Coobabla Saltbush Project

Extensive areas of the Wheatbelt are affected by salinity, which causes productive agricultural and grazing land to become unworkable. The Woolah-Wah Land Aboriginal Corporation is fortunate to have only small patches of salinity on their farm, Coobabla. The Corporation’s members approached Wheatbelt Natural Resource Management to determine how they might be able to manage rising salinity at Coobabla and to source funding for the project. The group has since planted 9000 saltbush seedlings over 5 acres. Saltbush helps reduce the salinity of the area by reducing the water-table and allowing surface salts to be leached down in to the lower layers of the soil by rain and also allows otherwise unworkable country to be grazed by stock. Members of Woolah-Wah Land Aboriginal Corporation have many aspirations for Coobabla including: revegetating large areas of the property to create habitat for native species and improve the biodiversity; increasing the agricultural diversity of the property which will improve the property’s biodiversity as well as ensuring the long term resilience and viability of the business as climate change and other environmental issues impact the region; and developing tourism on the property as an alternate income stream. Woolah-Wah Land Aboriginal Corporation first acquired its 645 hectare property, Coobabla, near Bakers Hill in 2001. Coobabla is currently leased out to an external land manager who primarily crops oats and hay and grazes 50 head of cattle. The property also has large areas of remnant vegetation and significant breakaway country. The Corporation’s directors aim to take over the management of Coobabla at the completion of their current lease. This project was funded through the Australian Government’s Caring for Our Country program and a Wheatbelt NRM Soil Conservation Incentives Program (SCIP) grant.