The Landcare movement is warning of an environmental crisis with climate change making it harder to complete projects or even access the areas that they are trying to rehabilitate.
Landcare groups say they still cannot get in to repair damage because access roads have not been re-opened in some areas affected by Black Summer fires two years ago.
And projects in south-east Queensland and the NSW Northern Rivers region that they have started have been "smashed" by recent floods.
Landcare led Bushfire Recovery Progam project manager Rowan Ewing said plants had only just gone in to some flooded sites.
"So they've lost weeks or months of work in revegetating important flooded areas," he said.
Australian Association of Bush Regenerators president Peter Dixon said he was seeing other problems such as landslides and the spread of weeds caused by the wet conditions.
"In some ecosystems too much rain might mean the seeds rot in the soil, or you're getting too much erosion," he said.
The challenge, according to Mr Ewing, was to adapt.
But he said the Landcare movement needed funding to figure out how to respond.
"We can't get moving quick enough ... but we need to understand the science of how to recover and rebuild those ecosystems, what species are going to grow where in five years, 10 years, 100 years."
In the last round of funding the organisation assessed 200 applications worth $21.5 million, but with just $14 million available they could only fund 111 projects.
Landcare Australia is currently negotiating a new three-year agreement with the federal government and is hoping for more money to meet the challenge.
Chairman Doug Humann said the recent State of the Environment report showed the climate was in crisis.
"We've known that for a long time, and we can talk about it openly now because there is a government that is determined to address those matters," Mr Humann said.
He said while the challenge was huge, he was excited about what Landcare could do to address the problems.
But others have warned the outlook is sobering.
Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions director Mark Howden said while all the talk was about keeping the rise in temperature to one and a half degrees, in reality it was likely to be double that.
"We're not addressing our emissions like we need too ... so at the moment we're heading to three degrees which will bring significant issues across the globe," Professor Howden said.
Despite the failure to address emissions, he said Landcare was ideally placed to do something about the environmental crisis the rise was creating.
"Landcare is particularly interested in increasing carbon above ground and below, and that can increase productivity and increase ability to handle future climates that are hotter and drier," he said.
Editor's note 31/08/2022: This story has been amended to clarify that in the last round of funding the organisation assessed 200 applications worth $21.5 million, but with just $14 million available they could only fund 111 projects.
