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Water Quality Improvement Plan ready for action

The Mackay Whitsunday Natural Resource Management Group (MWNRM) has recently added the final touches to their Water Quality Improvement Plan (WQIP) – a plan which benchmarks water quality and sets targets for improving the water quality of local rivers and creeks.

The WQIP links farm management practices to local water quality improvement goals, and strongly encourages the use of improved management practices on farms, particularly in the sugar and grazing industries in the Mackay-Whitsunday catchment.

Carl Mitchell, WQIP Officer with the MWNRM said that the WQIP has been developed in close consultation with stakeholders such as cane, grazing and horticulture industry representatives as well local government.

“MWNRM have been working for over two years to develop this WQIP,” Carl said. “It presents a snapshot of everything we know about the region’s waterways and how they are impacted by land use.”

The WQIP aims to improve long-term water quality to protect aquatic ecosystems and human values and uses in the region’s freshwater and estuarine waterways. It identifies strategies for investment to improve local water quality, and reduce pollutant loads to the Great Barrier Reef lagoon.

These strategies include activities such as:

direct incentives to landholders to assist in the accelerated adoption of improved land management practices
increased extension and support services for land managers
rehabilitation of aquatic environments such as reinstating fish passage and riparian vegetation, and
an integrated monitoring and modelling program designed to measure achievements against water quality improvement targets.

“The plan sets out a strategy to maintain and improve our waterways so that we can continue to enjoy them for years to come,” Carl said.

WQIPs are funded through the former Australian Government’s Natural Heritage Trust’s Coastal Catchments Initiative and developed with assistance from State and Local Government and agricultural industries. WQIPs are currently being developed in seven Reef catchments.

Public consultation for the MWNRM WQIP concluded on 4 April 2008. The final WQIP was launched by a representative of the Australian Government Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, on 9 May at the Healthy Waterways Forum hosted by the Whitsunday Catchment Landcare Association, at Airlie Beach.

This activity delivers on Reef Plan Action D4.

Find out more about Water Quality Improvement Plans.

Last reviewed 25 June 2008

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