Critically endangered grasslands in Tasmania’s Midlands were being destroyed by agriculture, but an innovative partnership has protected the remaining ecosystem – and local farmers’ profits

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When Tasmania’s lowland native grasslands were first recommended for national listing as a critically endangered ecosystem in 2007, mistrust between farmers and conservationists was high.

“We walked out of a stakeholder meeting in the Ross pub,” says Simon Foster, whose family have been farming on the Midlands since 1823.

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