Reef Trust Phase III: Reef Alliance - Growing a Great Barrier Reef

This project is being undertaken with the aim to improve water quality entering the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) by communicating with stakeholders, and enabling the alterating and improvement of landholder's practices in cane, grazing, dairy, horticulture, bananas, grains and cropping. Being delivered by a consortium of farmers, graziers, NRM's, and industry groups this project has been working to provide a network of training, extension, and on the ground support to agricultural land managers and the broader reef community in the adaptation of practices and habits to improve the water quality within the GBR. The outcomes of this project continue to contribute to the delivery of the initial overarching Reef Trust Programme Outcome; to improve the quality of water entering the Great Barrier Reef from broad-scale land use to increase the health and resilience of the Great Barrier Reef.

This particular project aims to do so by achieving a ten percent (401 ton) reduction in Reef-wide anthropogenic Dissolved Inorganic Nitrogen (DIN) load as well as other nutrients and pollutants related to agriculture, a five precent (191,000 ton) reduction in Reef-wide sediment load derived from grazing land, a 10 percent (18,000 ton) annual average sediment and nutrient load reduction associated with grains and broad acre cropping (excluiding sugarcane) in the Fitzroy and Burdekin regions, and the continuation of management practice improvement in horticulture and dairy farming and soil and nutrient management planning adoption activities. The project overall relies on the acceptance of adaptation of landholders to more sustainable practices within the Great Barrier Reef Catchment.