Just five years ago, Kaye Black stood on the same ground and saw a very different scene. Where grass now sways in the breeze, deep scars cut through the earth as an ever-growing gully stole more of her country with every storm. The land she loved was slipping away, piece by piece, and with it her hope for its future.
After spending years away from the property she first came to in the 70’s, Kaye returned with renewed purpose. With decades of experience and a growing passion for soil and pasture health, Kaye came back determined to heal the ground beneath her feet. Each decision since has been guided by that vision: to rebuild, to restore, and to leave the land stronger than she found it.
Stretching across 316ha of country north of Rockhampton, Sandringham Plains is a cattle breeding enterprise, where 80 to 100 head of cattle graze on rich pastures, moving from paddock to paddock.
Across central Queensland, the impact of land clearing is written into the land, and on Sandringham Plains it showed in a paddock where a gully grew wider with every storm.
Kaye couldn’t stand by while a gully ate away at her country.
“I could see I was losing the country at a very fast rate,” she said.
“It was getting worse and worse. Something had to be done.”
Kaye’s resolve to heal her country led her to a workshop in 2016, where a simple chat with FBA staff led to a visit to her property and a tailored property management plan with highly regarded Soil Conservation Adviser, John Day.
Together Kaye, FBA and John designed an erosion control rehabilitation strategy to stabilise and heal the gully and align with Kaye's priorities and vision.
The plan was simple, cost effective and featured tried and tested control methods.
The overarching principle was to slow the flow of water, reducing its erosive power and giving it time to soak into the earth and rehydrate the landscape.
By 2020, Kaye’s commitment to her land and the property management plan had reshaped the property, turning bare rock into thriving stretches of native pasture.
For Kaye, the results were rapid. As she gazed out at the sunset over her land, she reflected on the moment she first witnessed the work beginning to make a difference. “As soon as the Porous Check Dams were finished, we got a big fall of rain. I raced down there the next day, and it was instant how much of an improvement it was. You could see how much it slowed the water down,” she said.
“It was very exciting to actually see it working.”
Fast forward to 2025, Kaye no longer looks out over degraded land, her view is one of paddocks that can support life.
“Because the works have slowed the flow so much, the land is slowly regenerating all by itself,” she said.
But it was Kaye’s tireless dedication and careful grazing management that drove the change. Without her steady commitment and expertise, the land could never have healed so quickly.
In May 2025, Sandringham Plains became a living classroom as Kaye welcomed FBA’s Roots of Resilience workshop, giving staff, John Day, and fellow land managers a chance to witness how far the property had come in just five years.
John said it was brilliant to see how much the landscape has improved, with grass growing over the banks and in the bottom of the gully which was once barren.
“Prior to works there would have been silt and muddy water going out of the property and down the gully and the waterways. That’s reduced to less than 10 per cent. That’s huge for the environment and for Kaye,” he said.
“She has a reliable little paddock of feed there now that was completely bare before.”
The transformation of Kaye’s property reinforces FBA’s confidence in the practical solutions and erosion control methods they deliver to land managers across the region.
From her experience, Kaye has one piece of advice for fellow graziers— don’t wait. Talk to FBA and see how practical solutions can breathe new life into your property.
“I would not have found these solutions without FBA. Without FBA, the erosion would still be eating away at the land,” she said.
