Seagrass-Watch Magazine Issue 47 - March 2013 | Page 31

Article by Louise Johns, Len McKenzie,
Phil Hales & Rob Coles
Photography by Carla Wegscheidl,
Rob Coles, Louise Johns,
Aaron Davis, Colin Dollery
& John Armour

Australia

Paddock to Reef
making a difference

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is under
pressure from many factors, one of which is
the poor quality of water running into it from
adjacent catchments(1). Sediments, nutrients,
and pesticides are entering the GBR coastal
waters, primarily from broad scale agricultural land use(2). This is
impacting not only the health of the inshore coral reefs, but the
inshore seagrass meadows and their capacity to withstand and
recover from climate related impacts.
The Australian and Queensland Governments established the
Reef Water Quality Protection Plan (Reef Plan) to halt and
reverse the decline in water quality entering the reef and to ensure
that by 2020 the quality of water entering the reef from adjacent
catchments has no detrimental impact on the health and
resilience of the GBR. Reef Plan identified and prioritised 11
actions critical to ensuring success, and these were categorised as:
focusing the activity; responding to the challenge; and measuring
success.
Research and development enables Reef Plan to focus the
activity, and through government assistance, such as Reef
Rescue, the farmers and land managers in GBR catchments are
responding to the challenge, by increasing the adoption of
improved land management practices that will reduce runoff of
nutrients, pesticides and sediment from agricultural lands.
To measure the success of Reef Plan, the Queensland and
Australian Governments in 2009 committed