STONY Rises farmer Lois Dupleix's first priority is to produce beef cattle.
But she accepts the special characteristics of some of the Stony Rises area between Camperdown and Colac has value other than cattle farming.
To many, the Stony Rises area is a place of rocky ridges interspersed with ephemeral swamps where old lava flows have made the area difficult to develop.
But Ms Dupleix loves the warmth of the area and its air of mystery, where the rocky and bushy terrain hides things from view.
"All sorts of animals can survive in there," Ms Dupleix said.
"Once you walk into the Stony Rises and the trees, the whole climate seems to change. You are out of the wind."
She said her Stony Rises country at Koallah was useful for winter grazing but she was prepared to consider conservation measures that could protect up to 61 hectares of bushland on her property.
Her main goal is to survive as a farmer but she also appreciates the beauty of the Stony Rises country.
"I think the two can go hand-in-hand," she said.
Ms Dupleix is among landholders the Corangamite Catchment Management Authority hopes to involve in its Stony Rises Woodland Recovery Project.
Project manager Chris Pitfield said the rocky lava flows through the area had made it difficult to develop and allowed a unique ecosystem to survive.
"The Stony Rises remains intact, the remnant vegetation is still connected on top of the lava flows," Mr Pitfield said.
"It's allowed it to be an active corridor.
"It's an important area for birds from the Otways who make this place their home during the colder times of the year.
"Birds from the north also go there from drought affected areas. It's a good halfway point for a lot of fauna."
Crevices in the rocky terrain provided habitat for animals such as the Corangamite skink, a small threatened lizard.
However, Mr Pitfield said there was not a lot known about all the local flora and fauna.
"We do not know a lot about what is there," he said. "We have got fauna records across south-west Victoria but there's a big blank spot for the Stony Rises."
Surveys, trappings and night vision motion-activated cameras are being used to find out if fauna such as spotted quolls had managed to survive.
The cameras have so far found no quolls but have recorded kangaroos and possums.
Further monitoring will look for bats in the area.
Mr Pitfield said natural resources agencies were also still learning how to best manage the Stony Rises vegetation.
"We are relying on landholders who have managed the vegetation for a long time," he said.
There were about 10,700 hectares of native vegetation in the Stony Rises, most of it under private ownership.
The Stony Rises bushland included in the project occurs in areas from south of Lake Purrumbete to Pirron Yallock, north to near Leslie Manor and south to Jancourt. Most of the vegetation was a unique woodland mix that dominated by eucalypts, he said.
"It is a mix of plants that have adapted to the Stony Rises. You do not see it anywhere else."
Mr Pitfield said information nights run by the project to raise landholders' awareness about what was known of the Stony Rises fauna and flora had received a good response.
About 50 people attended a recent night about the frogs in the area and another 40 attended an earlier session on local mammals.
Rock clearing to increase the productivity of farms in the area has raised concern of environmental agencies in the past but Mr Pitfield said the focus of his project was on intact woodland area.
Mr Pitfield said that under the recently announced Stony Rises Woodland Recovery project, landholders could receive financial incentives to manage their bushland in an environmentally sustainable way.
"It's a chance to reward the landholders for looking after the native vegetation over many years," Mr Pitfield said.
"It's about listening to what they (the landholders) want to do," Mr Pitfield said.
Landholders could also nominate the financial return they wanted to implement the management plan for four years with the bids entering a competitive bid process.
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