THE 2025 BOB HAWKE LANDCARE AWARD WINNER ANNOUNCED

Congratulations to Holbrook Landcare Network, the 2025 winner of the prestigious Bob Hawke Landcare Award.

Holbrook Landcare Network from New South Wales leads the way in encouraging action and championing the uptake of more sustainable agriculture practices among landholders, farmers and primary producers. 

The Bob Hawke Landcare Award is a prestigious national award that publicly recognises an individual, group or organisation that has been involved in championing landcare and inspiring others to take action on their property or in their community. The award acknowledges the remarkable commitment to improving land and natural asset management, and promotional efforts to share their knowledge and support others.

The Bob Hawke Landcare Award accepts nominations from individuals, groups or organisations who have demonstrated leadership and a commitment to natural resource management and sustainable land management practices through:

• actively shaping and guiding innovative farming systems to improve sustainability and the quality of ecosystem services
• encouraging action and championing the uptake of more sustainable agriculture practices among landholders, farmers and primary producers
• creating awareness of the benefits of landcare to actively caring for the land
• mentoring and/or inspiring others to adopt best practice conservation land management practices to restore, enhance and protect the natural environment
• demonstrating an outstanding commitment to responding to environmental challenges into actionable, community-led solutions for biodiversity conservation, supporting threatened species and/or improved sustainable agriculture.

The Bob Hawke Landcare Award recipient will be awarded a grant package to the value of $30,000 (ex GST) for further development of their knowledge and skills in sustainable land management to enable an even stronger contribution to landcare.

The winner of the 2025 Bob Hawke Landcare Award will be announced at the National Landcare Awards Gala dinner on Tuesday 23 September, 2025. The prize includes a travel and accommodation package to attend the awards event.

The Bob Hawke Landcare Award is funded by the Australian Government’s Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Landcare Australia Limited administers the Bob Hawke Landcare Award on behalf of the Australian Government.

The Bob Hawke Landcare Award acknowledges the role of former Australian Prime Minister, the Hon. Bob Hawke AC, played in elevating landcare from a grass-roots community initiative to a national movement with enduring bi-partisan government support.

In 1989, Bob Hawke declared that 1990 would initiate the Decade of Landcare and he asked the community to join in efforts to achieve an ecologically sustainable future. Bob Hawke continued to champion the landcare movement and Landcare Australia until his passing in 2019.

 

“I am very pleased to maintain an association with Landcare through this award, named in my honour. The Decade of Landcare initiative I declared in 1989 has now spanned well over three decades. This in itself highlights the need and willingness by community volunteers to continually raise awareness and participation in activities directed at protecting the environment and giving their continued support to ensure that the practice of sustainable farming remains paramount.”

The former Australian Prime Minister, the Hon. RJL Hawke AC.

Charlie Arnott, NSW Charlie is a biodynamic farmer and grazier, who practices; regenerative farming, organic, biodynamic and holistic grazing principles on his 5000 acre mixed farming property, Hanaminno, at Boorowa, NSW. Charlie has won several agricultural industry awards for leadership, resource management and conservation. He has been an active Landcarer since the inception of the Landcare movement in 1989, with previous roles in all levels of Landcare, from district groups to the Sustainable Farming ambassador for Landcare Australia. He is passionate about growing clean healthy meat, which he sells direct to customers and butchers under his brand Charlie Arnott Natural Grass Fed Meat.

Simon Falkiner, VIC Simon’s 600-acre mixed-enterprise family farm at Freshwater Creek produces meat merinos, cereals and oilseed crops, while prioritising farming techniques that preserve the land’s biodiversity. Simon’s focus on maintaining soil health and his integrated pest and grazing management has made him a leading advocate for best-practice Landcare. His farm has hosted long-term trials, testing everything from soil acidification and biology, to pasture cover and cropping. He’s also undertaken extensive riparian restoration along Thompsons Creek to protect remnant vegetation, and assisted in monitoring the threatened Yarra pygmy perch and growling grass frog.

Dr Graeme Stevenson, TAS Dr Graeme Stevenson, from Somerset Tasmania has 55 years of agricultural experience running his family farm as a farm labourer and manager, through his tertiary agricultural education, dairy extension and research, as an agricultural consultant and rural journalist. He has worked with Tasmanian dung beetles and agricultural earthworms in soil management since 1988. Graeme is a volunteer with the Elliott and Wynyard Landcare groups since 1993, as well as Somerset and Camdale Coastcare, Burnie Farmers Market and Tasmanian Organic groups. He has initiated and managed 27 Landcare/organic farming projects attracting $1.4m in grants majoring in on-ground works. Under the pseudonym of Dr Spluttergrunt, Graeme has acted out his ‘soil care’ presentation to over 60 schools. He has  20 years of applied research into organic and biological agriculture as sustainable farming.