From the Great Dividing Range
to the Great Barrier Reef

The 146,000km² Burdekin Dry Tropics natural resource management (NRM) region connects the Great Dividing Range to the Great Barrier Reef. It encompasses the Burdekin River catchment, and the smaller coastal catchments of the Black, Ross, Haughton and Don rivers. The Burdekin Dam, one of Australia’s largest, has a storage capacity of approximately 1,860 million cubic meters. The Burdekin River is Australia’s largest river by peak flow, and the second largest in Qld by area. It is almost twice the size of Tasmania.

The region includes land and sea Country of the Warrungnu, Nywaigi, Wulgurukaba, Manbarra, Bindal, Gugu Badhun, Gudjala, Juru, Birriah, Gia, Widi, Jangga, Wangan and Jagalingou, Bidjara, Yirendali, and Iningai Traditional Owners and Custodians of Country. They have an enduring deep connection with the region’s natural resources and play an important role in protecting them for future generations.

The region’s natural assets include 500km of coastline and inshore marine habitat of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area; the southern extent of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area; the internationally-recognised Bowling Green Bay Ramsar wetland, and 34 nationally important wetlands.

The population of around 250,000 has grown by an estimated 30 per cent since 2005, with the majority living in Townsville, Charters Towers, Bowen, Ayr, Home Hill, and the offshore islands of Magnetic Island and the Greater Palm Island Group.

The region is rich in resources, from which its communities derive substantial environmental, economic, social and Cultural benefits. Agriculture dominates the landscape, with beef cattle grazing covering more than 90 per cent of the land area; a sugar cane industry producing over one quarter of Australia’s annual cane supply; horticulture in the Bowen Gumlu Agricultural District; and dryland cropping in large areas of the Belyando Suttor sub-catchment.

The Burdekin Dry Tropics region comprises 12 local government areas; Townsville, Burdekin, Charters Towers, and Palm Island, along with significant portions of Whitsunday, Isaac, and Barcaldine, and smaller parts of the Tablelands, Etheridge, Flinders, Hinchinbrook, and Mackay shires.