Where once its monthly meetings were routinely held in Forbes, the board has made the decision to rotate meeting venues across the catchment, with Cowra the first stop.

Lachlan CMA General manager Chris Glennon said the idea pushing the venue rotation was to help board members see more of their charge.

“We have board members from throughout the Lachlan Valley and we want them to see all of the different communities across the catchment,” Mr Glennon said.

“The Lachlan Catchment stretches from Gunning, near Goulburn, through to Booligal, in far western NSW, so it’s a huge area with lots of different communities.”

Mr Glennon also said it was a chance for the board members to see the organisation’s multiple office locations, personally meet and catch up with the staff and look at the different kinds of projects underway in each office.

The Lachlan CMA has ten decentralised office

locations in the communities which it services.

In Cowra last week, they learnt about the new Lachlan Salinity Action Program, which aims to improve

planning, education and awareness of salinity in the catchment.

Also discussed at the Cowra meeting was the wrapping of projects funded under the old Howard Government’s National Heritage Trust, while looking at the new funding announcement from the Rudd government.

Called Caring for Country, the two billion dollar plus environment program amalgamates the National Heritage Trust with other environment programs set up by the Howard Government.

Mr Glennon said details regarding the program were still scarce, but the announcement gave certainty to people working on Natural Resource Management projects that funding will continue..

Photo: Catching them together: Lachlan CMA board members John Sutherland (Condobolin); Chair Robert Gledhill (Boorowa); Mary Ewing (Forbes); General manager Chris Glennon; Mary Goodacre (Eugowra) and David Marsh (Boorowa) in Cowra last week. Absent were Peter Laird (Hillston) and Dennis Moxey (Forbes).