1974 saw me on a farm at West Cooroy on the great Sunshine Coast in Queensland.
 

Ah here the journey began!
 

An introduction to Permaculture and Biodynamics. Also much reading...Fukuoka The One Straw Revolution, Yeomans Water For Every Farm, Mollison and Holmgren Permaculture Two.
 

Three bulldozers later, I understood the power of NATURAL SYSTEMS. Fortunately this high rainfall area had a great capacity to recover from the wounds I inflicted with machines.
 

I began to learn about "stepping back & observing". Livestock self rotational grazing in an unfenced valley, a succession from grass pasture to groundsel bush, to acacia, and finally to eucalypt forest.
 

A lesson in diversity when a plague of army worms ate the entire landscape, however did not touch my farm (which had grown into its own diversity... pasture grass & legumes, weeds, shrubs and trees).
 

The journey then takes me to Dukes Plain at Theodore (Dawson Valley, Southern Brigalow Belt). 7900 ha of rich scrub soils, sandy forest, and sandstone escarpment.
Beef cattle grazing circa 1982.
 

The property had much natural regeneration across the previously cleared landscape.
Conventional wisdom said re-clear the lot. My learning from the Cooror farm & extensive reading screamed to me to retain some of the regrowth timber.
 

So what proportion should be retained? I began treating part of the property conventionally and re-cleared 800ha for cereal cropping. Other parts I began re-clearing with 20% retention (1983), then in 1988 I did some 50% retention, the remainder of the property I did no re-clearing.
 

To cut to the chase, by 2013 I had some 20 years of individual paddock yield data which clearly demonstrated that there was no benefit in the re-clearing on the land that was cereal cropped, while the timbers paddocks were literally kicking ass in both yield and landscape health.
 

The farm at this point was sold to a Coal Seam Gas consortium (for environmental offsets). It was purchased as not only did it have the vegetation regrowth communities they needed, but also was a literal hot bed of rare and threatened species!!
 

At this stage I had all the proof I needed to give credence to the value of setting up an agricultural landscape to deliver both outstanding production figures, and as well outstanding conservation outcomes.
 

2014 saw the purchase of the Kilkivan farm (141 ha). Located on the edge of a high population area, with good soils, adequate water, 2.5km from town, 3 hours from Brisbane Airport, great mobile connectivity, and a landscape cleared and farmed to within an inch of its life!!
 

What a project in landscape regeneration to keep me occupied!
 

Now 4 years on it's time to launch into the next phase... Young people, local food, community re-building.
 

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Let's do it!