Four Cairns and Far North Queensland organisations will receive funding to continue preserving our environment under the federal government’s highly-successful National Landcare Program.
Federal Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch said the successful grant recipients were leaders in environmental management and conservation.
He said the successful recipients included Cairns Aquarium and Reef Research Centre, Mossman Botanic Garden, Wuthathi Aboriginal Corporation and the Saltwater Creek Erosion Control and Revegetation Project.
“I am proud to congratulate the four organisations who will receive $50,000 in federal funding to deliver natural resource management activities that will improve the quality of our local environment,” Mr Entsch said.
“I know that environmental issues and conservation are particularly important to people living in Cairns and Far North Queensland.
“We all have a role to play in natural resource management and we can all contribute to the protection and restoration of our local environment.
“I am looking forward to working with the successful grant recipients to carry out projects that help to protect, rehabilitate and restore environmental assets in our communities.”
Mr Entsch said the Cairns Aquarium and Reef Research Centre project was particularly exciting given its education aspect.
“This project will establish an educational display within the Cairns Aquarium and Reef Research Centre to educate and inform more than 500,000 people annually about the species of invasive weeds within the Wet Tropics and Cape York,” he said.
“This interactive display will highlight the damage these weeds can cause to native plants and animals and explain the weed management techniques people can undertake such as physical, chemical and biological control to reduce the introduction of and spread of weeds.”
Mr Entsch said the Saltwater Creek Erosion Control and Revegetation Project would go a long way to restoring the local environment.
“This project aims to restore and enhance highly eroded riparian areas, using a constructed rock wall, adjacent to cane farming land, of Saltwater Creek,” he said.
“The project will use up to 300 seedlings to revegetate the area.
“This will benefit the natural assets of the area by stabilising the river bank, restoring important habitat for wildlife, reducing impacts of weeds, reducing runoff from on-farm activities and subsequently maintaining good water quality of the waterway running into the Great Barrier Reef.”