Control and Compliance Evidence in One Program
Some landholders do not just want feral animals dealt with. They have to be able to prove it. If your land sits under a NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust agreement, a biodiversity offset or stewardship site, or you simply hold enough country that your biosecurity duty is a serious matter, then pest control is only half the job. The other half is the record: what was found, what was done, when, and by whom.
The Annual Stewardship and Compliance Program is built for exactly that. It is a managed, year-round program that delivers the control and produces the documented evidence in the same package. An initial property assessment sets the baseline, a scheduled program aligned to your management plan and the district’s coordinated timing does the work through the year, ongoing monitoring tracks the pressure, and an annual written report pulls it all into a record structured to drop straight into your annual report or evidence folder. One provider, one program, the work and the paperwork.
More than 1,600 permanent in-perpetuity private land conservation agreements now cover over 536,000 hectares across NSW (NSW State of the Environment 2024), and no private provider markets a service that both does the control and produces the annual-report-ready evidence these owners are required to keep. This program fills that gap.
Who This Program Is For
BCT agreement holders. Owners under a Biodiversity Stewardship Agreement or a Conservation Agreement, where the management plan sets ongoing obligations and, in funded agreements, ties the annual payment to completing them.
Biodiversity offset and stewardship sites. Sites created to generate credits, where the landholder carries the management obligation while the fund covers agreed land-management costs.
Serious general biosecurity-duty holders. Landholders without a formal agreement who run enough country, or high enough value country, that a scheduled, documented annual program is the sensible way to discharge the duty, rather than reacting when a problem is already out of hand.
If you want a light-touch watch on a block you do not live on rather than a full managed program, our Absentee-Owner Monitoring retainer is the better starting point, and it steps up into this program cleanly if the monitoring shows you need it.
What a Biodiversity Agreement Actually Requires
This is where accuracy matters, so here is the careful version rather than the sales version.
BCT agreements define a “Pest” broadly: any member of the animal kingdom specified as a pest in the site’s values report, or declared under a pest control order. Feral pigs, deer, foxes, and wild dogs can all sit within that definition. Where a site’s management plan lists feral animal control as a funded management action, that action is compulsory, and in a funded agreement the annual management payment is conditional on completing the funded actions and lodging the annual report.
The honest qualifier: the management actions are set per site, from the site’s own values report, so feral animal control is not automatically a requirement on every agreement. Some plans include it, some do not. The right question is not “do all agreements require it”, it is “does my management plan require it”. If it does, this program is built to deliver it and evidence it. If you are not sure, the initial assessment reads your plan alongside the property so you know where you stand.
The record-keeping side is more consistent. For funded agreements, the annual report is due within 14 days of the end of each reporting period, funded owners must retain receipts and invoices for the use of contractors for funded management actions, and the management plan is formally reviewed every five years. A professional contractor’s written report and invoice are, in plain terms, part of the evidence the agreement requires you to hold, which is why this program is structured to produce them in a filable form.
Underneath any agreement, the general biosecurity duty still applies, and so do any pest control orders or biosecurity directions. The agreement does not replace the duty; it sits on top of it.
What the Program Delivers
An initial property assessment. We map the species present, where pressure is concentrated, and how animals move across your boundaries, and we read that against your management plan or duty obligations. This sets the baseline the whole program measures against. See the full property assessment service for what that involves.
A scheduled year-round control program. Rather than one-off visits, the program runs to a schedule timed to your management plan and, critically, to the district’s coordinated baiting and shooting windows, because feral animals cross fences and control that ignores the neighbours does not hold. The mix of methods is set by the assessment and the species involved, as part of an integrated program rather than a single technique.
Ongoing monitoring. Trail cameras with AI detection and periodic thermal drone surveys run through the year, so the program adapts to real data and can show whether numbers are actually coming down, not just that visits happened.
The annual compliance report. At the end of the reporting period you receive a written report documenting what was found, what was done, when, and with what result, plus the contractor invoice. It is structured to drop into a BCT annual report or, for a duty holder, a “reasonable steps” evidence folder, so you are not assembling the record yourself against a 14-day deadline.
The Evidence, Not a Guarantee
It is worth being clear about what this program is and is not.
We do not sell a compliance guarantee, and we would be wary of anyone who does. Whether you have met a legal or contractual obligation is ultimately a matter for you and the relevant authority, not something a contractor can promise on your behalf. What we provide are the two things that are genuinely within our control: the pest management work, carried out to a professional standard, and the documented evidence that it was done.
On enforcement, we will not trade on fear. No NSW landholder has been publicly prosecuted specifically for failing to control feral animals, and we are not going to tell you a fine is coming. The direction of travel is real, with the NSW Biosecurity Compliance and Investigation Unit starting work in February 2026, but for an owner under a funded agreement the pressing driver is simpler and more certain than any prosecution risk: your management payment is conditional on completing the funded actions and lodging the report on time. That obligation is present now, whatever enforcement does later. This program is about meeting it well, with records you can stand behind. For the full picture of the duty itself, see our guide on what reasonable steps actually means, and on why control has to be coordinated to work, our guide on coordinated neighbour programmes.
Where We Provide the Program
- Hunter Valley: Stewardship and conservation-agreement country, offset sites, and high-value mixed farming managing pigs, foxes, and deer
- Northern Tablelands: Grazing and conservation land managing wild dog, fox, and pig pressure along the timber edge
- North West NSW: Larger holdings and offset sites needing a scheduled, evidenced pig and goat program
- Central West NSW: Mixed farming and agreement land managing fox, pig, and rabbit pressure
- North Coast NSW: Hinterland conservation and stewardship country managing deer and pigs in timbered terrain
We travel to your property for the assessment and the scheduled program, and you do not need to arrange anything beyond property access and a copy of your management plan where you have one.
Pricing
The Annual Stewardship and Compliance Program is built on our annual integrated tier, from $2,500 per year, covering the scheduled control program, camera and thermal monitoring, and the annual compliance report. The exact figure depends on your property size, the species and pressure involved, and what your management plan calls for, so every program is quoted individually. For owners under a funded agreement, the annual management payment is designed to cover the agreed land-management costs where pest control is part of the plan, which gives these owners a funded budget line for the work.
Carry an obligation you have to be able to prove you met? Contact Feral Up to talk through your management plan and your country. We will build a program that does the control and hands you the records to match.