Sacha Boodja Water Project

The Sacha Boodja Water Project aims to be a demonstration site for showing how human intervention can help restore the small water cycles by slowing water down and allowing it to be received by the landscape for the benefits of all beings - humans, crops, stock, native plants, animals and fungi and biodiversity in general.

These interventions help prevent drought, fire and flood, recharging ground water and allowing life in the biosphere to thrive. The small water cycle has a significant impact on local heat dynamics, enabling resilience to climate change.

Sacha Boodja sits at the top of the Swan-Avon and Blackwood River catchments. The top of a watershed is the ideal place to start with these interventions because the benefits flow on downstream. It also helps prevent salinity issues by keeping freshwater fresh.

Sacha Boodja itself has been in regeneration since the current custodians, Rumi and Mandakini bought it in 2009. The Water Project will give it an extra kick since there are no water bodies on the property currently and plenty of room for larger scale water retention interventions.

We hope that the work at Sacha Boodja can inspire this kind of restoration in the rest of the Swan-Avon and Blackwood catchments, and the wider Wheatbelt. We will hold water and restoration education events, with the progress and stories shared to Water Project donors and through WA Water Alliance channels.

At this time we are fundraising for the first phase of the project which involves constructing an upper pond to hold water in a key location in the landscape. This requires the hire and use of an excavator to construct the pond, plus revegetation around the pond area and catchment and fencing to keep the sheep away from the pond. During the time we have the excavator on site we will also test dig at a lower location where it may be possible to have a pond holding water year round.

The kind of ponds in question are earthen dams, where the wall or key of the dam is impermeable, yet the sides of the pond are permeable, holding water back enough to encourage it to infiltrate back up the landscape, developing the soil sponge and giving biodiversity a great boost.