empowers individuals and communities to ensure the ongoing protection of natural spaces that are valuable to them – beyond all our lifetimes.
Biodiversity Legacy is a not-for-profit that doesn’t charge for the services it provides. Instead, the organisation relies on philanthropic donations, grants, and voluntary contributions from those who value its work. Biodiversity Legacy invites those who benefit from its services to make a tax-deductible donation in support of its mission.
Find out more on the Biodiversity Legacy website.