Credit union Mecu bought a 200-hectare property from Trust for Nature last year for its world-first Landbank.

For every new property Mecu finances, it will set aside an equivalent area of native bushland to offset loss of biodiversity and protect the land from further clearing.

Kowree Farm Tree Group will manage the property on behalf of Landcare Australia.

Trust for Nature placed an environmental covenant on the land.

Tree group president Andrew Brady said the buloke and stringybark vegetation was a vital food source for the red- tailed black cockatoo.

He said about 100 hectares would be revegetated.

He said the group would appoint a manager who would collect buloke seed and then direct seed the property.

Works will start soon once a manager is appointed.

"Only two per cent of bulokes that were here before European settlement are still here," Mr Bradey said. "This block is a chance to put a fair lump of it back. The problem with conservation of bulokes is they grow on good land, like cropping land.

"It is very hard to put these services back because people have to sacrifice their land."

Mr Brady said the tree group wanted to provide a long- serving resource and research point for schools.

He said landowners in the area had welcomed the project.

"It is quite a different approach to conservation compared to what we have had before. There was a little concern about buying a whole property and planting across the whole lot, but before we go on we will talk to those who are concerned," he said.

Trust for Nature Wimmera regional manager Adam Blake said the property was one of 8000 the group had protected across Australia.

"In the next two years we will see a fair bit of work done with direct seeding and tree planting and restoration of the wetlands there," he said.

Mecu general manager Rowan Dowland said the revegetation project would add to the environmental value of the region.

"We aim to offset the loss of biodiversity by protecting what is left of forests across Victoria on private land," he said.