Reef Rescue funding
Reef Rescue is a key component of Caring for our Country, the Australian Government's $2 billion-plus initiative to restore the health of Australia's environment and improve land management practices.
Reef Rescue's objective is to improve the water quality of the Great Barrier Reef lagoon by encouraging more land managers to adopt practices that reduce the amount of nutrients, chemicals and sediments carried from their land to the rivers.
Reef Rescue Projects
IMPROVING WATER QUALITY IN THE BARRON
Following the success of the first three years of the Green Corridor Project, with corporate funding, Barron Catchment Care has secured Reef Rescue funding from the Australian Government until 2013, to continue work on the project. Reef Rescue projects include on-farm revegetation and habitat restoration, as well as innovative sediment trapping actions in the catchment.
Reef Rescue Projects
The Gallo Property
Mark and Karen Gallo’s property near Yungaburra is the site of a 5-hectare restoration project, just downstream of the Lesley Creek junction with the Barron River. Funded by Reef Rescue, the project will control major bank erosion on the Barron from stormwater, and restore native rainforest.
The eroded bank has been repaired through engineering, and run-off redirected into a natural bluegum wetland. The area has been revegetated with Mabi rainforest trees, an endangered forest type of which less than 5 percent of its original extent remains as small remnants on the Tablelands.
The site has come a long way since the project began in 2009. Huge areas of guinea grass and lantana along the riverbank were slashed and removed to prepare the ground before a crowd of 100 local volunteers rolled up their sleeves to plant around 4000 trees in two muddy community planting days. International volunteers from Conservation Volunteers Australia and a Green Corps team have also worked hard with tree planting and maintenance. To date, about 11,000 trees have been planted at the site.
This is a strategic planting, which will help to create a corridor along the Barron, linking with Mabi forest remnants and other revegetation projects. The restored forest will provide refuges for wildlife such as the tree kangaroo and work towards improving the quality of water in the river, on its way to the Reef.
Tolga Detention Ponds
With Reef Rescue funding, Barron Catchment Care partnered with the Tablelands Regional Council, community groups, local schools and education organisations to construct and vegetate a series of sediment detention ponds at Tolga, to slow the flow of muddy stormwater into the Barron.