Victoria’s Landcare groups have 60,000 volunteers – but will there be funds to support them?

The volunteer environment network says lack of money is stifling the growth of local groups despite an increase in interest on the ground

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Lyn Heenan's involvement with Landcare began almost 40 years ago, when her late father, Paul, joined the new movement in the 1980s to get rid of rabbits that had been eating their way through the Pyrenees region in western Victoria.

It was shortly after then conservation minister Joan Kirner had launched the initiative alongside the Victorian Farmers Federation at the tiny locality of Winjallock in 1986.