Connected landscapes

Biodiversity Legacy seeks to build relationships with individuals and communities already doing great work on the ground.

We use the term ‘community biolink’ to frame discussions about local contexts and how we can support communities with knowledge and resources to enhance biodiversity protection and landscape connectivity.

Conversations at the grassroots level help us understand what landholders and communities need to expand their vision and see how their projects can contribute to biodiversity outcomes beyond the spatial footprint of individual properties and projects.

Biolink Coordinators

Biodiversity Legacy’s Biolink Coordinators facilitate this local connectivity by building relationships that strengthen grassroots networks and build capacity. The coordinators (below) are community-based with a deep understanding of local contexts and bring to the table a diversity of skills and knowledge.

Stuart Inchley

Biolink Coordinator, South Gippsland and Bass Coast

Dixie Fitzclarence

Contracts Manager and Southern NSW Biolink Coordinator

Robyn Edwards

Partnership and Grants Manager

Tim Rowe

Biolink Coordinator, East Gippsland Victoria

Biolink Coordinator support:

  • networking across the not-for-profit environmental sector
  • local environmental knowledge and networks
  • general support and knowledge assistance for long-term land protection pathways
  • communications to engage the media and community
  • citizen science activities
  • community regeneration projects
  • facilitate connections with envioronmental specialists (e.g. land managers, botanists and surveyors)
  • linking land convenators together.

Emerging biolinks

As the Biolink Coordinators are place-based, their work looks different depending on the local context.

In Gippsland Victoria, for example, various community initiatives are coming together to restore and protect pockets of habitat from the Bass Coast to the forests of South Gippsland, Corner Inlet and the Avon Wilderness.

Our Biolink Coordinators are widely networked and share knowledge and resources through the EcoLands Collective. This rapidly evolving group includes:

  • Land Covenanting Victoria
  • Gippsland Threatened Species Action Group
  • Wildlife Unlimited
  • Gippsland Forest Dialogue
  • PromCoast Ecolink