Conservation news

• Coca-Cola, WWF & Project Catalyst

• Bring back the flashjack!

• Wetland Watch kicks off in Peel Harvey

• Fiji

• Coca-Cola, WWF & Project Catalyst
  The US-based Coca-Cola Foundation granted funding of AUD$1.2m (USD$770,000) to a new watershed partnership, Project Catalyst. This project aims to significantly reduce the environmental impact of agricultural run-off on one of the country’s most iconic natural wonders, the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). The project is being delivered in partnership with WWF-Australia and Reef Catchments - a local Natural Resource Management (NRM) Group supporting the Mackay and Whitsunday communities - and Coca-Cola Australia.

Partners are working with carefully identified sugarcane farmers to develop more sustainable farming practices that will substantially reduce the pesticide, herbicide and sediment loads leaving sugarcane farms in the Mackay and Whitsunday area. These off-farm pollutants have been identified as one of the key threats to the long-term health of the Great Barrier Reef.

The project has immense potential to develop cutting-edge water management and sustainable agricultural practices in the region (initially focused on sugarcane farming). The practices developed will then be shared throughout the GBR region and will ultimately have the potential to improve agricultural practices worldwide, thereby protecting other at-risk reef systems.

• Bring back the flashjack!
  A consortium of concerned conservationists launched a partnership at Avocet Nature Refuge that will work towards safeguarding Queensland’s bridled nailtail wallaby, also known as the flashjack, from extinction. Thanks to a Threatened Species Network (TSN) Community Grant, the Bridled Nailtail Wallaby Recovery Project is working with cattle property owners in the Central Queensland Highlands to provide a safe haven for these rare and threatened wallabies.

• Wetland Watch kicks off in Peel Harvey
  WWF’s Wetland Watch project has a new home in the Peel Harvey region in WA. The project will help to protect the Peel Inlet and Harvey Estuary which form part of the Peel Yalgorup system, one of the twelve Ramsar listed wetland systems in Western Australia. With the City of Mandurah one of the fastest growing residential areas in the nation, these high conservation value wetlands are under increased pressure from development. The Wetland Watch project will work collaboratively with property owners to protect the unique and spectacular biodiversity of this nationally listed coastal hotspot. Private landowners who sign up to the project will gain access to a series of training workshops, free site assessments, property surveys and assistance to apply for funding for on-ground works. The Peel Harvey program will build on the successful Wetland Watch project that WWF has delivered in the Swan region over the past four years and WWF’s Wetland Watch Program Officer Brett Brenchley is back onboard to deliver this next phase of the project.

• Fiji
  WWF’s International Program staff are monitoring the political situation in Fiji and providing advice and support to WWF’s South Pacific Program Office in Suva, especially in light of the fact that media is heavily censored and Radio Australia’s transmitters have been shut down by the military government.