Traditional Owners, UNSW scientists, government and conservation groups have joined forces to rebuild Gayini wetlands and get the area thriving again.
Gayini - meaning "water" in the Nari Nari language - is part of 80,000 hectares of culturally and ecologically rich land in south-west NSW, owned and managed by the Nari Nari Tribal Council, an Aboriginal-led not-for-profit organisation.
Conservation scientists from UNSW Sydney's Centre for Ecosystem Science, supported by Charles Sturt University, Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, The Nature Conservancy, the Murray Darling Wetlands Working Group, and the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust, are working with the Nari Nari Tribal Council to measure how this landscape can recover after more than two centuries of land and water exploitation, practices that have led to ecosystem degradation, the spread of invasive species, and the decline or extinction of native flora and fauna.
"By restoring natural flooding regimes and managing livestock grazing, our collaboration with the Nari Nari Tribal Council is a study of how Country responds when it's given a new lease on life," said UNSW's professor Richard Kingsford.
A view of the Murrumbidgee River where UNSW researchers study how flooding and grazing shape surrounding ecosystems. (Image: UNSW Sydney/Richard Freeman)
The Gayini wetland is part of the Lowbidgee floodplain, a vast network of complex channels that crisscross the landscape.
Together with Yanga National Park, it forms the largest remaining wetland area in the Murrumbidgee Valley within the southern Murray-Darling Basin.
The Nari Nari Tribal Council manages Gayini with the aim of protecting and restoring the landscape and Aboriginal Cultural Heritage values, and creating sustainable economic value.
Nari Nari Tribal Council chair a Consortium of partners who assist in this management, including The Nature Conservancy, the Murray Darling Wetlands Working Group and UNSW's Centre for Ecosystem Science.
Knowledge about land management, culture and how to protect the rich biodiversity of the area flows both ways between Traditional Owners and conservation scientists from UNSW.
Kai Hearne is a ranger employed by the Nari Nari Tribal Council on the Gayini wetlands, and has been working in its conservation and land restoration program since 2022.
A proud Wiradjuri man from Griffith, Hearne was lucky to land his dream job at Gayini after stints working in building and retail that never really grabbed him.
"I wasn't really interested in school much," the 20-year-old ranger said. "Like, I honestly hated it! Then I saw a brochure for ranger work through the Aboriginal Learning & Education Centre, and I knew it was me."
"I'd always wanted to do something with national parks, and here I am, almost four years later."
Apart from being in an environment he connects with on vocational and cultural levels, Mr Hearne said he loves the variety of the work.
"It can really vary between different things," he said.
"One week I'm trapping pigs or running bait programs for foxes; the next I'm out doing vegetation surveys or moving cattle to new paddocks. There's always something happening out here."
One of the more satisfying parts of the job is seeing positive change in the Gayini landscape and knowing he's had a hand in making it happen.
"In the fox-bait program we do, we're actually seeing the outcomes of what we do. Like 80 per cent of the baits we laid out for the foxes were taken. So if we're putting out sometime, 600 baits at a time, that's a huge number. We're seeing a lot less foxes now since I've started," Mr Hearne said.
He added that he's learning ecosystem monitoring techniques from the UNSW conservation scientists while also sharing cultural knowledge about Gayini derived from thousands of years of land management preceding European settlement.
"Some of the old irrigation channels were dug straight through burial mounds. You can still see bones coming up on the banks after rain," he said.
"We spent a week covering them over with soil to protect them, not disturbing anything further. There's massive cultural significance out here — I think there's something like 13,000 recorded sites, and plenty more we haven't even found yet."
Mr Hearne is also helping run youth programs that connect local kids with Country and conservation work, something he wishes he'd had at school.
"We run a Triple C camp which stands for Connecting Country to Culture. It's with youths, like maybe 12 to 19," he said.
"We bring groups of boys out, some going through rough times, some not, and reconnect them with the land. It's great to see the transformation in them."
He hopes Gayini continues to thrive.
"If it looks anything like it does now in 20 years, I'll be happy - with maybe even more life coming back."
The research at Gayini centres on understanding how flooding and grazing shape the vast wetland ecosystems of the region.
These processes can influence which plants flourish, how weeds spread, and how the landscape recovers after disturbance.
"If we can understand the separate and combined effects of water and grazing, we can give land managers like the Nari Nari Tribal Council clearer tools for restoring Country," said Professor Kingsford.
"In particular, we're exploring how light grazing might help manage weeds without putting pressure on recovering vegetation."
To track how the landscape is changing, the researchers will return in April 2026 to measure more than sixty survey plots.
"These plots act as reference points across the wetlands, helping us understand how plant communities respond to different conditions over time," he said.
Professor Kingsford confirms restoration at this scale is an evolving work in progress. The team is continually refining approaches to bring these complex ecosystems back to health.
"Our major focus is to improve how data is collected and shared across the landscape, ensuring the Nari Nari Tribal Council has access to the most up-to-date information for managing land and water on their country," he said.
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