bay

10 June 2010

What can live in either salt water or fresh, is home to baby fish and sharks, breathes through upside down roots and produces a natural insect repellent?

The year eight Reef Guardian students from Northern Beaches State High School learned the answer yesterday during a presentation on mangroves.

NQ Dry Tropics’ Land and Sea Coordinator, Leah Saltner, said that mangrove forests were the equivalent of the local Bunnings hardware store for early Indigenous Australians.

Funding available for Bowling Green Bay neighbours

Landholders near the Bowling Green Bay wetland south of Townsville, may be eligible for funding to remove weeds and improve land management practices to enhance wetland health.

Removal of weeds such as hymenachne, rubber vine, prickly acacia, water hyacinth and salvinia will be targeted as part of the project.

Installation of protective fencing, feral animal control and revegetation may also be funded through the program.

The Lower Burdekin Basin is relatively small, covering just under 10,000 square kilometres.

The land is mostly used for grazing with about 12 per cent used for intensive agriculture such as irrigated sugar production. Another 9 per cent is used for conservation purposes.