3 minute read
GROWER ACCOLADE
A national award has recognised cane growers in the Cairns region for their innovative efforts to improve water quality on the Great Barrier Reef.
The grower-driven Project 25, overseen by the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre (RRRC), has been awarded the 2023 National Banksia Sustainability Award - Agriculture and Regional Development Award, topping a highly competitive field of some of Australia’s best social and environmental sustainability initiatives.
Advertisement
The program has seen CANEGROWERS Cairns region work with Professor Damien Burrows and Dr Aaron Davis from James Cook University’s TropWater to establish a network of water quality monitoring sites in the Mulgrave and Russell Catchments.
What sets it apart is its citizen-science approach, which allows growers to observe nitrogen concentrations in runoff from their own properties.
CANEGROWERS Cairns Manager Sarah Standen said grassroots engagement established a framework of trust.
“The growers were involved in the project; hence they believe the results,” she said. “They knew exactly what was happening, they moved machinery when it flooded, they were beside scientists learning what was happening at the coal face so there was never any disbelief in the numbers.
“Growers were a part of the system - the sampling and the integrity of the dataand so they never doubted the results.”
Chairman of CANEGROWERS Cairns, Stephen Calcagno, said the project has led to sustainable change in farming practices at both individual and basin levels.
“Even the scientists have a better understanding of where the major losses are, which is usually during the first or second flush of the wet season,” he said.
“We are now going to a whole-of-catchment approach to develop water retention areas. For instance, the Babinda
L to R – Front Row – Neil Maitland, John Ferrando, John Piccolo (holding Award), Sarah Standen, Stephen Calcagno, and Joe Bonso.
Swamp Drainage Board is looking at holding back that first flush in a minor event - diverting it through wetlands and weirs to slow it down and allow the nitrogen to be absorbed. Growers remain heavily involved and invested in these solutions.”
Mr Calcagno said the model is easily replicated and is now being rolled out across other catchments of the Great Barrier Reef.
“I think the RRRC and TropWater and the growers within the area should be congratulated,” he said. “When we started on this journey it was new and now it’s an accepted template. Everyone uses it within the industry when they design their water quality monitoring systems.”
The Banksia Foundation’s Sustainability Awards have been highlighting Australia’s brightest leaders, change-makers, and innovators for 34 years. This year’s message was ‘For humanity to survive, biodiversity must thrive.
