Our Investors
What funds do the Northern Rivers CMA receive ?
The Northern Rivers CMA receives funding through the NSW and Australian Governments to deliver natural resource management projects in the Northern Rivers region.
In 2007/08, the Northern Rivers CMA received a total income of $18M, comprising $14.155M in funding and $4.085M in retained earnings from 2006/07. Of the $14.155M funding, $10.303M was ‘base funding' (comprising State recurrent funding and Natural Heritage Trust funding), $3.852M was funded from a range of other programs and included interest earned.
How does the Northern Rivers CMA manage this investment ?
The Northern Rivers CMA prepares an Investment Strategy each year that details how this funding will be allocated throughout the region. Projects, works and activities that are funded are based on the priorities and targets of the Northern Rivers Catchment Action Plan.
The Northern Rivers CMA sometimes run incentive and grant programs under which eligible community groups and individuals can apply for funding to undertaken targeted works. For more information about current funding opportunities in the Northern Rivers CMA region, go to our Current Funding page.
Of the 2007/08 income, the Northern Rivers CMA expended $16.875M, of which $5.116M was "opportunistic" investment, secured from programs including the National Landcare Program, State Salinity Program, Unallocated and Cross Regional NHT, NSW Environmental Trust and Envirofund. Sourced from competitive processes, this additional funding demonstrates the Northern Rivers CMA's ability to secure available additional NRM investment to assist the Northern Rivers community to achieve CAP and NRM outcomes. $12.974M (total income excluding recurrent funding) was directly invested in regional NRM projects and $3.900M (23%) addressed the operational costs of the organisation.
What is acheived with this funding ?
During 2007/08, 522 NRM projects were undertaken in the northern rivers region, of which 420 were delivered under contract through the Northern Rivers CMA. Seventy seven percent (77%) of these contracted projects were externally managed by regional NRM providers, NGOs, state agencies, local government, utility providers and individuals, directly injecting $10M into the regional economy. This contract-delivery model, purposefully adopted by the Northern Rivers CMA in 2006, maximises leverage and partnership potential by building capacity within the community to address NRM issues and supports a growing local NRM industry.
Investment made during 2007/08 aimed at building on earlier organisational strategies to achieve a well resourced, competent community-based NRM industry, with access to incentive and market-based funding schemes and strong links to both local and state agency natural resource managers. It achieved this by focussing on projects that brought:
- A continued emphasis on community engagement
- Continued development of partnerships with NRM providers and agencies
- Successful on-ground works and activities
- Successful landholder engagement and incentive Programs
Investment in NRM activities also aimed to achieve both State-wide targets for change in resource condition and standard Australian Government outputs for NRM by delivering on the Management Targets contained within the Northern Rivers Catchment Action Plan. For more information on our program performance, download the Northern Rivers CMA 2007/08 Annual Report (due for public release Jan 09).
