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Landcare in the Central West Catchment
155 Landcare groups involving approimately 3,200 members
The Central West catchment covers 92,200 square kilometres and forms the catchment of the Macquarie, Castlereagh and Bogan Rivers. Major towns in the Central West include Dubbo, Bathurst, Coonabarabran, Mudgee and Orange.
The main industries in the region include tourism, mining (gold,zinc,copper), wool, abattoirs, manufacturing, steel fabrication and building.
Agriculturally, the region is highly diverse which adds to the complexity of natural resource management issues.Grazing industries dominate the eastern highlands and western plains; extensive winter cropping on the central west slopes and inner plains; intensive viticulture and horticulture around Mudgee, Orange and the Bell river floodplain; irrigated cotton and other summer crops on the Macquarie river floodplain. Forestry industries based on softwood plantations in the eastern highlands and native hardwood stands (mainly white cypress) on the plains,are alsoimportant.
The Central West catchment contains the Ramsar Listed wetlands of the Macquarie Marshes, as well as the Warrumbungles National Park, the Winburndale Nature Reserve, and a number of other reserves,of significant crown land areas.
Major threats to the health of natural resources in the Central West catchment include dryland salinity, declining surface water quality,declining health and abundance of native vegetation, degradation of riparian and wetland ecosystems and deterioration of the soil resource.
Within the Central West there are presently 155 Landcare groups involving approximately3,200 menbers. The majority of these groups are rural based (126), while the remainder (29) are urban or based around local government or public land management ( as of January 2004).
The major environmental issues addressed by Landcare groups in the CentralWest are:
(Some information in this section is from theCentral WestCatchment Blueprint)
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