It’s a busy time of year for our Water Quality Monitoring Team! With the intense rain event between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, the crew was out most days. (It’s lucky they love the wet.)

We have automatic sensor results from 11 locations across the Innisfail-Tully region and our team, along with 3C Farms, collected water samples from Utchee, Kennedy and Corduroy creek sites, and the Sandy Creek wetland.

Over that period, we amassed 170+ samples.

The water has been sent to laboratories for nutrient, sediment and pesticide analysis. The results will be shared with local landholders.

We’ve been collecting samples from some areas for 8 years now. They’re helping all of us to better understand how our activities in catchments affect water quality, and how wetlands can improve water quality by removing nitrogen and sediment.

Our water quality monitoring projects are funded by the Queensland Government’s Office of the Great Barrier Reef and World Heritage and the partnership between the Australian Government’s Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

The Innisfail region now has Mamu indigenous rangers caring for country – and a new water monitoring project that’s exciting both elders and the younger generation.

The first four Mamu rangers are on board.

“This is a good feeling, to be moving forward,’’ senior ranger Francis Joyce says. It’s a simple statement but one that’s loaded with passion – for the land, the animals, Mamu cultural heritage and the Mamu people’s drive to be play a bigger role in the management of land and sea.

The ranger program’s launch follows funding through the Queensland Government’s Indigenous Land and Sea Rangers Program. Rangers will be looking after cultural heritage sites, monitoring biodiversity, helping with pest plant control, and leading a new water monitoring program among other roles.

Building on water quality monitoring program

The water program, in partnership with Terrain NRM, is building on existing water quality monitoring in the region, combining cultural knowledge, values and concerns with western science.

“We’ll be doing monthly routine water sampling across the Johnstone catchment from its top to end of catchment, testing for things like nutrients, pesticides and suspended solids,’’ Francis says.

“We’ll also be monitoring impacts on the rainforest and ecosystems and looking at cultural indicators that came about through consultation with our Mamu people – things like places where there used to be yabby beds but there aren’t anymore, fish species that have disappeared from certain areas over the years…

“The information will give everyone a snapshot of waterway health and a better understanding to move towards solutions. By working together and building partnerships we can create a more sustainable future.”

The project is funded through the partnership between the Australian Government and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. It has also involved water monitoring training for rangers and several younger traditional custodians through Terrain NRM and the Department of Environment and Science.