The Upper Ovens Valley Landcare Group Inc covers a considerable part of the upper catchment of the Ovens River, from Ovens through Porepunkah and Bright to Harrietville, incorporating the Buckland Valley and Wandiligong Valley.The Upper Ovens Valley Area

Bright sits on the edge of large tracts of Crown Land. In most cases the tops of the hills and ridges are still covered in native 'dry foothill forest' vegetation. The Ovens River is the major waterway of the area. Smaller tributaries from several valleys join it.

Bright and its surrounding valleys have a history of gold mining during the 19th century. The resulting soil disturbance allowed weeds such as blackberry to establish.

During the twentieth century, the fertile valley floors were farmed intensively as dairy farms or for horticultural crops such as tobacco and hops. Apple orchards and beef cattle are found on the higher cleared slopes. Pine plantations were also established over a wide area of the slopes, their management is an on-going concern to our group.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the township of Bright is a well established tourism centre (approx 1 million tourist beds per annum). Forestry, vineyards, apples, tobacco and beef cattle are the major primary industries.

There is a noticeable increase in semi-rural subdivisions for lifestyle small properties. Many of these landholders are employed in nearby towns or cities and come from an urban background.

The Upper Ovens Valley Landcare Group formed in 1997. We have approximately 70 members, both rural landowners and townsfolk, with an executive committee of 10.

Generally, members are interested in a wide range of environmental issues. Our challenge is to strike a balance between being an 'environmental interest' group and a 'hands on' Landcare group. Unlike most other Landcare Groups, our main focus for onground work is on public land, particularly the Riparian areas, as this is where the highest values in need of conservation work occur. At the same time the group aims to assist rural landowners in best practice management of their land.

Focus of Activities
The Upper Ovens Valley Landcare group recently completed the development of an Environment Plan which will guide our focus over the next 10 years. The plan was developed through biodiversity and threat data analysis and community collaboration, to determine whats important to the community. This has identified focal areas for our work which are the most important areas for biodiversity and need for ecological conservation and restoration. The focal areas contain threatened species and vegetation communities as well as ecological connectivity values. The Riparian areas along the Ovens Rivers and its tributaries have been identified as the most important and will continue to be our focus.

The vision is "Riparian vegetation communities are diverse and resilient, protecting water quality for native fish and platypus and ensuring access and freedom of movement for wildlife along river corridors and across valleys".

We currently have ongoing projects at The Ovens/Buckland Rivers confluence, German Creek (where we are investigating cost effective methods for mitigating deer browsing damage to plantings), and the Germantown Streamside Reserve.