Collins – Belah Valley near Marlborough

Marlborough grazier Alf Collins Jnr says the Australian Government’s Caring for our Country Reef Rescue program is improving his property’s river frontage and boosting productivity.

For his family’s property ‘Belah Valley’, Mr Collins has received a substantial Reef Rescue grant administered by Fitzroy River & Coastal Catchments to fence to land types and add new stock watering points.           

He has also applied for a second grant for his property ‘Tondara’, bordering the Bogie River near Bowen, through NQ Dry Tropics.

Reef Rescue grants pay for half the cost of new infrastructure such as fencing for gullies, riparian areas and stream banks as well as other initiatives which reduce sediment entering rivers and tributaries of the Great Barrier Reef lagoon.

“If we can improve our assets and save the fish and reef at the same time, we’re going to do it,” Mr Collins said.

“Tondara is like all these old properties – they set the water up where it was, not necessarily where it was best too.

“We had been doing 12km of pipeline and 15 troughs to improve our stock watering system and then we found out about the Reef Rescue funding and decided to apply so we can spread the water even further.”

The Collins also undertake a hoard of other innovative grazing practices such as regularly chisel ploughing paddocks to improve rain infiltration and pasture.

“On the coastal country, we get our rain in short bursts and can’t utilise it all,” Mr Collins said.

“We get a three inch storm and only use one inch of it, so if we can utilise all the water we receive by opening up the soil, it will dramatically improve the pasture.”

Mr Collins was one of 16 primary producers to attend a property computer mapping workshop at Marlborough on Thursday.

At the workshop, delivered by AgForce Projects with support from Fitzroy River & Coastal Catchments through funding from the Australian Government’s Caring for our Country Reef Rescue program, Mr Collins said the technology will assist with budgeting and providing quality maps to staff.

“We will be able to work out the areas we plough and budget for diesel and grass seed, plus the distances of fence lines and a whole lot more,” he said.

AgForce Projects Reef Rescue project officer Natalie Schick and Fitzroy River & Coastal Catchments project officer Lisa Sutton said it’s great innovative producers like the Collins family are on board with Reef Rescue.

O’Sullivans – Glenalpine near Bowen

Barry and Leanne O’Sullivan say the Reef Rescue project has made their dream of sustainable grazing possible.

The O’Sullivans purchased Glenalpine six years ago during the height of drought.

After the expense of buying water and stocking the 23375 hectare property west of Bowen, improvements such as a sustainable grazing management scheme seemed out of reach.

“Financially we couldn’t do it,” she said.

“We spent a lot of money sourcing water and we had to buy a lot of cattle, so we weren’t in a position to put the fencing and pipes in, so we looked to research funding.”

After speaking with Natural Resources Management (NRM) group NQ Dry Tropics’ representatives, the O’Sullivans learned of the Australian Government’s Reef Rescue project.

The project aims to improve the health of Australia’s iconic Great Barrier Reef by giving technical and financial incentives to landholders in order to improve land management practices.

$3.5 million was made available to implement Reef Rescue across the grazing, sugar and horticulture industries for the first six months of the Reef Rescue program.…more information on grants.

The O’Sullivans were awarded a substantial sum. They will match each dollar financially or through in-kind contributions.

They plan to buy water tanks, troughs and poly-pipe to implement the first stage of their sustainable grazing management scheme.

“Once the water has been more evenly distributed, it will allow a more even distribution of cattle throughout the property,” Mrs O’Sullivan said.

“It will also provide us with the ability to move cattle around by turning off troughs. Eventually we’ll fence areas off, but you can’t fence unless you have the water troughs.

“Ultimately this will improve land condition and productivity which in turn will retain sediments, nutrients and organic matter on-property, instead of entering Sandy Creek.”

^ Top

This project is supported by AgForce Queensland through funding from the Australian Government's Caring for our Country.
© AgForce Queensland 2009