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Northern Rivers - Natural Resource Management region

Regional summary

The Northern Rivers covers about 50,000 square kilometres of land from the Camden Haven River in the south to the Queensland border in the north, and from Lord Howe Island in the east to Armidale and Glen Innes in the west. Major rivers are the Tweed, Brunswick, Richmond, Clarence, Bellinger, Nambucca, Macleay and Hastings.

The region has more than 550,000 people, with significant population growth along the coast of more than 2 percent a year. Major population growth centres are Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour, Ballina-Lismore, and Tweed Heads.

The region is rich in agricultural production, timber production, commercial fishing and tourism - it is estimated that more than 6 million people visit the North Coast each year. The major industries are beef and sheep production, dairying, sugar, farm forestry, horticulture and the nursery industry. The major use of water is from unregulated rivers in the region for town water supplies, followed by irrigation.

Two distinct environments exist - the coastal and the eastern slopes environments. The river, estuary and coastal ecosystems of the coastal zone are particularly sensitive to the impact of urbanisation and economic growth. Problems such as acid sulphate soils illustrate the need for careful management.

Priority issues

Key natural resource management issues in the region include:

• threats to biodiversity, including species, ecological communities and remnant native vegetation
• pressures of population growth
• land degradation
• threats to water quality and quantity
• acid sulfate soils

Regional plan

The former Northern Rivers, Upper North Coast and Mid North Coast Catchment Management Boards - predecessors to the current Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority - prepared integrated natural resource management (NRM) plans, the blueprints, for what is now the Northern Rivers region, incorporating social, economic and environmental elements of NRM.

These blueprints are based on a whole-of-catchment approach and set 10-year catchment condition targets for the priority NRM issues of the region. They outline the tasks to be accomplished to achieve these targets.

They form the basis for the development of Investment Strategies that are used to attract funding from the Australian and state government, and from other sources, for the specific actions identified in the Investment Strategy.

Through the Trust funding, the Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority encourages and facilitates strong community involvement in the region's NRM, backed up by support for on-ground works and other activities that benefit the environment and the community.

Current activities

NRM Priorities	Activities addressing the priority
Biodiversity	restoring forest ecosystems by actively managing targeted areas of high conservation value linking areas of important habitat modifying barriers to restore fish passage weed and pest management on Lord Howe Island
Landuse Planning	completing coastal plans and implementing priority works assisting landholders with property management planning and vegetation plans
Land Management	developing best management practices for the horticulture industry managing environmental weeds on Tableland areas
Water	rehabilitating rivers and stream banks managing coastal wetlands
Acid Sulfate Soils	managing land to reduce acid outflow on Tweed and Richmond Floodplain acid sulfate soils
Aboriginal Cultural Heritage	implementing priority Indigenous natural resource management works

Contacts

Further information can be obtained by contacting the Regional Facilitators for New South Wales.