My guide, a birdwatcher, couldn’t disguise his excitement at the return of life we were seeing all around us. The rainforest at Russett Park in Kuranda was once eerily quiet, but now, in a place where birds and insects had been stripped away, there is new life.
Category Archives: National Parks
The Chair of Tourism and Events Queensland, Brett Godfrey has a message: open up national parks for more ecotourism. This call is both exciting and terrifying, good and bad, hopeful and discouraging.
Only a couple of months ago we were wondering what the outcome of the Queensland election would be.
Important conservation values are being ignored as Queensland’s major parties engage in a war of words over tourism.
Before we follow other states starry eyed about potential short-term gains, let us examine the costs and benefits of existing ecotourism developments. With this knowledge, there is an opportunity to demonstrate real leadership rather than copy others.
National Parks, Nature Refuges, Private Reserves
Public hearing on Special Wildlife Reserves clarifies flora is included
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Discussion on a Bill to establish Special Wildlife Reserves (a new class of privately-owned protected area) at an Agriculture & Environment Committee hearing has cleared up some confusion around the name and produced many interesting perspectives, including AgForce’s fears over “locking up land”.
Land once slated for the world’s first commercially-operated international spaceport has this year been given back to Traditional Owners. Two months after the handback ceremony in Cairns in May, Andrew Picone from the Australian Conservation Foundation looks at the importance of the landmark decision and the benefits of Aboriginal ownership and joint management of national parks.
The State Budget has allocated an extra $40 million over two years for national parks, however only $5 million of that will potentially go towards operational funding and conservation planning. The rest is essentially a tourism spend disguised as environmental dollars. Learn why the Queensland Government’s boast of a record environmental spend isn’t all it’s made out to be.
Many Queensland national parks were heavily impacted as Cyclone Debbie cut a path of destruction centred on the Whitsunday and Mackay regions, before tracking south and creating widespread flooding. NPAQ Conservation Officer Laura Hahn assesses the damage and turns the spotlight on the mammoth clean-up effort.
Citizen science initiatives provide an opportunity for nature lovers to get involved directly with conservation and through doing so gain a greater understanding and respect for it. NPAQ industry placement student Lucy Hollingsworth, from the University of Queensland, looks at some of the benefits – for scientists and the individuals volunteering to support their research.