For Michael and Heloise Gooden, Willowlee, Sandigo, it was the Millennial Drought, which led them to adopt a new way of thinking about how they could be profitable but also maintain and indeed lift the ecological integrity of the farm which has been in the family for four generations.

"I knew we couldn't keep taking without giving back," Mr Gooden said.

"We have to look at our land and livestock capital but the human capital must also be considered."

In recognition of their land husbandry, they are the recipients of a 2022 Ecological Outcome Verification sponsored by Land to Market.

The verification has been done independently through the Savory Institute, beginning in 2018.

"Basically it is a totally independent verification to say that our landscape is improving," Mr Gooden said.

"They are looking at plant bio-diversity, ground cover management and soil carbon measurements and they have surveyed the natural ecology, including the bugs on our farm."

Tony Hill, from Land to Market said they study visual indications of the presence of 'bugs', but not of birds as part of the EOV protocol.

"The indicators that we survey under the EOV protocol are carefully selected to give a robust, but cost-effective indication of ecological health," Mr Hill said.

"These indicators show us the health of core parts of the ecosystem processes."

It was important for Mr Gooden to have his land management philosophy ratified and at the same time to be held accountable for the care of his land.

"This is an on-going process where we have some annual monitoring sites and we have some five-yearly sites," he said.

"I started this process because I wanted to have some measuremnt of what I was doing and to put some data around what we were doing and to check we were heading in the right direction.

"Also I think there will be a point in time when we will have to demonstrate our land management credentials to be able to access capital."

Mr Gooden said those credible outcomes will include the farm's natural capital and ecological sustainability aligned with continuing farm profitability.

"I'm really pleased we are are in position where we are ahead of the game," he said.

"We can now go to our lender and say, this is the information we have got - six years of grazing charts, we have Land to Market verification and we are also involved in another natural capital project with La Trobe University."

The verification states that on the 380 hectares of land owned by the Gooden's, they have complied with the standards and protocols, and have demonstrated the empirical outcomes necessary to receive the verification.

"We are doing things quite differently," Mr Gooden said.

"It was difficult socially to be challenged by what we are doing and people wouldn't talk to me about how we were managing our environment and our livestock"

But that has changed and now people are lining up to talk to Mr Gooden about his restoration of his land and how they might also benefit.

"I'm happy to share information and have a yarn with people about what I've been doing," he said.

One interesting facet of Mr Gooden's stock husbandry philosophy is that, except for the bulls, all of his cattle - cows, heifers, steers and trading stock are all run in one mob.

"I really like doing that from a maternal perspective because these heifers have seen what's going on and next year it's their turn," he said.

"There is data around which shows if you wean early and remove the animal they don't know the grasses, they don't know what's in season and I think that part of it is important."

To facilitate the restoration of his land, Mr Gooden has embraced a grazing regime where he moves his cattle according to the amount of feed left in paddock so it can quickly recover before the next grazing.

Portable electric fences are used to better concentarte the herd in a narrow grazing window and in the current wet winter with excellent pasture growth, he was in a pattern of daily moves.

"The pasture responds massively because it has been rested," he said.

"And this is the crux of what we are doing here - all of the plants are eaten but then the paddock gets a chance to recover."

Quite unlike set stocking where the more nutritious plants are continually eaten leaving the less palatable plants to become more rank and ultimately dominate the pasture sward.

"What we're doing is matching our pasture growth to how fast we move our cattle," he said.

"That is the crux of our whole grazing management - when it's growing quicker we move quicker, and when the pasture is growing slowly, when can in turn slow down the movement of the cattle.

"We really want to avoid the animals coming back to take that second bite of the plant."

Mr Gooden explained he grazes for the plants that he wants in his sward, not those which have no value such as roly poly, which are only in his paddocks because of past set stocking regimes.

"But these few roly poly plants don't really worry me because they are slowing disappearing due to the grazing management," he said.

"They have been like little haystacks where the grasses and clovers have been growing through them and which are eventually eaten by the cattle."

Mr Gooden further points to the re-emergence of native species which had been, under the set stocking regime, grazed out.

"We've got a lot of annuals in our pasture like ryegrass which is actually a bit of a powerhouse for us in the winter." said.

"What is coming back in are a lot of our summer perennials like windmill grass, Microlaena and Wallaby grass.

"What we are having difficulty getting back in are the winter active perennials like the Stipa varieties."

Mr Gooden believes the seed of those winter perennials are present, but it is taking some time for them to germinate and repopulate the pasture sward.

"It might be because there is so much competition from the annuals but from a production perspective, ryegrass and clover is very important for us during the winter," he said.

Mr Gooden recalls being told some time ago - ''If your landscape is degrading, then you are mining it: if you have a great ecology but you are not making money, you are a conservationist, but if you are making money and your landscape is improving then you are being regenerative."

"And we want to be in that space - not mining our country but we still need to be making a profit and we want our ecosystem to be functionally well," he said

"We are only stewards of the land, very privileged to be in this position but we are only here for a period of time."

Mr Gooden said his Angus stud was the first cattle stud in Australia, if not the world, to be awarded the EOV stamp.

"This shows that through our management, using cattle as a tool, livestock are a part of the solution to good land management outcomes, not the problem."