We are proud to be a Reef Guardian Council — an initiative of the Reef Authority — delivering real outcomes for the Great Barrier Reef. Nineteen Reef Authority-recognised Reef Guardian Councils are taking actions that contribute to the Great Barrier Reef’s resilience and implementing the Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan. Councils undertake a wide range of environmental initiatives that address the key threats to the reef including reducing impacts from land-based activities and protecting, rehabilitating and restoring habitats.
We have received funding from the Australian Government for projects and activities identified in our Reef Action Plan. Six projects totalling $920,000.00 have been funded through the Reef Guardian Councils Program — Activating Local Council’s Reef Action Plans grant.
The purchase of smart pig traps, monitoring equipment and euthanising equipment to support the management of feral pigs in the TRC Region. The project will also provide support and guidance to landholders to support feral pig management activities on private property. The project will increase knowledge and adoption of a range of contemporary feral pig management methods, and make new-generation remote-triggered traps available and affordable for use by the community and TRC.
The Alternative Roadside Vegetation Trial is a practical trial investigating tree alleys and native vegetation to shade weeds along roadsides. The trial promises tangible outcomes to water quality, and habitat connectivity and extent.
The School for Field Studies (SFS) established a 4.5km trial site on Boar Pocket Road, Danbulla, based on accessibility, safety and environmental attributes including proximity to the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area and intersecting waterways. Three thousand trees will be planted along the roadsides and in the waterway buffer zones. The trees will create a canopy in only a few years, are long-lived and are chosen to ensure visibility is maintained.
Benefits include:
- reduced maintenance, which leads to less CO₂ emissions and chemical use
- increased filtration of run-off
- improved soil water retention by established root systems
- increased habitat extent and connectivity
- increased carbon sequestration
- decrease in lower air surface temperatures
- protection for native fauna and small pockets of remnant vegetation.
SFS will be involved in the project including planting, maintenance and vegetation monitoring. Water quality will be tested upstream and downstream of the waterway buffer zones before planting and again at the end of the project.
Adjacent landholders are encouraged to participate and contribute by offering weed management from their boundary towards the trial site.
This project will focus on drainage systems at Lindgren Close and Cescotto Close in Tolga to rectify scouring and install drop structures to ensure stormwater velocity and flow path are controlled.
This project will repair and revegetate an area of the riparian zone of Priors Creek near Atherton. A walking track and interpretive signs will provide information about the ecosystems, flora and fauna.
Installation of solar panels at five sites with high power use, which will reduce costs and greenhouse gas emissions, and improve environmental sustainability.
This project will assist landholders in improving the condition of their land and their land management practices, and will incentivise larger-scale restoration projects. It will reduce erosion, filter of runoff, reduce or eliminate fertiliser, herbicides and pesticides entering waterways, increase habitat extent and connectivity, contribute to carbon sequestration, and increase canopy cover. Landholders with land bordering on or including waterways can apply.