Three years ago, inner-city dwellers Louise Freckelton and David Bray took the step towards realising a dream when they purchased a 300ha farm, which included a woodland under covenant with Nature Conservation Trust of NSW.
Each had a busy city-based career, but they were keen bush walkers through the Snowy Mountain country, and Ms Freckelton admitted she and David often said “we were in the wrong place!”
“We always wanted to live in the bush, and when the opportunity came for me to take a voluntary redundancy, it seemed like a good time to move,” she said.
The couple sold the Sydney property and moved to the farm near Adelong, because they were attracted to its wonderful bushland setting.
“We were interested in purchasing a property which we could rehabilitate by planting trees,” Ms Freckelton said.
“But we saw this property, which had an existing conservation covenant, and it fitted nicely with our ideas,” she said.
Ms Freckelton said she and David were interested in Highfield Farm, because it already was under a covenant with the Nature Conservation Trust of NSW.
“The NCT were already doing what we thought we would do, so it matched our expectations,” she said.
Nature Conservation Trust chief executive Gary Wells said the covenant includes a plan of management for the farm that ensures the important environmental values of the property are protected.
“Our staff are available to provide advice to Louise and David if they need it,” Mr Wells said.
“The NCT covenant is placed on the title in perpetuity to protect the property forever, no matter who owns the property in the future.”
NCT has more than 50,000ha under conservation on private property in NSW.
The 300ha property has 200ha committed to preserving the box grassy woodland habitat, which was common along the western slopes before European settlement.
Ms Freckelton thinks the bush is taken for granted, but they are keen to preserve the biodiversity because “it protects a critically endangered habitat which animals and birds rely on”.
“It gives us a great deal of pleasure to walk through the woodland, where David has identified 115 different species of birds that rely on this habitat, including the rare Regent Honey Eater,” she said.
“We are seeing a lot of native flowers during the spring, and an added benefit is the seed-bank build up of grasses, which are spreading into our grazing area.”
The property had an agistment agreement when purchased by Louise and David, and when it expired the couple purchased 38 Dorper ewes to run on the 100ha grazing area.
“We are allowed to graze the conservationist area at certain times,” she said.
“And we are working out ways of sharing the conservation area with other people.”
Ms Freckelton said conserving these woodland habitats is a “social good”, but it is also of value to her grazing area thanks to the shelter it provides on the property’s western side, and the increase of native grass seed.
“We want to show how farming and conservation can work together”, Ms Freckelton said.
