Helping the Planet,
One Landscape At a Time
Our Mission
To build resilient landscapes by educating landholders, organisations and governments on Natural Sequence Farming.
Our Vision
To lead the world in understanding how landscapes function whilst empowering people to restore them to be more resilient, productive and healthy.
The best solution for major climate recovery has been with us from the very beginning...
Peter Andrews
Our Story
50 Years of Natural Sequence Farming being practised
The story behind Tarwyn Park Training begins in 1974 when the Andrews family moved to ‘Tarwyn Park’. Tarwyn Park was a run-down, salinised, seriously eroded and degraded former horse stud. Like most Australian farming land Tarwyn Park had been faced with over two hundred and thirty years of clearing, burning, farming, overgrazing and draining of the landscape by our forebears, which as a result, had produced a very different landscape to the one that was present in 1788.
Our farming practices have degraded and desertified landscapes the world over.
Peter saw this and realised we were doing things all wrong. He saw the landscape around us falling apart and yet at the same time it provided all the answers if we just stopped and observed how it operated. This understanding of landscape function, became known as Natural Sequence Farming, a system in which land stewards manage their landscapes in symbiosis with the natural sequences present in the landscape.
Our first cohort of graduates from Tarwyn Park Training in 2012.
From Humble Beginnings
Tarwyn Park Training was founded in 2012. It was started as a way of developing a training program to help deliver PA’s (Peter Andrews) knowledge of landscape function, hydrology & restoration.
We began sharing our understanding of Natural Sequence Farming with landholders. Teaching the core principles of Natural Sequence Farming with a large focus on the practical components of putting it into practice, leaving our students with the knowledge for them to go home and introduce Natural Sequence Farming practices into their landscapes.
Our first course was run that same year, in 2012, at Tarwyn Park and run by Stuart Andrews, Duane Norris and Gwyn Jones. Since then, the team has expanded alongside what we do to help you, going from a single course to now offering education, support, mentoring and construction services.
We strive to provide you with the best learning experience and to equip you with the understanding, skills and know how for getting started on your journey to creating a landscape that is more resilient, productive and healthy.
Our Team
This is our team, a group with a shared vision of seeing functioning landscapes and empowered people creating a driving force for positive impact.
We have years of experience practising and teaching Natural Sequence Farming. And we are working hard to share that with you.
A Natural Succession
As you will see, each team member has a plant name listed with them. There’s a story behind this that goes back to our first course. We talk about a succession of plants beginning with a primary coloniser - and it’s no different with people. We need those originators with new ideas who work towards making change.
So, of course, Peter being the visionary and quite early in succession, is quite prickly and was given the plant of a Boxthorn, while Stuart being a little bit later in succession and so a little less prickly, was given a Blackberry. And so the succession goes from there - resulting in a diverse team of people at different points in the succession of change.
Stuart Andrews
Founder
Blackberry
Rubus anglocandicans
Peter Andrews
Originator of NSF
African Boxthorn
Lycium ferocissimum
Adam Willson
Educator
John Fry
Educator | Landscape Planner | Landscape Reader
Common Reed
Phragmites australis
Shane Joyce
Educator | Landscape Planner | Landscape Reader
Adrian Drew
Educator | Landscape Planner | Landscape Reader
Megan Andrews
Administration & Support
Hamish Andrews
Marketing, Sales and Support | Educator in Training
