Understanding The Reef Report Card

By Victoria Velton

‍

The latest Reef Report Card shows an overall improvement in water quality across the region, but Riparian Extent, Seagrass Condition and Marine Water Quality are showing declines. To gain better understanding of what this means we reached out to experts at  Terrain Natural Resource Management (Terrain NRM), a regional natural resource management organisation working across the Wet Tropics to protect and improve the health of the region’s environment.

‍

Q: What is driving those declines, and how concerned should we be about the trend?

Terrain NRM: Riparian extent is mainly driven by land clearing for both agricultural and urban development.

Seagrass and marine water quality declines are mostly driven by extreme weather events, particularly floods and cyclones. Major floods cause huge amounts of sediment to be washed into coastal waters, which reduces water clarity and the amount of light reaching seagrass.

While heavy rainfall, storms and flood are a natural part of the ecology of the Wet Tropics, climate change is causing more frequent and intense extreme weather events so yes, we should be concerned because it impacts communities as well as the environment.

Healthy riparian vegetation helps reduce erosion and filter runoff but there’s only so much it can do when a really big flood comes through. That’s why there’s an increasing focus on resilience in all the projects because healthy catchments are better placed to withstand extreme events and recover afterwards.

‍

Q: How should the community interpret the difference between improving water quality results and these declining ecological indicators? Does improving water quality necessarily translate into improvements in the health of these ecosystems?

Terrain NRM: The two are closely connected but it’s more the other way around - healthy ecosystems create better water quality. Also, they don’t necessarily move at the same pace so we wouldn’t expect to see immediate direct results.

The improvements in water quality reported in the Reef Report Card reflect changes in land management practices across industries including sugarcane, grazing, horticulture, grains and bananas. Those changes are helping reduce the amount of sediment, nutrients and pesticides leaving our catchments.

But ecosystems like riparian vegetation, wetlands and seagrass are responding to a much bigger range of influences, including extreme weather. Ecological recovery can take a long time, particularly after a major flood or cyclone.

‍

Q: Riparian vegetation plays an important role in stabilising streambanks and filtering sediment and nutrients before they reach waterways. What are the biggest pressures currently affecting riparian extent in the Wet Tropics, and what work is being done to reverse that decline?

Terrain NRM: The biggest pressure identified in the latest reporting is clearing for agricultural and urban development. The reporting excludes vegetation losses from natural events such as cyclones and floods.

Also, when we’re talking about riparian health, it’s not just about trees. Ground cover is really important too. It helps hold soil together and reduce erosion, particularly in areas where you don’t have a lot of woody vegetation.

Reef water quality programs started in around 2008-2009. There’s a lot of investment and work since then. They focused heavily on supporting farmers to change practices but there’s also been investment in revegetation and rehabilitation projects, streambank rehabilitation, wetlands restoration etc.

Most of the ‘easy’ stuff has been done so now we’re getting to the more complex stuff where whole communities need to take charge of catchment stewardship. The current Herbert Integrated Project is an example of this where the whole community is involved.

‍

Q: What are the main factors behind the decline in seagrass condition and marine water quality, particularly in a region where there has been reported positive progress in reducing sediment, nutrient and pesticide runoff?

Terrain NRM: Major floods – they deliver an enormous amount of sediment and freshwater into coastal waters. Strong winds and swell can also stir up sediment that’s already sitting on the seafloor, and nutrients can be recycled from marine sediments.

Even when we’re doing the right things on the land, a major weather event can temporarily overwhelm those gains.

‍

Q: Looking ahead, what needs to happen in the Wet Tropics to ensure improvements in catchment water quality translate into better outcomes for the rivers, seagrass meadows and marine environment, and are current programs sufficiently resourced to achieve that?

Terrain NRM: New catchment water quality plans have recently been developed so the next step is to put them into action.

We need to keep doing the things we know work — improving farm practices, restoring wetlands and rehabilitating streambanks, for example — but we also need to keep innovating and also look beyond agriculture.

In urban areas we need to look at things like managing erosion from dirt roads, better stormwater management, more green space and water-sensitive urban design.

There’s been a lot of investment but the ongoing challenge is more to do with getting longer-term funding commitments. Environmental recovery doesn’t happen neatly within a three- or four-year political cycle — it can take decades.

Projects tend to be a bit stop-start which makes it hard to maintain momentum. Every time a program ends, there’s a gap before the new one starts and during that time we lose people and knowledge. Longer-term consistent funding would make it much easier to retain skilled people and maintain organisational capacity.

‍

Q: What practical actions can everyday residents take to help address these issues, and are there particular actions people should be taking?

Terrain NRM: It’s basically about being mindful of the impact of our actions on the environment. Anything that goes down the sink or stormwater drain ends up in our waterways.

Things like reducing waste, recycling, avoiding unnecessary single-use plastics, composting food scraps and being careful about how we use household chemicals all help reduce pollution entering the environment.

Washing the car on the lawn instead of on the drive, picking your dog poo up, reducing use of fertilisers and pesticides in the garden, maintaining vegetation on your property etc.

‍

For those that are super keen, get involved in volunteer activities like tree planting days, habitat restoration and beach clean-ups.

‍