Applying for a grant

Partnerships Against Pests Round 3 Webinar

9 September 2024

Webinar host: Kate Miller, Program Coordinator for Established Invasive Species.

Slide 1: Good morning and apologies. We've had a couple of technical difficulties this morning. Apologies, our team is very, very new at running these types of webinars and it is our first crack at it. So please bear with us for just a moment and we are having a few difficulties with this.

So just being that being the case, I will just kick it off and get moving on it. So, welcome everybody, and thanks for joining us today with this webinar regarding the Partnerships against Pests grant program for Round 3. We're really excited to be launching this today and be able to share a little bit more information with you about how this is all going to operate.

Slide 2: So just before we kick off, we will do acknowledgement of country, say that we do acknowledge and respect the Victorian Traditional Owners of the original Custodians of Victoria's land and water, the unique ability to care for country and deep spiritual connection to it.

We honour elders past and present whose knowledge and wisdom has ensured the continuation of culture and traditional practises.

DEECA is committed to genuinely partnering with Victorian Traditional Owners and Victoria's community to progress the aspirations.

I'm joining you today from Yorta, Yorta Country up here in Echuca.

Slide 3: So just a little bit of housekeeping, just to note that this session is being recorded. We will make this recording available on the Partnerships Against Pest Grants program website. We're also able to send out the slides from this webinar to our attendees today. So, there are some links and that are embedded into these slides. So, once you receive those slides, you'll be able to follow the links directly from the PowerPoint.

We do have the cameras, microphones and chat functions turned off. However, questions can be asked by the Q&A icon at the bottom of the window towards the end of the webinar.

We will do what we can to answer those questions as they come through. Kirsten will be monitoring and moderating those, and you can put your name on there or you can lodge them anonymously if you'd like to do that as well.

Slide 4: So just to agenda for today, we will run through an introduction and overview of the Partnerships Against Pests program, including how the program operates and the grants as a component of that program.

We'll talk specifically about Round 3, including the objectives, criteria and the guidelines.

We'll just touch on a couple of our previous investments just to give you an example of what types of things that this program has funded previously and maybe some ideas for what types of projects or you know, activities, tasks, et cetera that you might have funded through these types of grants.

And then we'll just finish with a wrap up including, as I said, that question and answer session, some links to some resources and just some thanks.

Slide 5: We do have, I should just say myself, Kate Miller as the Program Coordinator for Established Invasive Species for Agriculture Victoria. Also on this webinar, we have Kirsten Morrison, who's currently acting as the Engagement Officer for our Established Invasive Species program, and whose substantive role is as a Project Officer supporting this project. And also online is our Director, Sharyn Williams, Director of the Plants, Chemicals and Invasives Unit.

As I said, we are having some technical difficulties, so I am unsure whether those 2 are currently joined as panellists, but I will allow them to jump in at any time as we move through this.

Slide 6: So, the Partnerships Against Pest Program is aimed at expanding our collaborative partnerships. So, we know that and, I'm sure that I'm preaching to the converted with who's on this this line, but we know that the cost of managing established weeds and pests, animals is enormous across Victoria.

And a recent study does estimate that around $869 million per annum, which as we know is a huge amount of funding. Obviously, this includes substantial farm losses, degradation of ecosystems, damage to culturally sensitive sites of First Nations people and risk to our Interstate and international agriculture markets.

Slide 7: So, the program does focus very heavily on shared responsibility. Excuse me, just a moment.

We do have, as you may well know, we have recently released Victoria's Biosecurity Strategy which is available on our website.

The program that we're running in terms of Partnerships Against Pests focus very heavily on our approach to a shared responsibility for managing established weeds and pest animals across the Victorian landscape.

Obviously, you know, established weeds and pests occur right across Victoria. It's completely tenure blind. You know, they operate on, you know, they exist on public land, private land and, and really don't care whose responsibility the land management is. So, you know, we as government can only do so much and we can't be everywhere across the entire state. So, the concept here, I suppose, is that we do what we can to enable and facilitate a community led approach to established weeds and pest animals that allows community to, you know, highlight and determine for themselves, you know, what are the established weeds and pest animals that are of most concern to that particular community, to that particular geographical area. And take approaches to managing those weeds and pests that you know, are of most importance to that local community. And do it in doing it in a way that is works well for that local community, takes on the local partnerships and, you know, builds capacity in a way that works for that community.

As we've sort of highlighted on this slide, part of the Victoria's biosecurity strategy goal for management is around reducing the impacts of established weeds and pests through local action. And that outlines the priorities for supporting local collective action on established weeds and pests and bringing together all the participants to achieve sustainable long-term whole of landscape changes.

Slide 8: So, the focus of the partnership, so we sort of talked about the Partnerships Against Pests program, and the grants program is just one component of that.

So, a few of the other components included forming the Victorian Invasive Pests Advisory Board. You may have heard about that. That is a board that is made up of representatives from Agriculture Victoria, Parks Victoria, the forest fire components of DEECA, members from our four Victorian Community Pest Management Groups and general members of the community that were selected through an expression of interest process. That board is formed to, you know, allow government to create that relationship with community, get advice and input from community members as to the direction of our established invasive species program.

The program does all support also continue to support those 4 Community Pest Management Groups being the VBT, Victorian BlackBerry Task Force, Course Task Force, Victorian Rabbit Action Network and the Victorian Serrated Tusic Working Party. We're also providing so changing slightly the makeup of some of our internal staff. So, we have for a long time operated just with biosecurity officers whose focus has been primarily around compliance and enforcement. We now do have an engagement officer based in each of our 3 regions, although we are currently re-recruiting for a couple of those positions at the moment, to enable better community facilitation and to create connections and partnerships between government, community organisations, you know, local shires, CMAs and all of those types of organisations. Some of those partnerships have sort of fallen by the wayside a little bit in the last decade or so. So, we are looking to really rebuild that up again.

And obviously the final component of that program is providing these funding these, these grants to community groups to, as I've mentioned before, really help to facilitate that approach of local communities, focusing on species that are important to that local community and using, you know, projects and techniques. And that will help with that will work well in that local community to achieve that sort of longer term, more sustainable, you know, outcomes for good established weeds and pest management.

Slide 9: So, as I mentioned, the partnerships against pest grants that we're all here to hear about today, primary aim of that is to boost community participation, improve the capacity of land managers to manage established weeds and pests, animals on their land, which can obviously be done through quite a wide variety of ways.

It is a five-year total funding program. So, we are into round 3, so year 3, they will continue until June 2027 is when this current Victorian Government budget initiative winds up. So, there's a bit of funding from previous Collective Biosecurity budget initiative and then a $5 million funding from that ‘Backing Victoria's Producers’ budget initiative.

These grants aim to ensure that, as I mentioned, the people who are most affected by the problems of established weeds and pests are central in working out what the problems are in the local community and co-creating strategies to help build community capacity and to support on ground action.

Slide 10: So, there's a couple of different funding streams available here. This webinar is very much focused on Stream 2. So, there is a couple of bits of different funding for our community pest management groups, but we are focused on this Stream 2 today that is available for groups that are operating at sort of local or regional sort of level. And there's a competitive application process with the grants amounts total funding of $780,000 and grants available between $10,000 and $50,000.

Slide 11: So just to go a bit further into this, we've we'll just touch on the objectives, the criteria and the grant guidelines as well.

Slide 12: So, I've touched on this a little bit, but in terms of the program objectives, what we're really looking at here is to, you know, build capacity and capability in community. So that might be, you know, running educational events, workshops, you know, developing strategic plans for local areas, undertaking any sort of activity that is building partnerships.

We can also look at projects that help to build capability within your community group. So just say as an example, if you've got a Landcare group and you're looking at doing some training in, you know, community group governance or leadership, that type of thing, even communications and engagement, then, you know, these grants can be used for that type of thing as well.

We know that a lot of volunteers, sort of base groups, you know, over the years are struggling with numbers of volunteers and membership and that type of thing. So again, you know, if you want to look at something that's to do with succession planning or, you know, ensuring that your group or your community-based organisation is sustainable into the future, then you know, that's something you can look at through this grant program as well.

You can also look at strategic planning. So, you know, future activities over the coming years. And we are like really interested in things that you know, promote the sustainability of the group and really look at longer term activities and actions that will, you know, give good sustainable long-term outcomes in terms of local management of weeds and pests animals.

We're also, as I mentioned previously, really looking at that partnerships and collaboration component.

And in particular, there is one of the criteria that is specifically around, you know, if you would like to be operating a project that helps build a relationship with your either local traditional owners or local traditional owner corporations. Obviously, that's around a project that will help deliver those invasive species management capacity and capability building projects that align with whole of country plans. That's all about, you know, obviously respecting and recognising traditional owner expertise in this space, knowledge sharing and, you know, incorporating biocultural values into your projects.

Slide 13: So, there's a few different criteria to be considered. So, just recommend that when you're putting your application together, really focus heavily on looking at those criteria and the program objectives just to make sure that what you're pulling together is really matching all of that.

So, in terms of how the assessment panel will look at this stuff, we'll have, we'll weight 50% against how your application aligns to and potentially achieves the program objectives. We'll have a look at value for money, which takes into account about 20% of the weighting. Really looking at, you know, if you've got something that's innovative, then that would be really great as well. And so, we've got 20% of the weighting there. And we do just really need to have some sort of information as to whether your organisation does have the capability and capacity to actually be able to deliver this project. So, you know, obviously don't put in something that's going to require 10 people to work on it when you've only got 2.

There's also a number of bits and pieces of mandatory requirements around this, which we'll touch on, but you know, things like your organisation eligibility, your insurance certificates and all of that sort of administrative stuff that we really need to tick a yes or no as to whether the application's meeting that.

Slide 14: So, as I mentioned, in order to be eligible for Stream 2, the application must be submitted by either an incorporated association or a registered company that's a not for profit.

Alternatively, it can be Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Corporation and you must also hold sufficient sorry insurance in order to be able to safeguard your people against any issues.

There's obviously a number of groups out there who don't meet any of these, the top 3 organisation types. So, but that doesn't necessarily completely exclude you. So, the way you can go about still applying is to approach an auspice organisation.

That could be, you know, excuse me, another community group in your local area that that is an incorporated association for example. Or you could potentially even approach, you know, local councils, other organisations like that, as long as they meet one of those other requirements and you have some sort of evidence to say that they have agreed to enter into an auspicing arrangement with you.

Slide 15: So, funding eligibility, what you can and can't fund.

So, I think the, the kind of sort of semi unique thing about these particular types of grants is that they are very specifically not for on ground works. So, these are not for, you know, going out and buying herbicide or spraying equipment or, you know, putting out rabbit bites, that type of thing.

It's very much focused more on that community education capacity and capability building.

The one example where you might be able to purchase those types of things is say for example, you want to run a field day and you need to, you know, have some spraying equipment that you are using for the purposes of demonstrating how to use that equipment. So, that's just an example there.

So, things that you can use this funding for is for consultants, facilitators, presenters. You may choose to engage a project officer or employ someone for a period of time to be able to deliver components of your project, training course fees, marketing, development of promotional materials, video production, hiring rooms or equipment, that sort of thing in order to be able to run workshops, events, etcetera. You know, light catering is OK as well.

We do say that any capital items, so any, you know, sort of equipment or that type of thing that's purchased needs to be under $3000 and does need to be able to sort of demonstrate that clear community benefit. Anything that goes on that list needs to become a registered asset of your organisation as well.

The one thing to emphasise here, I suppose is that we do allow up to 15% that is around sort of project management and administrative costs.

So that's, you know, associated with doing your reporting, you know, things like just say you employed a project officer, and you know, they need to have some office space in your building or the, you know, that type of thing. So just make sure that that your application doesn't exceed that 15% just around the project management and admin.

As I said, there's a few things that are specifically excluded. I won't go through those in detail, but you know, those are, these are all outlined in the in the grant guidelines.

But yeah, couple of things to emphasise, I suppose is that we don't want to do any competitions, raffles or prizes. Please don't buy any alcohol with these grants. And you know, obviously if you've got positions that are already funded through other investment, then we don't want to say sort of double up, I suppose, in terms of where we're applying these grants to.

Slide 16: So, when you're pulling your application together, as I mentioned, you know, it's important to focus on that assessment criteria and make sure that that what you're pulling together is, is meeting those criteria.

You know, your, your application may only meet one of, I think there's about 6 or 7 different types of criteria or objectives in there. You might only touch on one of them.

But you know, I would suggest that applications that touch on multiples of those objectives and outcomes are probably likely to score higher in terms of assessment.

You do need to include a list of your project partners and the letters of support that go along with that. In our last round of applications, a lot of people included those letters support which is great. Those are not necessarily mandatory for all of your project partners. However, they, we are stipulating that those are mandatory to have if you are going to partner with either a community pest management group or a traditional owner corporation. This is just really to manage the capacity of those organisations and to ensure that, you know, people aren't just which did happen a little bit last time. People aren't just putting in, oh, we're going to partner with Dja Dja Wurrung, but they hadn't actually spoken to Dja Dja Wurrung at that point in time. Both of those types of organisations are you know operating at a limited capacity I suppose. So, we just need to really ensure that those conversations have been had. So, those types of letters of support are mandatory.

Obviously, there's a budget in the online and paper-based application forms. There is a provision for you to put a budget in there, which is just quite simple. However, some groups may have a more complex budget and in that case you can, you know, do things like, for example, attach an Excel spreadsheet to your application that gives a much more detailed budget.

Be sure to list your target species. We are focusing on species that are declared under the Catchment Land Protection Act, specifically established pests, established pest animals, regionally controlled weeds, and regionally prohibited weeds. That said, you know, you don't need to just focus on one target species. It may well be that your application, you know, targets establish weeds in general across a particular geographical area including and maybe just list, you know, 4 or 5 of them, but not limited to those species.

We would like to obviously understand where you're operating. So, you know, you can provide us with either a map outlining your focus area or just general information or like described information.

We also want to see the outputs that you plan to deliver. So, that might be, you know, we're going to deliver 6 workshops over a period of 6 months, or you know, deliver 3 radio ads or one strategic plan or whatever the case may be. Again, in the application form, there is a whole lot of different types of outputs that are described in there. So that's designed to make it as easy as possible for you to just use drop down boxes to say, you know, workshops - 6, plans – 2, whatever the case may be. And obviously an ‘Other’ for if what you're planning to deliver doesn't fit into any of the boxes that we have prepared.

Also important to note your in-kind contributions. So, if you've got a heap of volunteer hours that are going to be contributing towards these your project, then obviously we'd really like to see that and understand, you know, how much funding you're sort of seeking. But you know how much your community groups contributing through boots on the ground and any other sort of in-kind contributions through donations or use of office space or anything along those lines.

Slide 17: So, how to apply. Obviously have a look at the AgVic website. The guidelines for your applications are now up on the website. The online grants portal is open.

So, what we would suggest is that you get on there, download the guidelines, have a thorough read through them, make sure that your group is eligible, work out what you want to focus on and where you're working on it, work through what your project plan and budget looks like.

And the next bit's important is that we highly recommend, strongly suggest that you contact your region's engagement officer just as a bit of a touch base with them. You know, give them an idea about what you're planning to do, what the objectives and outcomes look like, just to check with them to get some guidance and support. Ensure that you're on the right track in terms of meeting those objectives and outcomes. And they may well be able to make a suggestion in terms of other organisations that you might be able to partner with, other support that Agriculture Victoria might be able to provide you in terms of delivering your project. So, whether that might be, you know, sending one of our subject matter experts along to a field day or something to, you know, provide a presentation or along those lines in terms of best practise management, that type of thing.

So, I highly recommend you do that.

If you are going to planning on partnering with one of the community pest management groups, The deadline for you to have made contact with them is the 30th of September.

Now I've just put that deadline in place because based on some feedback from previous years where the community pest management groups got a flurry of contacts from potential applicants in the last three or four days prior to grants closing.

Obviously, we really want to avoid that situation this time around and give them a little bit more time to be able to provide you with the letters of support that are required and also allow them to be able to, you know, plan a bit better in terms of the potential applications that they might be able to be supporting.

The other thing that we've done this year is that the Community Pest Management Group application closing date is a couple of weeks after these Stream 2. So again, they'll be able to have a good understanding of what community groups have put in applications that will require their support and they'll be able to take that into consideration when they're doing their project applications.

So again, for anybody who applied last time around you, it was all paper based application forms. For this round, we have moved slightly further into the 21st century and created an online Grants account, sorry, an online grants application portal.

So, it's fairly straightforward, just need to follow the links into that, make an account and you can then put all of your information into the relevant online templates.

When you've got that account, it does allow you to obviously log in, be working on the grant, save your progress, go away, you know, and then come back to it later on that also, you know, it's got all of these boxes that you fill in, but it's also got the capacity for you to upload documents to it. So again, that will be your letters of support, any detailed budgets if you do want to go down that path.

Alternatively, for those who do prefer the paper base, we do still have a Word document based proposal form that you can use, and that then just gets emailed through to our partnershipsagainstpests@agriculture.vic.gov.au email address.

We have not updated this presentation, I've just noticed. Due to an issue with our online grant’s portal getting changed over on Monday the 14th, we have had to bring forward the close date to Friday 11th of October at midnight.

Slide 18: So, funding distribution as I've touched on earlier this year, we have made another change whereby projects you can apply for your project to run over one year or two years.

This is mostly to allow some of the smaller community groups that you know $10,000 was actually a bit too much for them to be able to deliver a project. So, you know, if this, if they apply for a $10,000 over 2 years, it does allow you know, $5000 per year or whatever other distribution you want to look at.

So how it works typically with a one-year project is that once we do the grant agreement, we'll pay 90% of the approved funding upfront. And then once you deliver us a mid-project report, you get the final 10% of the funding. And then we do ask that you submit that final report at the end of the project.

Similar thing can happen across the two-year project. It might be delivery of part of your 90% of your one-year funding, then 10% and then you know further funding delivered in year 2.

The two-year projects it could be just say you had a $10,000 grant could be $5000 in the first year and 5000 in the second year. Alternatively, you might do you know $2000 in the first year just to do your planning and $8000 in the second year to do delivery. However it works out, you know that that suits your project and your application for delivery of that over the two years is fine.

We do just note as well though that if you do fail to submit that final report, then does make you ineligible for sort of any additional funding in future years.

Slide 19: So next steps. Again, apologies, this has not been updated. Applications close at midnight on the 11th of October 2024. That's a Friday night.

And yeah, apologies, we did have to bring that forward.

We'll then have, we'll just run a first assessment through them, make sure tick off that they're actually all eligible.

They'll then go to our grant assessment panel and who will then make recommendations to our governance panel. Once they're comfortable with it goes to our Executive Director of Biosecurity Victoria. We'll send out contracts and letters of offer to our successful applicants. Successful applicants get announced, projects delivered and then our obviously our projects completed with our final reports received.

And I can see that Kirsten is making updates to this in the background. So, we now have the correct time and date there for our application closing date.

We will endeavour to ensure that our successful projects will be announced by the 6th of December.

And depending on whether you've got a one-year project or a 2-year project, your final report would either be due 30 Jan 2026 or 29 Jan 2027. So, there's kind of the 12 months to deliver it, plus, you know, an extra month checked on there for delivering the final report after the project's finished.

Slide 20: I'm just conscious of time here. Partnerships against pest, just an example of some previous projects.

Slide 21: So, South Gippsland Landcare Network has delivered a project around community led action for weed pest and weed control in South Gippsland.

They've partnered with a number of different organisations, including all of their auspice or community land care groups, show our councils, catchment management authorities, ourselves, AG Victoria and Traditional Owners.

And to do all of that, they have delivered a number of different activities, including a stakeholder seminar, done some engagement work with local Traditional owners for shared knowledge and management, established a number of regional control groups and developed management plans for each of those groups. And have been holding workshops with technical experts, including some workshops held and field sorry demonstration days held out in the field there.

If you do get onto the Agriculture Victoria website, there is a full list of the projects that were funded in Round 2. So, you can go through and have a look just at the basically a paragraph or two about what the project's about the organisation and the funding amount that was received.

Slide 22: So just a bit of inspo from some of our previous successful applications. We've had some people do working with some local schools, new resident education information packs. Those are particularly targeted at those areas where you've got a lot of like tree changes or lifestyle blocks, people moving into the area who might not have the knowledge that to be able to effectively manage weights and pests on their property. We've done videos and case studies partnering with national vertebrate pest management coordinators and developing strategic and community management plans.

Obviously, another one that has had a heavy focus is doing on country education with the traditional owners.

Slide 23: As I mentioned before, in the application form, there is space for you to outline what your output types might be. And we've just included a number of different examples as to what these output types kind of look like. So, you might have some publications like fact sheets, advertising, might be doing some mapping work. We've touched on field days, presentations, workshops, stakeholder forums, all sorts of different types of activities that you might deliver in order to achieve your outcomes.

Slide 24: OK, so. Wrap up, Q&A, resources.

Slide 25: All right, so I'm not sure that I've got anyone here to help facilitate this, but I will try and do it myself. So, as I've sort of mentioned right at the start, there is a Q & A icon at the bottom of the window.

I can say that there are a few questions in there at this point in time, so I'll answer those.

So, we've got: Will deer be eligible as a target species for this round of funding?

So unfortunately, no, deer are currently managed as game in Victoria and not declared as an established pest animal under the Catchment and Land Protection Act. So, that is a very heavy focus. I do know that some people have spoken about exclusion fencing that is relevant to deer. You know, I guess if that exclusion fencing, you can make it relevant to deer and potentially other established pest animals like pigs or goats, then that might be a way to look at that type of thing.

Who are the Regional Engagement Officers and how can we contact them?

Contacts are all online. However, currently we do just have two, we're undergoing recruitment for Oh sorry, and one of them is in an acting role at the moment. So, we are actually undergoing recruitment for two new positions at the moment.

So, if you are in the northern region, so anywhere from Mildura to Wodonga down to Bendigo, again, the maps are available online so you can see the region. Then your regional engagement officer is Alastair Campbell, up at the Wodonga office and again his email is available online. He is, at the moment because we don't have anybody for Gippsland, he will also be covering the Gippsland region.

In the Barwon Southwest, Grampians type region. We've got Doug May based at the Ballarat office over there and again he will also cover metropolitan area for this this round.

All of their contact details and further information about, you know which council areas those two are looking after are available on the Agriculture Victoria website and also in the in the grant guidelines document themselves.

Do we have good examples of urban fox control programs?

I might have to take that one offline for you. I wouldn't be able to answer that off the top of my head, but I think it's certainly something that we would be able to talk to you a little bit further about.

I know that in the last round there was some somebody did put in an application around, you know, camera trap monitoring and that type of thing around urban fox control. However, you know as you can appreciate it is an extremely complex issue. You know, doing baiting and that type of thing that we might normally do in more regional areas is quite the challenge in those in those urban areas.

You've mentioned that potential applicants that are not incorporated contact local government organisation to arrange an auspicing partnership, but local government organisations are ineligible as per the grant guidelines. Are local governments able to act as an auspice?

So, the answer to that would be yes. We would be happy to have your local government organisation act as an auspice as long as it really is the community group that is the one that is, you know, delivering the project. So, I suppose what we're sort of trying to avoid here is really just shifting state government money to other government organisations. So yeah, hopefully that answers that one.

Will Queensland fruit fly prevention and management programs be eligible after the current project closure in June 2025?

So, the answer to that one is no. Queensland fruit fly is, again, it comes back to a bit of a legislative anomaly here, but Queensland fruit fly is declared as a plant pest under the Plant Biosecurity Act. This project is very much focused on species that are declared under the Catchment and Land Protection Act.

So, it's heavily focused on our vertebrate pest animals. So, you know, foxes, rabbits, pigs, goats, that sort of thing. And weeds are the other species that fall under the eligibility here.

Is onion weed a declared weed?

Kate: Off the top of my head, I'm not 100% sure Ronald, but we do have links to our full list of declared weeds on the Agriculture Victoria website. I might see if Kirsten's there, if she's able to pop that link into the chat. Otherwise, I can send it out as well. It gives the full list of the species scientific names, but also, the common names as well.

Ronald: It seems to be registered as a declared weed in most states, but not SA. And I just wondered if that was what the national view was.

Kate: Then I again, I couldn't comment on the on the national view, but as long as forgiveness is a Victorian program, it it's really around whether or not it's declared in Victoria.

I've got a question, that we'd love to discuss, who should I contact?

So, the primary point of contact would be your regional engagement officer. So those people I just mentioned that's particularly if you want to discuss, you know, project ideas and that type of thing, then then that's the person that you can talk to.

If you do want to talk more about the sort of technical side of, you know, how do I submit an application and you know that type of thing, then you can just contact the project team. So we do have a generic email address that is just partnershipsagainstpests@agriculture.victoria.gov.au and you can direct any questions that you may have through to that email. And you know, we can either answer that directly or put you in like point you to the right person to answer that question.

So, can a consultant deliver a statewide program or do projects need to be locally or regionally based?

So, we have focused this stream to one on sort of local or regionally based just because of the fact that the CPMGS are operating on that sort of larger statewide program area. But we certainly would consider projects that are that are operating much more broadly. I don't think there's anything that we have that would really exclude that.

Are all land tenures eligible? We're looking at building community capability to work within road reserves, on private land, and on council managed land.

Yeah, absolutely. All land tenures are eligible, obviously these ones. So, I suppose because under the legislation that we're working under Catchment Land Protection Act, so landowners who you know, people who own property do have responsibility under that legislation to manage established weeds and pests that occur on their property. So, you know, what we really are looking at is probably primarily a focus on private land. However, we do understand obviously that as I mentioned right at the start, established weeds and pests do not respect land tenure. And we are also wanting these projects to have that heavy focus on building community partnerships.

And that means partnerships between, you know, potentially between community groups but also between government type organisations like your local council, like your catchment management authority and any of those other sorts of government or quasi-government type organisations.

So yes, certainly a project that looks at, you know, Rd reserves, private land and council managed land as a collective would absolutely be something that would be eligible for these grants.

All right, I think I have answered everything that's in the Q&A, so I'll just give it a minute or two just to see if any more pop up. And yeah, I believe that your ability to unmute your mic has now been put into place. So, if you prefer to ask something verbally, then by all means.

So just a couple of important key dates to summarise at the end here. So, as I mentioned, the contact deadline if you do want to partner with or you know, have a Letter of Support from one of the Community Pest Management Groups is the 30th of September. Applications will close at midnight or 11:59 technically on Friday the 11th of October. And we will be announcing the successful projects on 6th of December. There's the time frames are outlined there for your 12 month and 24-month programs.

And again, we'll send these slides out to you and each of these green underlined highlighted points on the slide here do actually take you to relevant links.

So obviously the first one is just a page that outlines the program very generally.

The second one, the grants program takes you to a page on the AGVIC website that is specifically outlines the grants program, includes links to the guidelines, links to how you know that your application portal, that type of thing.

This one's self-explanatory, Round 3, Stream 2 guidelines, takes you directly to the guideline document, and the contacts one down at the bottom does take you to a page that lists out who your regional engagement officers are and how to contact them. And also, you know that generic email address that I've mentioned a couple of times that will take you to our project team.

Bron: I've just had another query about responding in the chat so I can forward the correct answer to the current project board. Look, we can send you a follow up email after this webinar, if that, if that's suitable, might be the best way to do that.

Slide 26: Great, thank you. Wonderful. Well, I hope everybody's gotten something out of this today. Apologies for our range of technical difficulties.

We really, really look forward to seeing your applications.

And as I said, look, get in touch with those regional engagement officers, get in touch with the project team if you've got any further questions, clarification or you really just want to run a project idea past us, and we'd be really happy to hear that.

Thanks so much for your attendance.