Monsoon-battered creekbanks will be repaired in the iconic Daintree River system thanks to a disaster recovery package.

Terrain NRM is working with landholders, Douglas Shire Council, Jabalbina Yalanji Aboriginal Corporation and Neilly Group to restore sections of Martins Creek, Cassowary Creek and Saltwater Creek.

A range of nature-based solutions will be used including pile fields, bank reprofiling and tree-planting.

Cyclone Jasper recovery work

The $2.7 million Daintree Riverine Recovery project is focusing on damage caused to creekbanks in the floods that followed Cyclone Jasper and is jointly funded by the Australian and Queensland governments under the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA). Tree-planting will be funded through the Australian Government’s Reef Trust Landscape Repair Program.

Federal Member for Leichhardt Matt Smith said the project is another example of how the Federal and State governments stand shoulder to shoulder, building resilience in the Far North under the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements.

“Almost three years on from the devastating impacts of Cyclone Jasper, we are still finding ways to grow back better – protecting our communities and building a Far North better prepared to weather the storm,” Mr Smith said.

Work is scheduled to begin this month (September).

Martins, Saltwater and Cassowary creeks

Terrain NRM Project Manager Max Brownlow said Martins Creek was an important tributary for the Daintree River, which received heavy flows off the mountains.

“We’ll be working at a series of erosion sites along about 1.2 kilometres of the creek,’’ he said.

“At Saltwater Creek, we’ll be restoring and stabilising a creek area that has seen dramatic erosion and land loss since Cyclone Jasper, where floodwater has been coming over the top of the bank and cutting a channel behind it and where the banks are continuing to collapse and recede.

“Cassowary Creek is a smaller creek with very high flows in floods. One side of the creek has receded three metres since the start of this year alone, and almost 30 metres of creek bank has been lost since 2011.”

Two pile fields will be built at Martins Creek, along with bank battering, strategic rock placements and tree-planting while at Saltwater and Cassowary and creeks there will be bank battering and widespread tree-planting.

This reinforced riverbank, just upstream from the Daintree River ferry crossing, was well underwater in the recent flooding rain – so we’re happy to report it has emerged unscathed to continue to do its job of stopping erosion.

One hundred metres of this riverbank was restored last year. Erosion problems had been worsening for years and Cyclone Jasper accelerated things in 2023, sweeping chunks of riverbank down the river and threatening the road running alongside the river.

Our solution, working with partners Neilly Group Engineering, was a combination of engineered rock work, earthworks and revegetation (mangroves, grasses and trees). And tree rootballs were embedded into the rock wall to better protect the mangrove plantings from flooding and to begin to replicate habitat conditions in established mangroves where large logs and branches collect and provide fish habitat.

The reinforced riverbank has now gone through multiple high rainfall events, with the latest nearing record high flows. Mangroves growing on the rockwall’s benching were the only part of the design that was significantly affected in the March flood. They will recover as tidal flows bring more mangrove seedlings from nearby vegetation.

Terrain NRM partnered with the Douglas Shire Council and Jabalbina Rangers for this project, which aims to stop an estimated 1,200 tonnes of fine sediment a year from washing down the river and out to the Great Barrier Reef lagoon

Terrain NRM’s Zack Severino says revegetation is the long-term solution, after a combination of rock and earthworks.

“We were dealing with a sheer drop. With every storm, more soil was getting washed away. Now we have a reinforced riverbank. And the upland area has been planted out with native, fast-growing trees to get a good root system embedded. Mangroves have been planted on the benched areas to catch sediment and more seedlings, so that’ll also help to secure the riverbank, and also filter the water.

The ‘Daintree Wetlands: Reef Coastal Restoration in the Lower Daintree’ project is being delivered by Terrain NRM through funding from the Australian Government’s Reef Trust through their Reef Coastal Restoration Program grant.

The bank of the Daintree River has been restored near the ferry crossing – where flooding rain after Cyclone Jasper washed away land and part of a road.

Terrain NRM partnered with the Douglas Shire Council, Jabalbina Rangers and Neilly Group to rebuild 100 metres of riverbank upstream from the ferry crossing recently, and to begin revegetation work including mangrove restoration.

The work is designed to stop an estimated 1,200 tonnes of fine sediment a year from washing down the river and out to the Great Barrier Reef lagoon.

Landholder Colin McDowall says it has been welcomed.

“It was the highest flood we’ve ever seen here, and it did some damage. There had already been erosion in this area over the years with the way the current runs to the side and hits the bank in floods.

Restoration a combination of rocks and mangroves 

“We’re hoping the rocks and mangroves will help to hold the bank together better and save it from this happening again.”

Terrain NRM’s Zack Severino said revegetation is the long-term solution, after a combination of rock and earthworks.

“We were dealing with a sheer drop. With every storm, more soil was getting washed away. Now we have a reinforced riverbank. And the upland area has been planted out with native, fast-growing trees to get a good root system embedded. Mangroves have been planted on the benched areas to catch sediment and more seedlings, so that’ll also help to secure the riverbank, and also filter the water.

Tree rootballs for fish habitat

“Tree rootballs are part of the design, to create fish habitat. Natural processes will build up over time.”

Jabalbina Ranger Manager Rick Burchill said over 100 native trees from Jabalbina and Douglas Shire Council nurseries had been planted at the site.

A water monitoring program at wetlands on farms is helping scientists and landholders to learn more about how wetlands work as treatment systems for nutrient and sediment runoff.

Water samples have been collected from two constructed wetlands in the Innisfail and Tully region of Far North Queensland over the past five years, both on a regular basis and during large rainfall events.

Terrain NRM’s project officer Maria Ribbeck said the data was providing valuable insights into the way wetlands function and their extensive capacity to filter pollutants and improve water quality.

Learning the best wetland conditions for nitrogen removal

“It is also helping us to learn the best conditions for wetlands to optimise removal of nitrogen from the water cycle,’’ she said.

“One of the two constructed wetlands is on eight hectares of low-lying land on a farm managed by Tully Sugar Limited. The data has shown us it’s a high-performing site, with capacity to remove an over 1000 kg of nitrogen a year from the water passing through the wetland.”

Greg Shannon, Cane Productivity and Development Manager at Tully Sugar Limited, said the project was raising awareness of wetlands and their usefulness in the farming landscape.

“The last year’s findings were recently presented to us,’’ he said. “This project has helped us understand how wetlands work and how we can optimise their ability to treat water. The longer this wetland is monitored, the more data we can get, and this will make the findings more and more useful for our decision-making in terms of wetland maintenance and management as time goes by.

“It probably should be noted that not everyone can have a wetland like this on their farm, but we had a piece of cattle grazing land with a natural depression in it already, so it was possible to develop it into a wetland with help from Terrain NRM and the Wet Tropics Major Integrated Project.”

Monitoring at two constructed wetlands

The two constructed wetlands have been monitored for the last year through the Tully Johnstone Wetlands Monitoring Project, funded by the partnership between the Australian Government’s Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.  Terrain NRM has worked with James Cook University, Griffith University and the Queensland Government’s departments of Environment and Science and Agriculture and Fisheries on the project.

Flood-damaged riverbank upstream from the Daintree River ferry crossing will be repaired and nearby wetlands restored in a new $1.98 million project.

Terrain NRM has received funding from the Australian Government through its Reef Coastal Restoration Program to rehabilitate areas close to the ferry crossing in the Lower Daintree wetlands precinct, working with Douglas Shire Council, landholders and Jabalbina Yalanji Aboriginal Corporation.

Repairing flood-damged riverbank

“We’ll be repairing around 100 metres of eroding riverbank and restoring mangrove habitat,” Terrain NRM’s Charles Hammond said. “The erosion here, on the Daintree River, has been steadily getting worse, especially with floods like the one after Cyclone Jasper.

“Remediation work will include a mix of hard and soft engineering, and replanting mangroves and other vegetation.

“Within the Lower Daintree area, we will also be working with landholders and traditional owners to improve the condition of nearby wetlands. This is an important wetland area for the health of the Daintree River because it’s a settling area for sediment, nutrients and other loads in runoff. It’s also a fish nursery and home to more than 70 species of birds as well as flying foxes, estuarine crocodiles and other animals.”

Improving wetland connectivity

The project aims to improve wetland connectivity and the coastal ecosystem including the fish nursery habitat.

The ongoing battle with weeds in the Wet Tropics region has led to a three-year project across 40 hectares of land that has trialled different methods on the edges of world heritage rainforest.

Terrain NRM has worked with the Cassowary Coast, Douglas and Tablelands regional councils on projects that are buffering world heritage forest from fire and weeds, and restoring woodland habitat. They have also involved revegetation work.

Project coordinator Chelsy Maloney said the goal was to improve the resilience of big patches of native vegetation by managing emerging threats in smaller patches of neighbouring vegetation.

Restoring fire-damaged rainforest near Silkwood

In the Cassowary Coast region, the focus was a fire-damaged section of rainforest on a council reserve along the edges of world heritage rainforest.

“With the likelihood of more rainforest fires given our changing climate, it’s important to learn how to best restore these areas,’’ Terrain project coordinator Chelsy Maloney said.

“Cassowary Coast Regional Council worked with us on a weed management and revegetation project where we trialled low-cost assisted regeneration to support rainforest restoration. We found that by managing the high threat weeds, more space and less competition was created for natural recruitment and pioneer species. In the short term, the forest condition showed a definite improvement.”

Weeds were managed on 3.5 hectares of world heritage rainforest and a strip of revegetated land along the roadside.

Revegetating woodland understorey near Ravenshoe

In the Tablelands region, an infestation of guinea grass and lantana in council reserve land beside South Cedar Creek at Ravenshoe was the focus.

“In woodlands the canopy can often be intact while the understorey is overtaken by weeds. By managing lantana and guinea grass, we’ve started to see lots of different understory species recruiting across 10 hectares, and an increase in native species overall.

“We also trialled high-density understorey revegetation work on 1.5 hectares in an attempt to out-compete exotic pasture grasses such as guinea grass, and there have so far been really good results.”

The iconic Daintree River is under repair after floodwaters caused erosion in its lower reaches.

Tree-planting and earthworks have strengthened the river’s banks near the Daintree Village, where land washed away in record floods in recent years.

Terrain NRM’s Jen Mackenzie said almost 9000 young plants were now helping to stabilise the bank along two stretches of eroded land, where rockwork is the new foundations.

“There was nothing left to hold the soil in place in these sections,’’ she said. “The vegetation had been washed away and the erosion was only getting worse.”

Terrain NRM has been working with landholders and contractors on Disaster Relief Funding projects, jointly funded by the Australian and Queensland governments under the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA).

Grazier Barry Osborne is one of a number of landholders in the Daintree region whose river frontage has been part of the project. Mr Osborne said big floods had taken their toll on riverside land in the Daintree’s lower reaches.

“With two record floods in the last four or five years, the river has cut into the land,’’ he said. “There was a 10m-high bank here years ago but there is hardly any bank at all now and the river has moved in about 30m, creating big washouts.

“This is loamy, sandy soil so floods knock the country around badly.”

Streambank on the Daintree’s Stewart Creek has been repaired as part of a $2.1 million disaster recovery project at nine sites across the Wet Tropics.

Terrain NRM is managing the project, with eligible works jointly funded by the Commonwealth and Queensland governments under the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements.

Stage 1 of the project has identified sites for urgent repair in three different Wet Tropics council areas – Douglas Shire Council, Cassowary Coast Regional Council and Hinchinbrook Shire Council.

Douglas Shire Council and Terrain NRM have worked closely on the Stewart Creek remediation project, which is located on council land only a few kilometres from the Daintree village hub.

The site on Stewart Creek Road suffered streambank erosion, resulting in significant soil loss and vegetation removal. The erosion led to sediment run off into the Stewart sub-catchment of the Daintree River and ultimately the Great Barrier Reef.

Almost 450 tonnes of rock was used along 23 metres of streambank as structural reinforcement at the site of the erosion. Revegetation efforts will be completed on the site when the wet season commences.

Terrain NRM Project Manager Jen Mackenzie said the project is the first of five projects in the Douglas Shire associated with Stage 1 funding. The shire was badly affected by battering monsoonal rains during the 2018-2019 wet season.

“An entire section of creek bank had fallen into the creek,” she said. “This project was time-critical to ensure the erosion didn’t escalate. We’re not only repairing the damage, we are ensuring the streambank is more resilient for similar flooding events in the future.