What a difference 18 months can make – that’s the feeling at Tash and John MacPherson’s cattle property where a swag of changes is rejuvenating the land and waterways.

The family is working with natural resource management organisation Terrain NRM on a property overhaul that includes earthworks, fencing, tree-planting, alternative water sources for cattle and a fresh perspective on grazing the land.

Tash Macpherson said the results were a win for cattle pastures and the overall environment.

“When we bought this property in mid-2020 we de-stocked it for a year,’’ she said. “The land really needed a break. There was bad erosion – big wash-outs along the waterways where the cattle had been, and springs that were a boggy mess.”

Through the project, three creeks have been fenced-off, smaller grazing paddocks have been created, 5000 native trees have been planted to strengthen creekbanks, and an off-stream watering system has been installed with a bore, water tanks and troughs.

Zuni bowl, fencing, tree-planting, off-stream watering solutions…

A Zuni bowl was also constructed to stop erosion advancing in one of the paddocks.

Terrain NRM’s Vanessa Drysdale said the bowl was a carefully designed lining of rocks at a steep drop in the gully erosion.

“This was an active gully system that had eroded several hundred metres in wet seasons over the last few years, and wasn’t going to slow down without intervention,’’ she said. “The traditional solution is a rock chute, but Zuni bowls are a more cost-effective treatment method that has proved its worth on Tableland and Daintree farms over the last few years.”

Saving sediment from reaching the reef

She said the combined work on the MacPherson property would save an estimated 180 tonnes of sediment from flowing to the Great Barrier Reef each year. It’s one of 11 properties where earthworks, tree-planting, fencing and off-stream watering infrastructure strategies have provided long-term solutions to erosion issues.

A Mossman farm has become a demonstration site for Zuni bowls – a solution to gully erosion.

Landholders, engineers, council officers and contractors are visiting the property to learn how to build the structures, where they work best and how they can be used more widely to fight erosion in Tropical North Queensland.

Terrain NRM’s Ruginia Duffy said two Zuni bowls had been built on the farm.

“They are a smaller-scale, cost-effective way for landholders to stop erosion from advancing,” Ms Duffy said. “These bowls follow on from work on an Atherton Tablelands farm last year, where smaller bowls were built and have settled into the landscape.”

Zuni bowls are a lining of rocks built into gully heads where there are abrupt vertical drops. They take their name from the Native American Pueblo people from the Zuni River Valley, who first developed and used the structures.

“These days, work starts with a bobcat and ends with shovels and crowbars,’’ Ms Duffy said. “The structures are carefully designed to prevent water from disturbing the soil any further. They work with the natural landscape – by mimicking the kind of forms found in creeks.”

The latest bowls are part of a larger project repairing flood damage in the Mossman region. Other parts of the project have included more traditional earthworks, rock work and tree-planting to stabilise creekbanks that bore the brunt of floods in the 2018-19 wet season.

The Mossman Integrated Catchment Repair Project is funded by the Queensland Government’s Natural Resources Investment Program.

Zuni bowls have begun their work to stop erosion on Tablelands farms.

Bowls that were constructed 10 months ago have settled into the landscape and grazier Owen Rankine says grass is growing on land below that was previously bare.

“We haven’t had a big wet season but the amount of flow through the bowls has been enough to see how they work and to get them established, with silt between the rocks and grass on the land below them,’’ he said.

“Next year you’ll barely see they are there and the water should flow through nicely.”

Zuni bowls are a small-scale cost-effective way for landholders to stop erosion advancing. They are a lining of rocks built in gully heads where there are abrupt vertical drops, and they are designed to stop water from disturbing the soil any further. The bowls work with the natural landscape by mimicking the kind of forms found in creeks.

Five Zuni bowls were built in two gullies on the Rankine’s property as a demonstration site for the Wet Tropics. Terrain NRM brought Tablelands business RegenAG’s North American watershed specialist Craig Sponholtz to the region for the project. He designed the bowls, trained local earthmovers and led workshops with farmers on cost-effective ways to solve gully erosion problems.

The work is part of Terrain NRM’s Upper Johnstone Integrated Project, funded through the Queensland Government’s Natural Resources Investment Program and focused on erosion hotspots in the Tablelands-Innisfail region.

Terrain NRM’s Jen Mackenzie said the Johnstone River catchment was a priority for water quality improvement, with the Far North’s highest sediment reduction target as part of the Australian and Queensland Government’s Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan.