Wishing you all a safe and enjoyable Christmas and New Year season. What a way to end – with Cyclone Jasper and flooding. Our thoughts are with you all as the clean-up and recovery gets underway.

During another challenging and rewarding year, thanks for your support – at a time when it has never been more important to focus on everything from soil health, waterway health and biodiversity to climate and regenerative economies.

Highlights this year include the success of our first Soil to Food Conference which was well received by the region’s farmers, the second North Queensland Threatened Species Symposium and a Wet Tropics Waterways Shared Solutions Forum, as well as formation of the Wet Tropics Restoration Alliance in partnership with the Wet Tropics Management Authority and James Cook University. Over the past 20 years we’ve seen time and time again the benefits of bringing many partners together in one room, or one paddock. It leads to actions that bring maximum benefit to individuals, groups and the sustainability of our region as a whole.

Being part of COP15 in Montreal and last week’s COP28 in Dubai were also defining moments, thanks to support from the Australian and Queensland governments. These events took the values and needs of our region to a global audience. And participation in SOCAP 23, a global social impact conference, has increased our understanding of opportunities for this region within the emerging environmental market. All of this has given us fresh insights on potential new sources of investment to repair and regenerate landscapes and waterways in our region.

Several four-year projects were completed this year. Through them we have made significant progress, with our partners, in restoring rainforests, woodlands and farming landscapes, in improving conditions for threatened species and moving towards more sustainable farming practices. Three of these projects were from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program – Building Rainforest Resilience, Tackling Woodlands Threats and the Healthy Farming Futures soil program. The five-year farmer-focused Reef Trust Repeated Tenders Program, funded by the Australian Government, also came to an end.

More work is needed, and to do this we are focused on new funding opportunities – from Australian and Queensland government programs to environmental markets like our Cassowary Credits Scheme (which is now in the testing phase) and regenerative approaches to economic development with partners across the region.