Ingrid Marker has lived adjacent to the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area near Mission Beach for 25 years. In that time, a family of seven cassowaries became frequent visitors and made themselves at home on her property. Ingrid was lucky to witness the family have chicks and grow into mature birds with their own chicks, as they strutted around her home and garden over the years. Cassowaries are listed as endangered, and there are less than 1,400 in existence.

“While Adani’s Carmichael coal mine is beset with opposition and financing problems, the contrast to the go-ahead of yet another renewable, solar power station couldn’t be clearer” said NQ Conservation’s Maree Dibella, after news of the commencement of the $126 million Kidston Solar Project was announced by the Queensland Government yesterday.

“These are just the sorts of projects that conservationists support. It’s really exciting – an unused mine site being transformed into a renewable energy production and storage powerhouse” said Ms Dibella.

Protecting our ocean

Join us in celebrating the beautiful clear water of the northern tropics and safeguarding it from unnecessary dredging and other activities that muddy our wonderful Cleveland Bay – an ecological hotspot and fundamental to our unique lifestyle.

Clear Water Townsville is a partnership between North Queensland Conservation Council and the Magnetic Island Nature Care Association.

Let’s make one thing clear. We’re not here to close the Port of Townsville – just to make sure that excessive, damaging and unnecessary growth doesn’t destroy the wonderful marine environment and leisure activities we are privileged to enjoy in the waters of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.

Happy new year and welcome to the first edition of Paperbark for 2017.  We hope you had a refreshing break and are well-rested for the year ahead. We have a few good news stories below as well as some exciting events coming up in the months ahead.

We have big plans for 2017, and are happy to announce a new team member has come on board in making our plans a reality! Welcome to Tyler Peirce who has taken on the role of Community Campaigner.

Several campaigns we are involved in will reach critical points, and it is also very likely that this will be an election year.

“DOING BUSINESS WITH ADANI A RISK TO NORTH QUEENSLAND”

North Queensland Conservation Council (NQCC) is shocked by a new report that shows that not even the Federal Minister responsible, Senator Matt Canavan, knows where a $1 billion taxpayer-subsidised loan would go to within the Adani group of companies which operate many of their entities in tax havens.

North Queensland Conservation Council and Queensland Conservation Council are happy to announce that we have received funding to run a special event for the 2017 Queensland Women’s Week.

This is a guest post written by Chelsea Broad, who attended the World Wetlands Day event put on by NQ Dry Tropics on Thursday 2nd Feb 2017. The views expressed in this post are the author's and not necessarily those of NQCC.

AIMS - photo: Chelsea Broad

World Wetlands Day works to educate the community on the issues facing the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and inspire the community to take action to protect the GBR and associated wetlands. More than 50 community members participated in educational lectures from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) and tours of ReefHQ and AIMS, including the world class scientific laboratory, SeaSim, within the Townsville region.

Did you know that keeping inland wetlands healthy is crucial for protecting the GBR?

This is a post by outgoing Community Campaigner Jacob Miller.

The Adani Carmichael Project has increasingly benefited from State and Federal Government support while the list of financial institutions distancing themselves the project continues to grow. Supporters of the mine try to justify the project, citing the supposed economic benefits for North Queensland and even go so far as to claim coal from the mine will help India reduce its carbon emissions. This post is going examine and dispel the myths that are being used to prop up the case for the Carmichael project.

The upper reaches of Ross Dam in November 2014

Between them, the very low level of Ross Dam, TCC's water restrictions (currently Level 3) and the continuing lack of rain focused unprecedented attention on Townsville's water security from 2015 onwards and particularly from 2016 after the city recorded its driest-ever year in 2015 (2016 was not much better). It seems that most people realise there is no single solution - that we will have to approach the problem on several fronts to fix it - but there is little agreement on priorities.

NQCC

NQCC published four blog posts under the heading NQCC Water Security Series towards the end of 2016:

• Part 1: Townsville Water Discussion Paper (Gail Hamilton)
• Part 2: Water Wonderland or Pipe Dreams? (Vern Veitch, re Hell's Gate Dam)
• Part 3: Hell’s Gate Dam Forum (Maree Dibella for NQCC)
• Part 4: How will climate change affect Townsville’s water security? (Malcolm Tattersall)

A Case For a Floating Solar Farm in Townsville’s Ross River Dam (Elly Hanrahan) is not nominally part of the series but follows naturally from it.

This study on the viability of a Floating Solar Farm on the Ross Dam is a guest post by Elly Hanrahan, an intern for the North Queensland Conservation Council. All views expressed are the author's and not necessarily those of the NQCC.

Townsville is currently experiencing its driest 11-month period since records began in 1841. With no action on water security from any level of government, desperate residents have formed the newly created Facebook group called ‘Water For Townsville Action Group’ in order to come up with a plan to secure Townsville’s water supply into the future.