A body representing dry stone wall enthusiasts has called for heritage listing of the country's most significant constructions, before they end up as piles of rubble.

Dry Stone Walls Association of Australia (DSWAA) president Jim Holdsworth said many of the walls, which were built without mortar, were on private farmland and there was an urgent need to protect them.

"One of the great goals of this association is ... all those municipalities across Australia that have dry stone walls [should] recognise they have a responsibility to maintain them and work with landowners to achieve that end," he said.

Mr Holdsworth said there was friction between landholders and those who wanted to protect the walls.

Many farmers feel they have the right to bulldoze the constructions so they can better access parts of their properties.

"Farmers want more efficient farming practices, and if there is a dry stone wall running across their paddock and they can't get machinery in or their endeavours to be more efficient are blighted ... that is a problem," he said.

While there is evidence of dry stone construction by Aborigines as far back as 6,000 years ago, most of the country's prominent walls were built by skilled wallers from England, Ireland and Scotland.

Author of Those Drystone Walls, Bruce Munday, said landholders paid for the wallers to come to Australia during the 1850s and 1860s.

"They were craftsmen. A lot of those stations would have their own blacksmith, their own cobbler, their own saddler and they would have their own waller," he said.

Mr Munday said the longest continuous dry stone wall in Australia is the Camel Hump, which stretches approximately 65 kilometres from Farrell Flat to Booborowie in South Australia's mid-north.

He said it was built from the local sandstone by many wallers over a number of years and, while some has fallen into disrepair, much of it remains upright.

"The Camel Hump is impressive just by virtue of its sheer size," he said.

"It is such a monumental undertaking."

Dual role of clearing rocks, defining boundaries

The rabbits are still having a go at the Rabbit Wall. ( Supplied: Prue Adams )

Most of the dry stone walls extending across farmland had a dual role — to clear properties of troublesome rock, while also defining boundaries and paddocks.

When European settlers started taking up land in the early 1800s, their sheep roamed on fenceless plains and were guarded by shepherds.

But when gold was discovered in Victoria in the middle of the century, many lonely and lowly-paid shepherds deserted their flocks to try to make their fortune in the goldfields.

So pastoralists were left with the need to build fences, and those with abundant "paddock stone" built walls from the rocks.

While there are examples of dry stone walls across the southern states, including Tasmania, the Corangamite Shire in western Victoria is considered to be the "epicentre" of the trend.

Mr Holdsworth said "it is the second largest volcanic plain in the world, with 80 or so extinct volcanoes, so there's a massive amount of paddock stone".

The local pitted volcanic basalt features in a range of walls in a self-drive tour through the region.

The Rabbit Wall is one of the more significant structures in the region.

Built by the pioneering Manifold Brothers in the 1860s, its purpose was to halt the western march of rabbits across newly established farmland.

It was not very successful in stopping their progress, and to this day warrens around the base of the 20-kilometre-long wall reveal the pests are still causing trouble.

"Why you'd ever think building a 20-kilometre wall with a smooth face on one side would stop the spreads of rabbits, beats me," Mr Holdsworth said.

"But that's what they did and it stands as a wonderful piece, a folly in a way, but a wonderful ... use of dry stone."

Mr Holdsworth said only two councils were seriously looking at heritage listing of significant dry stone walls — Wyndham and Melton, both on the outskirts of Melbourne.

Nick Cole, whose family has run West Cloven Hills sheep station near Camperdown for six generations, said the cost of maintaining the vast expanse of dry stone walling on his property would be prohibitive.

"Well, if they want to heritage list it, I am happy for them to come and repair them too or help subsidise them," he said.

"Otherwise, they're just going to be a pile of stones in another 100 years probably, and there won't be any of them left."