Restoring rivers leading up to wet season

Earthworks and tree-planting are giving a Mossman farmer “peace of mind” leading up to the wet season.

Carmen Henning-White and husband Trevor White found ravaged creek lines when they inspected their property after floods in early 2018, with chunks of creek bank torn away and large trees swept into the floodwaters.

“We’d had erosion on the farm before, through the creek, but nothing like that,’’ Ms Henning-White said. “We lost three to four metres off banks, it was all just gone.”

The Whites are one of five Mossman families whose properties are being worked on to stabilise creekbanks and improve their resilience to future rainfall events, thanks to Terrain NRM’s Mossman Integrated Catchment Repair Project funded through the Queensland Government’s Natural Resources Investment Program.

Terrain NRM’s Ruginia Duffy said two sites had been repaired on the White’s property. She said “rock toes” were built in the streambed, embankments were reshaped and trees, shrubs and grasses planted.

“With the rate and level of erosion, combining earthworks and revegetation is the way to hold these streambanks together for the long-term,” she said.

“The rock structures are designed to protect the bank while the trees establish.”