Reef And Rivers Podcast

Woodleigh Station is a working beef cattle business that embraced sustainable landuse and grazing best practice. Management of stocking levels, extensive fencing and provision of of stream watering points are strategies adopted by the station to ensure long-term sustainability.

In this episode Greg talks to landholder Kate Wardell about their strategies and the implications for their business. In particular, the discussion turns to a project to stabilise a major erosion system on the station, with the construction of a fishway, bunding and reconfiguration of a dam wall, works undertaken under Terrain NRM's Upper Herbert River Sediment Reduction Project.

The Atherton Tablelands contains the headwaters for a number of significant Wet Tropics river systems, including the Herbert, Johnstone and Barron rivers.

The tablelands has a growing urban and rural population and boasts extensive agriculture including cane, bananas, numerous other fruit and vegetable cropping businesses and grazing properties. The region also attracts a growing number of tourists each year.

In this Episode, Tablelands Regional Council (TRC) mayor Joe Paronella explains the work that council does to balance the social and economic interests of the region with the environmental outcomes expected of a "Reef Guardians" council.

Cairns Recreational Fishing Industry Stakeholders (CAREFISH) is the peak body representing the recreational fishing industry in the WEet Tropics region and is a partner of Wet Tropics Waterways.

In this episode CAREFISH founder and spokesman Paul Aubin talks about his results in lobbying for more sustainable recreational and commercial fishing in the region.

The group successfully lobbied the Queensland Government for the implementation of a "Net Free Zone" in Trinity Inlet and the surrounding area in an effort to protect important breeding habitat for barramundi and other species. There is strong anecdotal evidence of the numbers and size of fish in the inlet has increased dramatically as a result.

Flooding in the Mossman Catchment during March 2018 resulted in substantial damage to river banks. Growers lost land and the river system and inshore reef areas were subjected to heavy sediment loads. Stretches of stream bank with vegetative cover or previous rock stabilisation remained stable throughout the floods and sustained minimal damage.

These observations led to the development of the Mossman Integrated Catchment Repair project, which aims to stabilise streambanks within the Mossman Basin. The project focuses on the Cassowary and Saltwater sub-catchments, which were selected for the potential to repair their entire reaches.

Vanessa Drysdale from Terrain NRM joins us on the Reef and Rivers Podcast to explain the project and it's goals in more detail.

The Holloways Beach Environmental Education Centre is a Queensland Education Department facility nestled between the mangrove-lined banks of Thomatis Creek and the beautiful Holloways Beach, a few kilometres north of Cairns.

Around 3000 primary and secondary school students from the Wet Tropics and Cape York regions attend programs and camps at the centre each year. Activities include waterway health monitoring, ecological studies and leadership programs.

Jen Mackenzie is affectionately referred to around the wet tropics as "Dirt Girl" or "Gully Jen" for her passion and successes in sediment and erosion management. Jen is the Sediment Reduction Program Leader with Terrain NRM.

Jen talks us through the existing Herbert River Sediment Reduction Program and the New Upper Johnston Sediment Reduction Program.

These programs involve whole of property plans on grazing properties to simultaneously enhance the health and productivity of pastures and reduce the potential for sediment transport through sheet erosion. Remedial engineering works are also undertaken at priority sites to remedy gully and streambank erosion.

The Cairns Airport is nestled behind an extensive mangrove wetland to the south and bordered by the Barron River and Redden Island to the north. This system is home to multiple species of mangroves and provides habitat for many animals from crabs to fish and even some endangered bird species.

Cairns Airport is among the busiest in the country and is the gateway for domestic and international tourists who visit the area largely to experience the Great Barrier Reef and World Heritage Rainforest. The airport takes environmental management seriously, as Environmental Manager Lucy Friend explains in this episode.

Cairns Airport has recently upgraded it's environmental management system EMS), undertaken cleanups of the mangrove areas and is hosting a mangrove walk on World Wetland Day, 2 Feb 2019.

The Crown of Thorns Starfish (COTS) is a natural predator of coral on the Great Barrier Reef and is thought to have been present in low numbers for thousands of years. As a result of human induced influxes such as nutrient loading and fishing pressure COTS "blooms" have become a threat to coral health.

The Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators (AMPTO) have run a COTS management program on reefs of key tourism and/or conservation value for over two decades. The program has demonstrated that COTS control is a useful tool for localised COTS management.

A side benefit of the COTS program has been the creation of training and employment opportunities for youths in the Wet Tropics Region, with participants enjoying an 85% employment rate on completion of the program.

In Episode 4 Greg talks to Rod Marti from Barron Catchment Care about the influence of urbanisation on waterway health and the initiatives being implemented in the Upper Barron area to reduce sediment loads from urban areas.

Rod explains how farmers in this area are often blamed for issues that originated in the urban areas upstream of their land and highlights the need for urban and rural communities to work together.

Rod also explains Barron Catchment Care's plan to promote implementation of Best Management Practice (BMP) for mixed cropping farms and support landholder adoption.