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South West Queensland - Natural Resource Management region

Regional summary

The South West region covers a land-based area of 237,100 square kilometres encompassing the Bulloo, Warrego and Paroo river catchments and the Nebine-Mungallala Creek catchment. The region is home to some 11,200 people. The main regional centres include Charleville, Quilpie and Cunnamulla.

The Queensland Murray-Darling Catchment and South West Natural Resource Management (NRM) regional bodies have jointly developed a single plan for their respective regions. The plan was accredited in mid-2004 and the regional investment strategy is currently being finalised, through which further funding will flow.

Priority issues

Key natural resource management issues in the region include:

• dryland salinity and sustainable land management
• riverine, floodplain and water quality management
• water allocation and management
• nature conservation and vegetation management
• weed and pest animal management
• energy and waste management
• cultural heritage

Regional plan

The community in this region has a long history of involvement in administering NRM strategies. The South West NRM Group took on the role of the designated regional body to obtain the Natural Heritage Trust (the Trust) funding. This group identified a number of opportunities and problems that are significant to South West.

The South West NRM Group was responsible for developing the South West regional plan, in conjunction with the Queensland Murray Darling Committee and in consultation with the local community. This plan was based on a whole-of-region approach and addresses significant NRM issues incorporating social, environmental and economic aspects.

Once the regional plan was accredited, the South West NRM Group was responsible for developing the regional investment strategy. This is essentially the business plan that attracts investment from the Australian and state governments and details the specific actions, costs and timeframes required to implement the regional plan.

• South West Queensland plan  - accredited July 2004

Current activities

NRM priority	Activities addressing the priority
Pest and weed management	incentives to control feral animals such as integrated rabbit control in the Bulloo Catchment and weed species such as Mesquite publication of a land manager manual on the management of native woody weeds
Soil erosion and land degradation	incentives to spread watering points and fence areas to help minimise overgrazing and protect waterways - 460 kilometres of fencing have been supplied to date and 89 watering points installed (figures based on Nature Conservation and Landcare Grants 2000-2002)
Conservation of high habitat and biodiversity areas	incentives for land managers to fence off and better manage areas of high habitat value, particularly waterways - as a result over 87,000 hectares of land are now protected under conservation agreements (figure based on Nature Conservation and Landcare Grants 2000-2002)
Catchment and property planning	the Integrated Multiproperty Planning Scheme is currently being developed with 3 pilots programmes ready for implementation
Ground water management	supporting programmes that are capping bores and changing bore drains to piped watering systems - total works since 1989 to date: 480 bores rehabilitated, over 5200 kilometres of boredrains replaced and 108,000ml of water saved. (Figures are for Queensland and were supplied by GABSI)

Contacts

Further information can be obtained by contacting the Regional Facilitators for Queensland.