The Mitchell River Catchment is one of the four
main study areas of this
$30 Million research program in the Australian
Tropics. More
MITCHELL RIVER WATERSHED MANAGEMENT GROUP CARRIES OUT PRELIMINARY REVIEW OF 2000 CATCHMENT MANAGEMENT PLAN AT WORKSHOP ON 12/13 MARCH 2012 IN MAREEBA
A well attended workshop with a good cross-section of stakeholders reviewed the current Mitchell River Catchment Management Plan from 2000 at a workshop held on Monday and Tuesday 12th and 13th of March at the DERM offices at 28 Peters Street, Mareeba. The workshop reviewed the twelve goals set in the 2000 plan for relevance and the responses received will set the agenda for specialist groups to work on each of the twelve goals.
There will be progress reports on the revision of the plan as these further workshops occur. If you'd like further information you can contact Linda Soteriou, MRWMG Coordinator, by email or phoning mobile 0477 285 080 or (07) 40577596, or call the office on (07) 40533471.
Mitchell river watershed management group appoints new coordinator / grants officer
Mitchell River Watershed Management Group is very pleased to announce the appointment of Linda Soteriou as our new Coordinator/Grants officer. Linda has recently arrived in Far North Queensland from Perth and brings with her extensive NRM experience in the Perth region. Linda looks forward to meeting Mitchell River catchment stakeholders and can be contacted via the office on (07) 40533471, mobile 0477 285 080 or by email to linda@mitchell-river.com.au .
Workshop on Propagating Native Plants from Seed in Mt molloy - Sunday 9th October 2011.
The people who attended this workshop learnt all about propagating native plant seedlings from collected seed. The skills leaned will help them to propagate their own seedlings from native plants actually adapted to the area they are revegetating.
Locals will be well aware of the fragmented wildlife habitat in the elevated valley draining the Julatten-Mt Molloy area, and the grants assisted landowners in this area with habitat restoration work on their properties. The grants awarded since December 2008 have resulted in the planting of more than 25,000 trees and filled in gaps in fencing to exclude livestock from a significant continuous length of Devil Devil, Bushy and Rifle Creeks.
The funding for this project came from both the Queensland and Australian governments. Individual projects have replanted rainforest on cleared agricultural land, restored the vegetation along stream banks, fenced off wetland areas to exclude feral pigs and constructed off-stream watering systems to enable cattle to be excluded from streams.
Brynn Mathews, Project Officer at the Mitchell River Group explained “the efforts of landowners have both increased the habitat value of their properties and improved the connectivity between sections of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area either side of this valley. This has not only made it easier for the unique wildlife of the Wet Tropics to move between protected areas, using these fenced and replanted areas as “stepping stones” to travel across cleared land, but may also provide permanent habitat for smaller sedentary creatures such as frogs, lizards and small marsupials.”
For further information contact Brynn Mathews at the Mitchell River Watershed Management Group on (07) 4053 3471 or 0413 112 719 or by email at brynn@mitchell-river.com.au
new on-line feral animal reporting website:
You can now report sitings of a number of feral animals on line at a new website. The animals curently on-line are rabbits, camels, foxes and mynah birds, with pigs and cane toads coming soon.
Upper mitchell catchment - Habitat Restoration Small Grants
Scheme 2010-2011 - More information
New Workshops and Newsletters
See the News and Issues Page for information on recent newsletters, upcoming conferences and workshops including:
Applied Watershed Restoration - 3 day Workshop at Dimbulah from April 11th to 13th, 2012.
BioFertile Farms, May 3 to 19, 2012, Mareeba A series of 3 workshops at Mareeba exploring natural options to the use of artificial fertilisers.
Kowanyama Land & Natural Resource Management Office News:
- 1st Edition - October 2011
- 2nd Edition - February 2012
- 3rd Edition (Pre-Election Special) - March 2012
Regenerative Agriculture Newsletter
Over the Fence #13 - Grazing Best Practice Newsletter
On TRack Issue #5, January 2011
On TRaCK Issue #6, December 2011
Almaden Workshop 7/8 June 2011 for Graziers on Small Native Mammal Population Decline & Erosion Processes
Wildlife queensland launches campaign to ban opera house traps.
Wildlife Queensland is currently running a campaign to ban opera house traps and other enclosed yabby traps in public waters of Queensland due to the impact they have on wildlife such as platypus, turtles and water birds. While legal in Queensland these traps have been banned in all public waters of Tasmania, Victoria the ACT and east of the Newell Highway in New South Wales.
For more information click here.
Walsh River Catchment Management Plan - Public Consultation
Members of the Walsh River community took part in two workshops at the Dimbulah Town Hall on Tuesday 27th April. The purpose of the workshops was to identify management issues of concern for the public. These issues would then be an important element in the development of an updated Walsh River Sub-Catchment plan. The workshops identified a wide range of concerns which have been incorporated into a draft sub-catchment plan. This draft plan will be circulated for public comment in early 2011.
Celebrating the Kowanyama Native
Title Determination on 22 October and Errk Oykangand
National Park handover on 23 October 2009
The Kowanyama community was celebrating a historic native
title determination, their first ever, when
their native title rights were recognised over
about 2,731sq km of land and waters . This is
Part A of a much larger claim over a total area
of 19,800sq km and includes the Kowanyama community
and a coastal strip approximately 160 kms long
from the Coleman River to the Staaten River.
Click here for
some images of the community celebrations.
The celebrations continued
on 23 October 2009 when Climate Change and Sustainability
Minister Kate Jones visited Kowanyama to hand
back ownership of the 37,000-hectare Mitchell-Alice
Rivers National Park to the region's Traditional
Owners, the Kunjen and Oykangand People.
"This is the first existing national park to be returned to
Traditional Owners," Ms Jones said.
The former Mitchell Alice Rivers National Park,
30 kilometres north east of Kowanyama, will be
renamed the Errk Oykangand National Park.
Upper Mitchell River Catchment (Julatten-Mt
Molloy Area) Wet Tropics Habitat Restoration - Small Grants
Scheme 2010-2011
The Mitchell
River Watershed Management Group has
allocated further funding of $70,000 received under the
Queensland government Q2 Coasts and Country program to provide grants for more habitat
restoration work in the Wet Tropics area of
the upper Mitchell River catchment. This
funding has enabled the 2008-9 and 2009-10 habitat
restoration grants schemes to be extended for
another year.
The $150,000 of grants awarded to landowners
in the Julatten-Mt Molloy corridor in 2008-10
assisted them in restoring the habitat values
of their land. Individual projects have
replanted rainforest on cleared land (including
land used for grazing and sugarcane), restored
the vegetation in riparian (stream bank) areas
and fenced off wetland areas to exclude feral
pigs. Grants awarded between December 2008
and February 2010 have, to date, resulted in
the planting of at more than 20,000 trees on previously cleared land on 20 different
properties. The efforts of landowners have
both increased the habitat value of these properties
and improved the connectivity between the World
Heritage Wet Tropics sections either side of
this valley.
You can view pictures of these projects at a Flickr site created for the project.
The 2010/11 round of grants has been awarded to landowners for projects
that make a contribution to the biodiversity of
the region through building habitat islands /
stepping stones and removing barriers to movement
of species between the protected areas of the
Wet Tropics World Heritage area. Projects supported include the replanting of areas previously cleared for agriculture, restoration
of wetland and riparian vegetation and feral pig/stock exclusion fencing to protect wetlands or riparian vegetation along a stream, which also enhances
biodiversity in the streams of the project
area. Applicants have made significant in-kind contributions in time
and resources, if not expenditure of additional
funds.
This project is supported by the Mitchell River Watershed Management Group, through funding from the Queensland Government’s Q2 Coasts and Country.
Grant application forms, an information sheet on the grants scheme, useful maps of the project area and a progress report on the project are available below:
Grant Application Form
Grant Scheme Information Sheet
Project Progress Report 2008-2010
EPA
Map of Ecosystems
Map
of Project Area
How You Can Help Stop The Spread of Tilapia
in the Walsh and Mitchell River Catchments
Tilapia, a declared noxious fish originally
from Africa, can wipe out native fish species
and damage water quality if not detected and
removed early enough (more information). Tilapia can spread very quickly and established itself in 3,000 kilometres of waterways in the Burdekin catchment between 2004 and 2009. Tilapia is expected to gradually spread into every catchment along the tropical eastern coast of Queensland. It will become the dominant species in any catchment it colonises unless new occurences are detected and reported early enough to enable an effective eradication campaign. Keeping Tilapia out of the Mitchell catchment is critically important because of the limited physical separation between it and the Barron River catchment, which is already infested with Tilapia. Any establishment of Tilapia in the Mitchell would enable it to invade the Gulf catchments in the same way it has those draining into the Coral Sea.
Mitchell River
Watershed Management Group is working with
the Australian Centre for Tropical Freshwater
Research to provide the public with information
about the control of this pest fish species.
There has already been a successful Tilapia eradication campaign in
Eureka Creek (draining into the Walsh River) in Oct. 2008 which eradicated the Tilapia and saw the early
return of native species (more information).
If you catch a fish that looks
like Tilapia, take a photo of it, or
put it in a plastic bag, contact the Fisheries
Pest Fish Hotline on 13 25 23 or 1800 017
116 (A/H) and pass the photo or fish on
to someone who can confirm the identification
and take action.
The only way to prevent more waterways
becoming overwhelmed by Tilapia is for the
public to actively report any sightings and
enable an early and effective response wherever
possible. More information
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The Mitchell River catchment in Tropical North
Queensland, Australia, spans 72,000 square kilometres
(the size of Tasmania) across the base of Cape
York Peninsula. It incorporates five major river
systems: the Mitchell, Alice, Palmer, Walsh and
Lynd, and involves four local governments; namely Tablelands
Regional (formerly Mareeba), Cook, Carpentaria and Kowanyama
Communities Local Government Area.
The Mitchell River Watershed Management Group
Inc (MRWMG) arose out of a conference on watershed
management held at Kowanyama in 1990. The catalyst
for this conference was the concern for the river’s
health felt by the Traditional Owners when they
first started flying to Cairns and saw the catchment
from the air. The MRWMG, has grown into an independent,
not-for-profit organisation working in partnership
with local communities and stakeholders to:
