18 October 2021

A new $250,000 grants round is opening for threatened species recovery team members and landholders with priority areas of rainforest in the Wet Tropics region.

Terrain NRM is contacting landholders who have properties with large areas of cassowary habitat or coastal rainforest, or even small patches of critically-endangered Mabi forest.

Grants for tree-planting, weed removal, nature refuges

The grants are for tree-planting, weed removal and nature refuge projects. They are part of Terrain NRM’s Building Rainforest Resilience Project.

Project coordinator Tony O’Malley said landholders and recovery group members had achieved strong results in the first two rounds of grants – with buffer zones and corridors planted for world-heritage rainforest, weeds removed ranging from guinea grass to raspberry, and the creation of nature refuges in Kuranda and Mission Beach.

“Last year, the landholders and recovery groups involved in this grants program achieved weed management work on more than 50 hectares of priority habitat, revegetation projects on over 17 hectares and 150 hectares of voluntary habitat protection agreements,’’ Mr O’Malley said.

Landholders enthusiastic about improving habitat

“The enthusiasm of the people we’ve been working with has been inspiring. Landholders are telling us the funding enabled them to improve their habitat so it’s looking the best it has in years, and they’re proud of the importance of their place to threatened species.”

Queensland Environment Minister Meaghan Scanlon has committed $3 million in funding for local-scale water quality monitoring in the Tully and Johnstone catchments.

This funding is to continue the water quality monitoring undertaken over the last four years as part of the Wet Tropics Major Integrated Project. The project has achieved unprecedented buy-in from the local community on water quality issues through bringing together Tully and Innisfail Canegrowers and the Australian Banana Growers, farmers, scientists, industry experts and Traditional Owners.

The grassroots, farmer-led monitoring program is answering growers’ questions about water quality by directly sharing locally relevant, nutrient, sediment and pesticide data from local catchments.

“Growers value and appreciate high quality local data that’s provided within useful timeframes. The local-scale monitoring of streams, paddock run-off and ground water enables us to build understanding about pollutant loss pathways and helps growers make informed paddock management decisions,” said MIP Water Quality Project Leader, Alicia Buckle.

Grower Services Manager from Canegrowers Innisfail, Deb Telford, said: “The Local Scale Monitoring program had such an impact in our district. To stop the momentum of this project would have been disappointing. This announcement today is exciting and is a positive step forward for the next three years. Grower engagement for this project has been encouraging and successful, we’ve had growers say we should have had this 10 years ago.”

Landholders are helping the Far North’s iconic rainforests and cassowaries by joining a strategic action to connect forested areas from the Daintree to Hinchinbrook.

Green corridors have been prioritised across the region and landholders are working with natural resource management organisation Terrain NRM and with community groups to buffer world heritage rainforest and to “fill in the gaps”.

Grants for revegetation, weed management and habitat protection are part of Terrain’s Building Rainforest Resilience Project. Two hundred and fifty property owners in important cassowary, Mabi forest and littoral rainforest areas, and members of threatened species recovery teams, were invited to apply in the first round.
A new grants round is coming up.

In the Daintree and greater Douglas Shire

Bloomfield’s Mt Louis Station manager Ben Morley is one of two Daintree graziers targeting weeds on the edge of the rainforest, while Douglas Shire Council has planted over 1000 trees in the Wangetti area.

Ben and Courtenay Morley have been creating buffer zones for world heritage rainforest and easy access for cassowaries, by removing woody weeds from non-grazing sections of the station along Gap Creek and at the base of Mt Louis and Mt Annie.

“The results have been fantastic. We usually only focus on the paddocks but after getting support, we’ve cleaned up 10 to 12km around the base of the hills and about 12km on both sides of the creek,’’ he said. “Among other environmental benefits, the cassowaries now have easy access to water and feed. We’ve learned more about them too, and we document sightings on the station.”

The Douglas Shire Council has planted 1000 trees and managed weed outbreaks in open areas around Wangetti to connect littoral rainforest patches and extend habitat for cassowaries. Both littoral rainforest and cassowaries are listed nationally as endangered.

In Kuranda

Nevenka Salinovic says tree-planting and weed management work on her family’s 130-hectare property has opened her eyes to the possibilities – and to cassowaries crossing the land.

“Our property backs onto world heritage areas on all sides, and includes pockets of remnant rainforest,’’ Ms Salinovic said. “Getting help with weed management and what trees to plant on the edges of the rainforest and sloping creek banks has been invaluable.”

The family has also been working with Kuranda Envirocare on the project, which has involved slashing and spot-spraying large areas of weeds including guinea grass, prickly raspberry and lantana, and selecting cassowary food trees for future plantings.

“It has been rewarding. We’ve found native trees in under and amongst the weeds, so we won’t have to plant completely from scratch. We knew a bit about cassowaries beforehand but not what they liked to eat and how to plant for their feeding needs throughout the year. Now we are seeing where they come and go – they seem to use our place as a path through to other rainforest.”

The Salinovic project, along with two other weed removal and tree-planting grant projects supported by Terrain NRM and Kuranda Conservation, is helping to restore the Black Mountain cassowary corridor. This corridor is one of the Cassowary Recovery Team’s top priorities.

On the Atherton Tableland

Landholders Louise and John Gavin live on a rural residential property adjoining world-heritage rainforest and endangered Mabi forest.

Ms Gavin said creating a green buffer zone for surrounding national park was their way of giving back to the environment and the farming community.

“We’ve only lived in the region for three years and we had no idea before this that there was a type of rainforest – Mabi forest – that was critically endangered,’’ she said. “It’s really good to be able to have a small project here that fits into the bigger picture of connecting forested areas.”

Three hundred Mabi trees have been planted on the Gavin’s property, with the help of local conservation group TREAT, to improve a revegetation site begun 10 years ago on the land. Weed control has also been a big part of the new project.

“Small grants like this give individual landholders a chance to help build the resilience in pockets of Mabi forest,’’ she said. “It’s a way for landholders like us to do something to balance the eco-system and help others to keep farming their land.”

In the Malaan area, Michelle Bradley has used her grant to kickstart a Himalayan Magnolia and bamboo removal project.

“They’re a really nice tree (magnolias) but in this environment they were taking over everything,’’ she said.  “We’ve gone from one or two appearing out the front to a tight copse of magnolias that nothing can get through. It’s a big job now to remove them all.”

The Bradleys live in the Malaan cassowary corridor, which is the upland part of Australia’s longest and widest east-west rainforest corridor.  They are planting cassowary-friendly trees to replace the magnolias.

Fifteen thousand young trees are sinking their roots into Tableland soil as part of a $2.3 million project to fight erosion, improve farming land and better protect the Great Barrier Reef.

Graziers are working with Terrain NRM to repair eroded creek banks.

“Trees are the long-term solution, and they work well when they are combined with earthworks in the worst erosion hotspots,’’ Terrain project manager Vanessa Drysdale said.

“Root systems hold banks together and slow water down in heavy rain events, decreasing the chances of topsoil loss and of further erosion.”

Ten thousand trees were planted in March and April, bringing the total to 15,000 since the project began three years ago.

Ms Drysdale said the latest batch of trees went into the ground at two cattle properties with waterways feeding into the Johnstone River. A new cattle crossing was installed at one of the properties and sections of streambank were fenced off at both spots to prevent more erosion while the trees gain a hold. New off-stream watering points were also installed.

The work follows creek-side revegetation projects last year at two Tableland properties – in a landslip area at Jaggan and along an eroded creek system at Malanda.