Words Juliana Foxlee | Photo Cape York NRM

A resilient, future-focused and adaptive Cape York farming sector is the goal for Cape York NRM’s Healthy Farming Futures project.

Healthy Farming Futures aims to help raise awareness of how climate change will impact farm practices, land condition and support the identification of adaptation strategy, increasing the resilience against the projected impacts of climate change.

Words Abbey Ernst and Robyn May | Photo Robyn May

2019 marks a decade of successful operation for the Paddock to Reef Integrated Monitoring, Modelling and Reporting Program (Paddock to Reef program). 

It is through the Paddock to Reef program that Cape York NRM has effectively continued its work with landholders in the Normanby catchment of the Great Barrier Reef.  

Cape York NRM’s Healthy Farming Futures project is supporting a Cape York Wildlife Sanctuary which has so far received over 2,500 mm of rain this wet season, to stabilise the landscape to protect critical habitat.

Ongoing efforts to protect marine turtles on western Cape York Peninsula will be boosted with the assistance of a grant to Cape York NRM from the Gambling Community Benefit Fund.

Funds will be used to purchase sand temperature loggers and nest protection cages.

Two of the major threats to nesting marine turtles on the Cape are nest predation by feral pigs, and an increase in sand temperature as a result of climate change.

In Episode 1 of My Cape York Life, we talk with Shelley Lyon - a ranger at Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve - on the banks of the Wenlock River.

Shelley has spent over 40 years on Cape York working and living in some of Australia's most beautiful and remote places. In this episode we learn how Shelley and her family came to live on the Cape, and hear some funny and scary tales of her adventures over the years. 

In Episode 2 of My Cape York Life we continue the journey of Shelley Lyon and her family through Cape York Peninsula in far north Queensland.  We travel to Cooktown, Lakefield National Park, the Great Barrier Reef and Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve, learning about life in remote Cape York. We go beachcombing and exploring, and hear what's its like coming face-to-face with a crocodile. 

Enjoy, subscribe, and please invite your friends to listen in.

Louise Stone has lived a colourful life.  She grew up on dairy farm on the Atherton Tablelands and has travelled Australia's east coast in horse and buggy. Louise can play almost any musical instrument she picks up, sings like a songbird and she once went on tour with Ester King from the Platters. She has a fascinating career working in Aboriginal communities in Queensland and Northern Territory, training Rangers in Conservation and Land Management. Until late last year, Louise was the Ranger Coordinator with Mapoon Land and Sea Rangers.

Jalunji-Warra Land and Sea Country

(excerpt)

Caring for Kuku Nyungkal Country

Our vision for our bubu (land)1 is to

• Maintain our Nyungkal culture, belief, customs and law/lore;

• Sustain, conserve, and preserve our country, landscapes, waters, mountains and all our cultural sites;

• Care for our people and their social and economic well being.