Farmers: Mark and Helena Collins
Property: Unumgar, 3245 ha in size with 200 ha dedicated to grain production and remainder supporting 380 breeders sold on the EU market.
Location: 30 km west of Moura
Project details: Purchase and modification of planter and other machinery to convert to controlled traffic farming.
Landholder investment: $37,000
Reef Rescue funding (Australian Government): $15,000

Making the switch to zero till cropping sooner rather than later has already proven a good decision for mixed enterprise farmers Mark and Helena Collins.

Through Fitzroy Basin Association’s Grains Best Management Practice (BMP) program, funded under the Australian Government’s Reef Rescue, the Collins’ gained the motivation and support needed to improve their systems including purchasing a new planter that allows them to retain winter wheat stubble during the summer months.

During the recent extraordinary wet season experienced in central Queensland, Mark said the retained stubble had done a “magic job” of holding the topsoil together. This is despite paddocks on Unumgar receiving more than 400mm of rainfall, with 125mm coming in just one 24 hour period.

Mark said the Grains BMP program and incentive funding from Fitzroy Basin Association helped him commit to, and adopt, controlled traffic farming much quicker with minimal capital costs.

Location: Mc Ivor Valley, Jeanie River Catchment.
The project: Boruca Farms has 80 hectares under production, and currently fertilizers are spread by hand. Soil tests have shown that this is inefficient. All of the orchards and cultivated areas are on slopes, and during heavy or constant rain excess fertilizers run off into the spring systems, the Mc Ivor River, and into the ocean at Cape Flattery. By installing 2 dosing pumps, the amount of nutrient run off will be drastically reduced.

Investment: $21,806
Collaborators: Cape York Sustainable Futures, Australian Government and Boruca Farms

Achievements:
• Reduced fertiliser application
• Reduced fertiliser runoff
• Improved plant health and reduced need for pesticides
• Improved root structure and infiltration

Location: Mackay Whitsunday, Burdekin, Ingham and Tully regions
The project: Project Catalyst is a pioneering partnership between Reef Catchments Mackay-Whitsunday, Coca-Cola Foundation, WWF and regional sugarcane farmers with support from the Australian Government’s Reef Rescue program. NQ Dry Tropics and TERRAIN have recently come on board to assist with delivery of the program in neighbouring catchments.

Project Catalyst aims to develop, validate and promote innovation by sugarcane farmers in north Queensland – to help improve water quality flowing to the Great Barrier Reef.

Investment: $1 million (US) by Coca-Cola Foundation, $640,000 by Reef Rescue, $100,000 by Mackay Sugar and $650,000 by sugarcane growers
Collaborators: Reef Catchments Mackay-Whitsunday, NQ Dry Tropics, TERRAIN, Coca-Cola Foundation, WWF, 50 sugarcane farming businesses, Australian Government, Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation, Prose PR, IAR, Ag Data Services Pty Ltd and Mackay Sugar.

Achievements:
• Improved water quality of more than 24,000 megalitres of run-off and drainage water
• 19 sugarcane growers completed nutrient, chemical and soil management precision plans based on soil types, yield maps, weed pressure and new application equipment

Reef Rescue aims to improve the water quality of the Great Barrier Reef lagoon by increasing good land management practices that reduce the run-off of nutrients, chemicals such as herbicides and pesticides and sediments from agricultural land. Queensland’s reef regions, in partnership with industry groups have already coordinated projects which improve land management projects over more than half a million hectares of land.

Since 2008, Queensland’s regional groups, along with their industry body counterparts have achieved the following Reef Rescue outcomes:

• Over 3360 land managers have been engaged in farm planning, risk assessment and training in nutrient and pesticide management and groundcover management
• 2,000 of those land managers received water quality grants and entered into a contract to change their practices
• 1,437 crop growers entered into contracts with regional bodies to improve their practices over 473,000 hectares of land
• 1,195,000 hectares of land bordering the Reef is now farmed under improved management practices through industry best practice
• Landowners received $41 million worth of incentives and added another $71 million of their own cash or in-kind labour and equipment

Location: Bunya Mountains
The project: Bunya Mountains Murri Rangers have been working alongside Queensland Parks and Wildlife Rangers at Bunya Mountains National Park. In 2010, the Elders Council was formalised consisting of the four Traditional Owner groups for the Bunya Mountains: the Wakka Wakka, Djk-unde Djk-unde, Jarowair and Barrungum Peoples.

Investment: $2.04 million
Collaborators: Burnett Mary Regional Group, Condamine Alliance, SEQ Catchments, Bunya Mountains Elders Council, Australian Government, Markwell Consulting, Department of Environment and Resource Management, Western Downs Regional Council and Southeast Queensland Traditional Owner Alliance.

Achievements:
• On-going full-time employment of 4 Murri Rangers
• Management and restoration of the unique Bunya Mountain grassland balds and other significant natural and cultural assets
• First fire lit by a Traditional Owner in the region in more than 100 years

Location: Thargomindah Station, Thargomindah, south west Queensland
The project: the Kullilli burial ground is of critical cultural importance to the Traditional Owners of the region. The site has been significantly disturbed by road construction, sand removal, stock access and recreational use. Located adjacent to the Bulloo River, the area is surrounded by stone artefacts and camp sites with significant evidence of long-term occupation.

Investment: $123,110
Collaborators: South West NRM, Kullilli Traditional Owners, Ian Dicker (Thargomindah Station), Bulloo Shire Council, Far South West Aboriginal NRM Group, Australian Government, Epic Energy and Queensland Government.

Achievements:
• 3.8 kilometres of high integrity fencing, encompassing 37 hectare sandhill and burial ground
• Interpretive signage
• Employment of Aboriginal people
• Archaeological survey (conducted by Queensland Government’s Cultural Heritage Unit)
• State Heritage Registration currently being sought
• Reconciliation opportunity for the region

This project aims to capture and record the Traditional Knowledge of the Northern Gulf before it is lost to future generations. It covers the country of the 6 Traditional Owner groups: Kurtijar, Tagalaka, Ewamian, Djungan, Barbarrum and Western (Kuku) Yalanji. The area covers 5% of the Queensland land mass – approximately 94,000 km2.

The project records the knowledge of elders and takes them back on Country with young people to identify, map, record and practise culture. This includes identifying and recording sites such as rock art, stone tools, quarry sites and scar trees, and story places, bush tucker and medicine and land management practices.

Investment: $336,500
Collaborators: Northern Gulf Resource Management Group, Northern Gulf Indigenous Savannah Group, Australian Government, Christensen Foundation and Queensland Government.

Achievements:
• People from the six language groups have completed a Certificate III in Land Conservation and Management
• Local people are employed as Cultural Recording Officers overseeing the recording of their own Traditional Knowledge in a culturally appropriate manner
• Data collected is stored in a central database
• The project will result in local landholders being able to reinstate Traditional land management practices to improve the health of the Country, its ecosystems and biodiversity

Location: Mackay-Whitsunday region
The project: Island Task force is part of Reef Catchment's Island Rescue project. It aims to recover areas of critically endangered littoral rainforest and protect island ecosystems from erosion, weed invasion and other threats.

Investment: $539,000
Collaborators: Reef Catchments Mackay-Whitsunday, Wild Mob, Eco Barge Services, Society for Growing Australian Plants, Department of Environment and Resource Management, Farrier Island Coastcare and Mackay and District Turtle Watch.

Key achievements:
• Recovery of areas of critically endangered littoral rainforest (beach scrub) through the removal of herbaceous and woody weeds and the re-establishment of natural recruitment
• Sentinel weed surveys designed to strengthen biosecurity within island ecosystems and establishing early detection systems to identify new weed invasions
• Removal of more than 50 tonnes of marine debris, notably plastics, netting, rope and cordage
• Establishment of erosion control measures on mainland and island beaches
• Support and establishment of community based monitoring programs for turtles, migratory shorebirds and fringing coral reefs
• Public education campaigns to involve and attract the community in conservation of the islands and coastal zone

On March 11, 2009, the Pacific Adventurer, caught in Cyclone Hamish, spilt 270 tonnes of oil into Moreton Bay Marine Park, off the coast of Moreton Island. The resultant oil slick damaged beaches, rocky reefs and wetlands on Moreton Island, and beaches and mangrove wetlands between Bribie Island and Coolum on the Sunshine Coast. The oil spill is recognised as one of Queensland’s worst environmental disasters.

Following the emergency clean up, the Australian Government allocated $2 million to SEQ Catchments to implement a community-based environmental restoration program. SEQ Catchments devolved this funding to six partners: Birds Australia Southern Queensland Branch; Moreton Bay Regional Council; Moreton Island Protection Committee; Quandamooka Land Council and the Department of Environment and Resource Management; SEQ Traditional Owner Alliance; and Sunshine Coast Regional Council.

Total investment: $2 million

Key achievements:
• 21,500 plants propagated / planted
• 145 hectares vegetation rehabilitated
• 2,600 metres protective dune fencing installed
• 20,000 birds identified
• 14,000 hectares of pest animal control
• 29 training workshops
• 1,400 people involved

The Upper Gilliat Weed Management Group formed in 2009 when neighbouring landholders joined forces to clean up their own properties and reduce the westward spread of prickly acacia away from the Prickly Acacia Containment Line. This prickly acacia project was the group’s first and highlights the success that can be achieved by landholders initiating projects and working in collaboration with regional NRM bodies to reduce impacts and prevent the spread of weeds.

Location: Upper Gilliat River sub-catchment of the Flinders catchment

The project: aims to reduce the westward spread of prickly acacia away from the Prickly Acacia Containment Line.

Investment: $332,400
Collaborators: Southern Gulf Catchments, Upper Gilliat Weed Management Group, Biosecurity Queensland, Australian Government and local landholders.

Key Achievements:
- Engaged eight landholders on nine properties: Cairo, Rutchillo, Redland Park, Eulolo, Will Camp, Penola Downs, Kooroora, Glen Bede and Wolseley Downs
- Targeted an estimated 10,000 hectares of prickly acacia ranging from young saplings to mature trees
- High kill rates were usually seen, however due to successive good wet seasons the amount and density of regrowth is extremely high and follow up work is being carried out with further funding