Southern Highlands Koala Habitat Tender

⁠⁠⁠The NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust (BCT) is supporting private land conservation in the Southern Highlands through a koala focused conservation tender.

Eligible landholders are given the opportunity to set their own price to protect and manage good condition koala habitat on their land. Successful applicants will be those that put forward the highest value habitat for the best price. These applicants will receive annual payments, in perpetuity, for implementing an agreed management plan.

The Southern Highlands is home to 10% of the state’s koala population and is considered to be the most significant koala population in southern NSW. Much of the prime koala habitat in the Southern Highlands is privately owned and can contribute greatly to koala movement through the landscape.

Through this tender, the BCT seeks to protect koala habitat on private land, and to improve landscape connections for koalas by investing in sites that facilitate koala movement and dispersal.

To be eligible for this tender, the part of your land that you wish to have considered as a conservation area needs to:

• support a continuous patch of koala habitat of at least 20 hectares in size
• be in moderate to good condition
• be privately owned freehold tenure land within the Wingecarribee Shire
• be within the Mapped Eligible Koala Habitat Area. Click on the link and enter your property address into the search bar in the top left-hand corner, or use the navigation tools to locate your property and see if it falls within the purple Mapped Eligible Koala Habitat area*

*Note: If your property is not included in the Mapped Eligible Koala Habitat Area and you have a patch of native vegetation that is greater than 20 hectares in size which you believe supports koala habitat, please see the Southern Highlands Koala Habitat landholder guide or contact the BCT for further information.

The BCT will be welcoming expressions of interest from eligible landholders between the 4th November 2019 and the 29th November 2019. The expression of interest form will be available for download on the BCT website during this time.