Media Release
8 May 2013
Four organisations across FNQ are bringing together some of Australia’s leading carbon farming specialists at this year’s FNQ Field Day, which takes place 29 – 30 May at Mareeba.
Northern Gulf Resource Management Group, Southern Gulf Catchments, Cook Shire Council and Terrain NRM are providing visitors to the field day with a jam-packed schedule of presentations and workshops as well as technical natural resource management information and extension services.
Terrain NRM has been successful in securing $825,000 from the Australian Government’s Caring for Our Country initiative for a project to save Mahogany Gliders, Cassowaries and Littoral Rainforest affected by Cyclone Yasi.
The project, Building Resilience for Cassowary, Mahogany Glider and Littoral Rainforest, will increase and improve habitat by supporting on-ground action including revegetation, weed and pig control, fire management and fencing.
Southern Gulf Catchments worked with landholders to protect priority habitat areas in the Southern Gulf of Carpentaria catchments, as part of the Back on Track – Actions for Biodiversity project.
Three properties (Barr Creek, Mount Emu, Maiden Springs) received funding to complete four on-ground projects, which assisted in grazing management to protect species and habitat. The total area of over 17,000 hectares directly benefited from these on-ground works. Each participating property was assisted and encouraged to enter further discussions with the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection (EHP) about potential completion of an Nature Refuge Agreement.
Around 70 people gathered in Mission Beach on Wednesday 25 July for the inaugural viewing of Terrain NRM’s new documentary “Living in Cyclone Country”, funded through the Queensland Government’s Rural Resilience Package.
The event was hosted by Terrain Director Keith Noble, with the Queensland Government Minister for Natural Resource and Mines, the Honourable Andrew Cripps MP officially launching the documentary.
“Living in Cyclone Country” captures the experiences and stories of a wide range of community members who endured Cyclone Yasi in February 2011 and also documents the impact of the cyclone on the natural environment.
Minister Cripps, who was born and raised in Tully, said “many of the local people here have extensive experience with cyclones. However, none of us had ever experienced anything like Cyclone Yasi.”
The overwhelming response from the audience – which was made up of film contributors, government, council and industry representatives, and active local community members – was that the documentary not only presents heartfelt messages relevant to all communities that are vulnerable to such events, but also celebrates the strength and resilience of the community affected by Yasi.
Cassowary Coast Regional Council Mayor Bill Shannon, who also attended the launch, found it an emotional experience to revisit his home area, as it was immediately following the cyclone, through this film.
“When the movie finished there was a slight delay before people clapped. I could hear in the silence that people were still confronted or overwhelmed by some of it,” said Mayor Shannon.
“That’s saying that the movie really got the nature of the event because you could actually see that it hit people, eighteen months later, so hard.”
“It’s very, very important that this film doesn’t gather dust,” he said. “It is an important historical record for our region, and its value will be in showing it in areas to the north and south which are also in the cyclone belt.”
Minister Cripps shared Mayor Shannon’s view, saying “we need to update and remind people about what they’ve been through and not to be complacent.”
“We know how to do the basics but each event will be different. And as much as we can possibly do, we need to prepare people for these types of extreme natural disasters. We never know when they’re going to occur or how severe they are going to be,” he said.
The “Living in Cyclone Country” documentary is part of Terrain’s broader Lessons from Yasi program, which has brought together the experiences and learnings from hundreds of people, with a focus on how to improve the management of the natural environment, not only after events such as Yasi, but also during calm periods.
“Community input into Terrain’s Lessons from Yasi program has highlighted the value that people place on the unique natural environment of the Wet Tropics, and emphasises the importance of making sure we do all we can to give it a helping hand,” said Terrain’s CEO Carole Sweatman.
The “Living in Cyclone Country” documentary will be broadly distributed throughout the Far North Queensland region as well as other cyclone-prone areas of Australia and can be accessed through Terrain’s website www.terrain.org.au.
Free copies of the documentary are available by contacting Terrain on (07) 4043 8000 or info@terrain.org.au.
Golfers in Cardwell are sporting alongside an endangered population of ‘slender rope dancers’. Mahogany Gliders share their home with visiting and local sportsmen and women alike in this unique arrangement where they literally ‘forage in the rough’.
A recent unveiling of four interpretive signs at the golf course welcomed Traditional Owners, Government and community groups on the green at the Cardwell Golf Club. With a recurring message ‘every tree matters to me’, the signs were developed to inform and educate the local community and tourists about the presence of mahogany gliders in the area.
The dairy industry has held field days across Queensland showcasing some of the latest research and findings on fertiliser efficiency, as part of a research project by Queensland University of Technology and James Cook University.
Dr David Rowlings at QUT is one of the researchers involved and said that the fertiliser treatments have been designed to mimic average commercial irrigated ryegrass-kikuyu pasture rotations used in the tropics and sub-tropics.
More than 200,000 people have been engaged in improving land management practice thanks to 56 regional natural resource management groups and the Australian Government. https://www.facebook.com/OurBigBackyard. There’s a lot happening in our backyard.
An area the size of 382 football fields has been cleared of rubbish since Condamine Alliance began its flood clean-up last year.
The figure was revealed in Condamine Alliance’s first Flood Recovery Report Card which was released today.
“This is a major achievement that was made possible due to wide-spread community involvement and support,” Condamine Alliance Chief Executive Officer Phil McCullough said.
The natural resource management group has been working with local councils, volunteers and community groups to remove tonnes of rubbish throughout the Condamine catchment as a result of the devastating floods in January 2011. Continue Reading…
Landholders across the Queensland Murray-Darling Basin have contributed more than $350,000 to on-ground works as part of the Queensland Murray-Darling Committee’s sub-catchment planning process in recent years.
QMDC Chief Executive Officer Geoff Penton said sub-catchment planning (SCP) encouraged landholders to address land, water, vegetation and other natural resource management (NRM) issues at a landscape scale.
“SCP is a local community process whereby we can leverage funding, for example from the Queensland Government’s Q2 Coasts and Country program, into significant on-ground outcomes,” he said. Continue Reading…
Imagine yourself crawling through a dark, shrubby tunnel. Suddenly you spot a Black Breasted Button Quail! This is what faced kids visiting the Fitzroy Basin Association Inc. (FBA) display at Ecofest in Gladstone this year.
FBA’s Boyne Calliope Sub Region ran the activity to help young people in the Gladstone region understand the relationship between ecosystems and animals.
Boyne Calliope Sub Region field officer Vicki Dart said the display featured a tunnel with the walls lined with images of dry rainforest. “Stuck onto the walls of the tunnel were laminated images of different critters like birds, frogs, snakes and lizards that rely on dry rainforests for food and shelter,” Ms Dart said. Continue Reading…
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