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.