It's a celebratory time to talk with Peter because a new Memorandum of Understanding has been negotiated between the Cairns Regional Council and Terrain NRM.  This agreement recognises the NRM partnership that both Council and Terrain have been pursuing.

Peter Bradley's background is in rehabilitation and water quality. Prior to Terrain, Peter was involved in the development and roll-out of the Douglas Water Quality Improvement Plan.

Peter and his wife Jill have two adult children completing tertiary studies. Over the past few years they have been building their rammed-earth home overlooking Cow Bay, with (as he puts it) no definitive completion date.  While he spends a lot of his spare time building, Peter snorkels the inner reefs at Cow Bay which he says is a good break from work.

"Over the past 25 years I've worked on many landscapes from rainforests to arid zones – 4000mm to 125mm rainfall, and I can't say I really have a favourite.  However looking out from my home verandah over a very special coastal floodplain every day is hard to beat."

As Team Leader, Peter is responsible for the Cairns Water Quality Improvement Plan and oversees project activities in the Babinda, Mulgrave, Mossman and Daintree areas.  Based at Terrain's Mossman office he works with Steve Bailey, the Catchment Coordinator for the Douglas region and Gavin Kay who is Terrain's Re-vegnet project manager. Gavin is also involved in Degree Celsius, the region's carbon sequestration project.

A quick overview of the Cairns Area Team staff and project profile is provided below:

The Russell & Babinda Catchment

Mel McDonald has recently left the region and Terrain welcomes her recent replacement, Daryl Killen who operates from the Babinda office with the Russell Catchment Landcare Group.  Daryl will continue Mel's work with individual landholders across the catchment landscape particularly in revegetation.  A recent riparian workshop nominated Babinda Catchment as the priority location for onground activity and a site assessment within this sub-catchment is underway.

Mulgrave Catchment

Long term Catchment Coordinator, Bruce Corcoran works with the Mulgrave Landcare Catchment Group, and has been active in a range of land management issues including revegetation along the Mulgrave River and the promotion of sustainable agriculture.   One only has to cross the new Mulgrave River bridge to witness his team's effort in stabilising watercourses.

Mossman/Daintree

Testing water in Dickson Inlet, Port Douglas Peter Bradley and Steve Bailey.

Steve Bailey has been with Terrain for approximately 18 months with the principal role of implementing the Douglas Water Quality Improvement Plan. He has coordinated (with the Cairns Regional Council) the onground priority works identified in the Plan, overseen a cane drains remediation project, and initiated an urban water quality monitoring project in Port Douglas.

Steve explains that he's been rolling out last year's system repairs – "building a constructed wetland, stabilising river banks, riparian rehabilitation with community groups. There were 35 volunteers from Whyanbeel Action Group (WAG) at our last planting day and the Cairns Regional Council have been so supportive of our planting efforts.  Pete Logan, the Manager at the Mossman nursery who's also responsible for pest and Weed management, has been providing seedlings and labour".

Gavin Kay (also based at the Mossman office) has been working with Revegnet.au.  Revegnet.au has been developed by Private Forestry SEQ, with a Landcare grant through Caring for Our Country. Revegnet.au is a project intended to progress best management forest, reafforestation and revegetation practices, along with mapping and risk assessment of priority forest areas. The project aims to build landholder skills and capacity, develop and implement property management plans via an incentive program for on-ground works.

Cane drains – converting deep 'V' shape eroding drains into grassed shallow spoon drains, reduces sediment loss and allows landholders to slash drains during the dry season which in turn reduces the amount of herbicides required, erosion and also increases water quality.

Activities include fencing riparian areas and unstable drainage lines, revegetating recharge zones, linking fragmented essential habitat forests and improving the health, ground cover and productivity of overstocked regrowth forests.  Find out more about carbon.

Find out what's been happening in the Herbert:

http://www.terrain.org.au/component/content/article/2-public-general/157-new-herbert-area-team-in-place.html