The long-term goal of our reporting is to determine if aquatic ecosystems are in good shape, given the underlying land uses and management across the Basin. While pockets of the Fitzroy Basin are largely unmodified including national parks and forests, most of the Basin has been moderately disturbed, mainly for agriculture, with small, but significant mining, urban and expanding coal seam gas footprints.
The findings that the aquatic ecosystems in the Fitzroy Basin are in ‘fair’ to ‘good’ condition is expected, given the current extent of development across the basin and it would be unrealistic to expect that an ‘A’ grade would ever be attained for some catchments as to achieve that grade they would need to be pristine.
It is heartening given the development and the major weather events that have occurred in previous years, that ecosystem health has been maintained largely across the Basin over the past ten years. It is anticipated that future management would focus on maintaining the current condition of healthier ecosystems while addressing any hotspots. Part of the Partnership’s role is to provide a forum for collaboration and sharing of management responses and management change, with our first Stewardship Report: Being the change that is needed launched in 2021 featuring a range of water stewardship initiatives being undertaken by our partners – https://riverhealth.org.au/water-stewardship/