Mount Sandy Conservation

The Coorong National Park and Lakes Alexandrina and Albert are the meeting point where the Murray Australia's largest river, with a catchment of over one million square kilometers feeds into the Southern Ocean. Part of South Australia's Limestone Coast, this region features some of the country's most breath-taking landscapes. However, land surrounding these national treasures has been largely cleared for agriculture.

The Mount Sandy Conservation Project helps protect native animals and habitat, and promotes partnerships for conservation between Traditional Landowners and non-Indigenous Australians.

The Solution

Located on the traditional lands of the Ngarrindjeri people, Traditional Custodians of the Coorong, Mount Sandy is a rare pocket of intact native vegetation in a region now dominated by farmlands. The 200-hectare project site features a unique mix of coastal shrublands and saline swamplands that provide strategic habitat for iconic native wildlife, such as the short-beaked echidna, purple-gaped honeyeater and elegant parrot.

Over thousands of years, the Ngarrindjeri people have cared for Coorong country, developing an intimate connection to the land that sustains them. Project management itself is made possible through close collaboration with local Ngarrindjeri Elders, Clyde and Rose Rigney, who oversee the ongoing management and conservation of vegetation at the Mount Sandy site.

The Impact

The Mount Sandy project ensures permanent protection for a regionally and culturally important pocket of biodiversity-rich land in partnership with its Traditional Owners.

Local birds, animals and plants flourish undisturbed, while native plants for revegetation will be supplied by the local nursery at Raukkan Aboriginal Community, a self-governed Indigenous community 50km northwest of the project site. Raukkan community members are also employed for onsite works including vegetation monitoring and mapping, fencing, and pest and weed control.

Sustainable Development Goals / Outcomes

• Partnership for reconciliation between non-indigenous Australians and Ngarrindjeri traditional owners for conservation management
• Provides decent work and economic growth for 5 indigenous Ngarrindjeri Australians.
• 200 hectares of strategic habitat have been protected and registered on the South Australian Native Vegetation Council Credit Register.
• Is a registered EcoAustralia project, which blends carbon credits with biodiversity protection. Each EcoAustralia credit consists of one Australian Biodiversity Unit, equal to 1.5m2 of government-accredited, permanently protected Australian vegetation, and 1 tCO2e of avoided emissions from a Gold Standard certified project. The carbon offset component linked to this project is the Jingxing paper mill project in China, which captures methane that would normally be released into the atmosphere from wastewater, using it as a source of renewable energy and reducing dependence electricity created from coal.