Overview
South Australia’s Department for Environment and Water (DEW) announced on 24 July 2026 a $3.84 million funding allocation through the state’s Landscape Priorities Fund (LPF) for the 2026-27 financial year. The funds, sourced from a portion of Green Adelaide’s metropolitan landscape levies, will support 14 high-priority, landscape-scale projects delivered across South Australia’s eight regional landscape boards. More than half of the total allocation, specifically $2.1 million, is dedicated to projects grouped under the theme of building nature-based resilience to climate change, signalling a deliberate policy shift toward ecosystem-based adaptation at a regional scale.
For environmental professionals, this funding round is not simply a government grant announcement. It represents a concrete, funded pipeline of ecological, hydrological, and land management work that will require specialist technical input across marine ecology, catchment hydrology, soil science, and biodiversity assessment disciplines. The projects span geographically diverse regions from the Eyre Peninsula and Kangaroo Island through to the Flinders Ranges and the Hills and Fleurieu, meaning the demand for technical expertise will be distributed across the state rather than concentrated in metropolitan Adelaide.
For developers, landholders, and councils operating in regional South Australia, this funding round also redefines the stakeholder landscape. The regional landscape boards are statutory bodies with direct influence over development referrals, environmental approvals, and conservation offset negotiations. A board that has just received committed funding for specific ecological priorities in a particular catchment will approach referrals and offset proposals with those priorities front of mind. Understanding the funded programme for each board is therefore directly relevant to project planning, voluntary offset design, and environmental social governance (ESG) strategy for any proponent operating in those regions.
Key details of the 2026-27 Landscape Priorities Fund allocation
The $3.84 million allocation is administered under the Landscape South Australia Act 2019, which is the primary state legislation governing the establishment, functions, and funding mechanisms of South Australia’s eight regional landscape boards. The LPF draws on a portion of the landscape levies collected by Green Adelaide, the metropolitan landscape board, and redistributes those funds to support regionally significant projects that would not otherwise be funded through ordinary board operational budgets. The 14 projects funded in this round were identified as high-priority through the boards’ regional landscape plans, which are statutory planning instruments under the Act.
The largest thematic allocation is the $2.1 million directed at nature-based climate resilience, which funds several technically distinct project types. On the Eyre Peninsula, the funding supports native oyster (Ostrea angasi) reef recovery at Coffin Bay, with the project targeting improvements to water quality and marine biodiversity through reef structure restoration. Native oyster reefs are recognised internationally as high-value ecosystem engineers: a single adult oyster can filter up to 200 litres of water per day, and restored reefs provide measurable improvements in water clarity, nutrient cycling, and habitat complexity. On Kangaroo Island, the “Catchment to Coast” programme addresses water quality and catchment health across significant local waterways, integrating terrestrial and marine catchment management in a single funded programme. The Hills and Fleurieu region received a specific $325,000 grant for fire recovery works at Deep Creek and Tooperang/Nangkita, targeting soil stabilisation, erosion control, and management of weed, grazing, and predator pressures on fire-affected assets.
In the Northern and Yorke region, the “Reviving the Southern Flinders” project focuses on Buffel grass and feral herbivore control, habitat remediation, and riparian restoration within the Baroota Reservoir catchment. Buffel grass (Cenchrus ciliaris) is a declared weed under the Landscape South Australia Act 2019 and is widely regarded as one of the most ecologically damaging invasive grasses in arid and semi-arid Australia due to its capacity to alter fire regimes, outcompete native groundcover, and degrade riparian vegetation. The inclusion of reservoir catchment restoration is technically significant because the Baroota Reservoir is a water supply asset, and vegetation recovery in its catchment directly affects sediment loads, nutrient concentrations, and treatment costs for downstream water supply. In the SA Arid Lands region, the programme funds monitoring of water quality and flow from springs in the Flinders Ranges, establishing baseline data to inform future conservation and management decisions. Spring systems in this region support endemic and threatened invertebrate and plant species, many of which are listed under both state legislation and the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth).
The federal EPBC Act is a critical overlay for several of these projects. Any project activity that is likely to have a significant impact on a Matter of National Environmental Significance (MNES), including listed threatened species or ecological communities, requires a referral to the Commonwealth Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water for assessment under the Act. Kangaroo Island in particular hosts significant MNES populations including the Kangaroo Island dunnart (Sminthopsis fuliginosus aitkeni), listed as endangered under the EPBC Act, and a range of plant communities affected by the 2019-20 bushfires. Any catchment management, revegetation, or ecological restoration works in that landscape must be designed and delivered with EPBC referral obligations clearly understood.
Australian context: landscape funding, statutory boards, and development
South Australia’s regional landscape board model, established under the Landscape South Australia Act 2019, represents a significant evolution from the previous natural resources management framework. The boards operate as statutory bodies with both regulatory and investment functions, meaning they simultaneously influence the conditions placed on development and land use activities while also directing public funding toward ecological and land management priorities. This dual role is directly relevant to any proponent seeking development approvals or environmental offsets in regional South Australia.
The Landscape Priorities Fund mechanism itself reflects a deliberate policy choice to redirect metropolitan levy revenue toward regional conservation outcomes. Green Adelaide collects landscape levies from ratepayers across the greater Adelaide area, and a portion of those funds is pooled and allocated through a competitive, board-nominated process to projects of state significance. This cross-subsidisation model means that urban growth and development activity in metropolitan Adelaide generates revenue that directly funds ecological restoration and conservation work in regional landscapes — a linkage that has implications for how ESG reporting and offset narratives are constructed by proponents operating across both contexts.
For environmental consultants advising on development projects in the affected regions, the funded project list provides an early indicator of where the boards are directing their technical and policy attention. A board that has secured LPF funding for specific catchment restoration, invasive species management, or threatened species monitoring in a given area will have heightened institutional awareness of, and sensitivity to, development proposals that interact with those same ecological values. Early engagement with the relevant board — informed by an understanding of its funded programme — is therefore a practical risk management step, not merely a courtesy.
References and related sources
- Primary source: www.environment.sa.gov.au
- landscape.sa.gov.au
- climateinsider.com
- SA EPA
- EPBC Act
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This is an iEnvi Machete news summary. Prepared by iEnvi to summarise the source article for contaminated land, groundwater, remediation, approvals and site risk professionals.
Published: 28 Jul 2026
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