Cairns

Have you ever admired the colourful flowers or shape of a plant only to discover that it's a weed?  Now you can find its less invasive match.

Bush Friendly Plants of the Burdekin Dry Tropics has colour photos and information about common tree, shrub, grass, vine and groundcover weeds you see in backyards and on public land.

If it sits up, is brown and warty, it's a cane toad right? Wrong.

There are at least five native frogs that look and behave just like cane toads and can be difficult to tell apart.

That is why NQ Dry Tropics has developed a website to show you the difference between native frogs in your back yard and cane toads – www.frogsnotcanetoads.com.au

You don’t have to live close to sand and surf to see birds that are classed as coastal dwellers.

Many of the 50 birds listed in Coastal Birds of the Burdekin Dry Tropics are commonly seen on streets and gardens from Crystal Creek to north of Bowen.

Others stick strictly to the beaches like the Red-necked Stint and the Grey-tailed Tattler.

There are close to 50 birds you're most likely to see in the dry tropics bush. They include the smallest bird in Australia, the Weebill, and the vulnerable Black-throated Finch.

To really get to know these birds, it is helpful to know where they live, what they eat and their breeding patterns. They have a better chance of survival when we are aware of the environment they live in.

Flagstone Station (15 kms east of Collinsville) and Hells Gate Station (30 kms west of Collinsville) have recently signed up to allow part of their properties to become nature refuges.

Nature refuges are lands dedicated to conservation that allow sustainable land use to continue. There are now almost 250 nature refuges across Queensland on property enterprises as diverse as grazing, cropping, horticulture and ecotourism.

Landscape Linkages is an innovative pilot scheme financed by NQ Dry Tropics to entice landholders in the Southern Desert Uplands to manage their land with native vegetation and at the same time conserve wildlife in their pastures.

In this two-year scheme, landholders and managers in the region bordered by the shires of Jericho, Aramac and Barcaldine, submitted a price to provide the required maintenance of vegetation on areas on their properties, while not increasing the intensity of grazing.

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Prickly acacia, a weed of national significance, and a priority of the region’s Pest Management Strategy and the Burdekin Shire Council Pest Management Plan, was targeted for control at Home Hill to remove a substantial proportion from the area.

The Blueprint for the Bush project was run by Burdekin Shire Council, in partnership with NQ Dry Tropics, Greening Australia, and two properties where the majority of the work was conducted.

A total of 1,500 hectares was targeted with landholders implementing property pest management plans including: