Future Drought Fund Resilient Landscapes Program

Overview

The Australian Government through the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (the department) is inviting organisations via an open competitive process to apply for a grant under the Future Drought Fund Resilient Landscapes Program grant opportunity. Up to $40 million GST exclusive is available over 6 years for projects commencing in May-June 2024-25 to 2029-30. Applicants can apply for a minimum of $2 million up to a maximum of $6 million GST exclusive. The focus and objectives of the Program is to demonstrate how the implementation and scaling of practices, technologies or approaches that manage natural resources on farm, build drought and climate resilience through improving landscape function and ecosystem services. Projects must aim for delivering public good by primarily building drought resilience, as well as contributing to broader climate resilience, across the Future Drought Fund’s 3 strategic objectives (economic, environmental and social resilience). Projects delivered through the Program will focus on achieving and measuring transformational change and impact at landscape scale by undertaking scenario planning to identify natural capital tipping points, or thresholds in landscapes – as social-ecological systems. Activities can then focus on managing these to keep the systems functional or transform when it is clear that the current systems are untenable and losing resilience. Through this, projects will enable farmers to be prepared for, and have the capacity and diversity of options to respond to drought. Projects will also promote learning and capacity building by communicating with farmers about the results of practices, technologies or approaches through demonstrations, field days and case studies. Applications must involve a consortium of partners, with a lead organisation nominated as the ‘applicant’. Each applicant must develop a theory of change for the project as part of the application process.