2019-02-18 GC Agenda Att 1 to Item 8 - Draft Environment Strategy

Strategy 1: Maintain & improve the health of waterways, wetlands &
catchments
Target: By 2030, the Noosa River and Mary River sub-catchments within Noosa Shire achieve an
A rating (or equivalent) for their environmental health.

Mary River Catchment
The Mary River Catchment is a large water catchment stretching from Maleny to Hervey Bay,
ultimately influencing the health of the Great Barrier Reef. The upper part of the Mary River
catchment occurs in the south-west of the shire and includes Six Mile, Skyring, Blackfellow, Happy
Jack and Middle Creeks. The Mary River catchment also supplies a significant amount of drinking
water to Noosa Shire.

Land use within this sub-catchment influences the ecological health of the Mary River and the
conservation of threatened species such as the Mary River Turtle (Elusor macrurus), Mary River
Cod (Maccullochella mariensis) and the Australian Lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri). Much of the
catchment is highly modified for agricultural and urban uses. Remaining remnant vegetation and
riparian corridors along waterways help maintain water quality and provide habitat for a diversity of
mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and insects.

Like other river systems, the upper Mary sub-catchments suffers from erosion of riverbanks and
sediment mobilisation, reduced water quality, fragmentation of riparian buffers and faunal corridors,
and impacts from stock and other agricultural practices. There is an opportunity to restore riparian
corridors along creek lines and improve land use management practices through collaborative
working relationships with landholders.

The Mary River Catchment Strategy was developed in 1996 to ensure the sustainable use of land,
water and vegetation resources. The strategy continues to be an important guiding document for
land and water management for the catchment.

Community groups such as the Mary River Catchment Coordinating Committee (MRCCC) play a
key role in engaging with and advocating for improvements to farm practices, riparian restoration
and erosion, and sediment control projects.

Noosa River Catchment
With its headwaters in the Cooloola Section of the Great Sandy National Park, the Noosa River is
South-east Queensland’s healthiest river system. This shallow water body includes Lake Como,
Lake Cooloola, Lake Cootharaba, Lake Cooroibah, Lake Doonella and Lake Weyba. Noosa River
aquatic ecosystems include intertidal mangrove and saltmarsh communities, seagrass beds,
mudflats, sandy benthic substrates, creeks, river beaches, and artificial rock revetments and
structures in the lower Noosa River catchment.

The diversity of marine ecosystems provides habitat for marine animals and plants. Many species
of migratory birds roost and feed on sand and mud flats in the lower Noosa estuary during spring
and summer. The Vulnerable Water Mouse (Xeromys myoides) has been recorded in the Noosa
River catchment and lives in saltmarsh, mangroves and adjacent freshwater wetland habitat.

The Noosa River is consistently awarded an A rating, under the Healthy Land Water monitoring
program, based on environmental condition, as well as social and economic benefit.

Noosa Shire Environment Strategy                                                             Page 21