At their sheep farm in north-central Victoria, Jo and Greg Bear prove that wetlands and wool can thrive together.
In May 2025 we travelled through Bendigo and the surrounding region to listen and learn from locals along the Loddon and Campaspe rivers — tributaries of the iconic Murray-Darling River system.
We spent an afternoon with Jo and Greg Bear, a regenerative farming couple on Canary Island in north-central Victoria. Sitting around the campfire with steaming mugs of tea in hand, we watched the sun dip behind the red gums along the banks of the Loddon River – and were treated to a rare sighting of a Rakali, Australia’s native water rat.
Jo and Greg shared how restoring wetlands on their property has helped bring life back to the landscape, improve the health of their soil, and build resilience against drought.
“Nature is evolving all the time. It doesn’t sit still and instead welcomes diversity and change so it can flourish and thrive. In our business we aim to mimic what nature does so well; believing that by doing this we can also thrive. Reintroducing wetlands, making our rivers healthy, embracing our unique floodplains and welcoming a vast array of people with different skills and knowledge. This is what nature would do. It just feels right” – Jo Bear.
Greg’s family has deep roots in the area – they’ve been farming on Canary Island since the 1870s. Livestock farming runs through their veins – sheep mainly, but cattle too – and both Greg and Jo share a lifelong love for animals.
Like many Australian farmers, they faced enormous challenges during the Millennium Drought. At the time they had cattle, but no water: “We weren’t getting anywhere as farmers.”
That crisis marked a turning point. They enrolled in a holistic grazing management course, which taught them to move animals strategically across the land – “crash graze” and then move on, giving the soil six months to recover. Over the past 20 years, they’ve seen immense improvement in soil health, water retention and pasture growth.
Their passion for sustainable farming has expanded beyond grazing. In recent years, Jo and Greg have begun restoring wetlands on their property – bringing nature back to farmland with benefits for biodiversity, water health and climate resilience.
With support from the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund, and in collaboration with Barapa Barapa Traditional Owners and ecologists like Damien Cook from the Wetland Revival Trust, they’ve been revegetating key areas with red gums, native grasses, reeds and rushes. Just two years after planting, their wetlands are alive with birdsong, frogs and insects.
Waterbirds return in force – a sign that Jo and Greg’s restoration efforts are working.
Their work is part of a broader effort involving the Murray Darling Wetlands Working Group and community volunteers. School kids come to help plant trees and learn about water cycles. Environmental water is released to mimic natural flows.
The Murray-Darling Wetlands Working Group has helped pioneer the concept of environmental water. Over two decades ago, they were among the first to show that water could support both wetlands and agriculture – working alongside local landholders and Traditional Owners to return water to vital ecosystems.
Yet today, only around 2% of wetlands in the Basin receive environmental water each year. Scaling up a holistic approach requires more than goodwill. It demands public investment, coordination across governments and a stronger policy that guarantees water reaches the wetlands that need it. This is what our work with the Murray-Darling Conservation Alliance is working toward.
In addition to government support, Jo and Greg have partnered with private organisations like Country Road, which selected them as a sustainable wool grower to back through its Climate Fund. This partnership helped fund the creation of habitat for the Plains-wanderer, a critically endangered grassland bird that relies on open native grasslands to survive.
Ironically, because Jo and Greg have restored so much grassland, they now need to adjust their grazing practices again – grazing a little harder in some places to open up the vegetation for the Plains-wanderer to move and feed.
The critically endangered Plains-wanderer – a shy, ground-dwelling bird found in native grasslands. Jo and Greg’s conservation work helps protect vital habitat for this unique, critically endangered species. Photo credit: JJ Harrison, CC BY-SA 4.0
Restoring the balance – between conservation and production, between nature and people – is what regenerative farming is all about. And it’s working.
These wetlands and carefully managed pastures are more than just ecological success stories. They’re living proof that sustainable agriculture, wetland restoration and climate resilience can go hand-in-hand. As the Murray-Darling Basin faces increasing pressure from drought, over-extraction, and biodiversity loss, farmers like Jo and Greg show what’s possible when we listen to the land – and each other.