Australian Bush Heritage Fund purchases pastoral leases and turns them into conservation reserves – receiving a mixed response from neighbours in the process.

Story & photos by Lee K. Curtis

It’s never easy being the ‘new kid on the block’ – especially when you’re a conservationist moving into a neighbourhood of pastoralists. So what’s the best way to be accepted? Throw a party, of course, which is exactly what Australian Bush Heritage Fund (or Bush Heritage for short) did in April 2006 to launch “Boolcoomatta”, the organisation’s first South Australian property.
Located just across the border from Broken Hill, NSW, Boolcoomatta was purchased by Bush Heritage with funding from Nature Foundation SA and the National Reserve System (see ‘Reserve price’). It has been turned into a conservation reserve to protect its rugged outback landscape, which is home to five vegetation and four land systems that have not yet been protected.

This story excerpt is from Issue #48

Outback Magazine: Aug/Sep 2006