In Townsville, we marked World Wetlands Day by inviting organisations involved in wetland conservation to share their work with interested members of the community. We are so grateful for the contributions of NQ Dry Tropics, Coastal Dry Tropics Landcare, Wongaloo Conservation Park and the Townsville Dry Tropics Partnership for Healthy Waters, whose representatives volunteered their time to share valuable relevant information with us.

Project Officer with Coastal Dry Tropics Landcare Jake Hancock gave an overview of the hands-on work being undertaken around Townsville. He also reminded us of volunteering opportunities available and their Bush Garden Nursery, where we sourced some wetland plants for the morning's event. 

Mark Stoneman of Wongaloo Conservation Park gave an in-depth presentation about the history and current management practices of the wetlands, adjacent to Bowling Green Bay National Park.

Brad Holt and Shakira Todd took us through the wide-ranging works of NQ Dry Tropics.

We also heard from Dr Annie Bauer-Civiello from the Dry Tropics Partnership for Healthy Waters as she introduced their Pilot Report Card for 2018-19. 

We'd love to thank NQCC volunteer Malcolm Tattersall and Mark Horvarth from BirdLife Townsville for providing beautiful photos of local wetland birds!

We sincerely hope that everyone who attended took something meaningful away from the event - whether that was some new information about local wetlands, new connections with like-minded people or perhaps ideas for ways to get involved with any of the fantastic organisations present! 

May our wetlands, their ecological processes and the species they support, continue to survive and thrive well into the future. Together we can make it happen.