Reef And Rivers Podcast
by James Donaldson, Wet Tropics Waterways
Healthy waterways underpin the vibrant lifestyle, economy and environment of the Wet Tropics Region in Far North Queensland. They also underpin the health and well-being of Australia's iconic Great Barrier Reef. We talk to people from around the region to learn more about our waterways, the critters that call them home and the people and projects working to improve their health.
Episodes
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S6.E10 Steve Lizzio, Growing Bananas Beside the Great Barrier Reef
Award winning banana growers Steve and Richelle Lizzio grow bananas in Mission Beach on one of the closest banana farms to the Great Barrier Reef. Their business is a great example of what's been achieved in the banana industry since environmental management guidelines were introduced.
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S6.E9 Dr Matt Curnock, Human Dimensions of Waterway Health
Dr Matt Curnock is a senior research scientist at CSIRO in Townsville. His work in social and environmental science is focused on understanding how people perceive, value and interact with the Great Barrier Reef. Given that 'managing the environment is actually about managing people', social...
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S6.E7 Travis Sydes, Biosecurity and the Threat of Amazon Frogbit
Travis Sydes managing natural resources in Far North Queensland as part of FNQROC, which represents 10 local governments across the region. In this podcast he talks about biosecurity issues in the Wet Tropics with a particular focus on Amazon frogbit, an aquarium plant that is infesting local...
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S6.E6 Geoff McClure, Restoring Cattana Wetlands
Geoff McClure is one of hundreds of conservation volunteers who have helped transform Cattana Wetlands in the north of Cairns into an environmental park. In this podcast he talks about his love of conservation and the work that has gone into restoring the biodiversity hotspot at Cattana.
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S6.E5 Barbara Wueringer, Discovering The Elusive Sawfish
Zoologist Dr Barbara Wueringer talks about her work with the fascinating sawfish her research of and how trawling through old newspaper clippings from the Gold Rush era helped to understand more about its historic distribution before gill nets and trophy fishing decimated it's populations.
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S6.E4 Matt Moore, Fish Passage
Fisheries ecologist Matt Moore from Catchment Solutions talks about why fish habitat connectivity within waterways is so important and how decisions made to fix fish barriers such as weirs and dams.
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S6.E3 Sam Bastounas, Using Seaweed to Strip Nutrients from Water
Sam Bastounas is the CEO of Pacific Bio, an Australian company that develops green technology to address water quality and food security issues. In this podcast, Sam discusses the challenge of purifying water and the development of RegenAqua, a new technology developed with JCU that uses seaweed…
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S6.E2 Heidi Tait, Cleaning Up Marine Debris
Heidi Tait is the founder and Managing Director of Tangaroa Blue, a not for profit organisation focused on removing and preventing marine debris. In this podcast, Heidi talks about the problem of litter in our oceans and the importance of going beyond beach clean ups to tackle debris at its source.
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S6.E1 Phil Laycock, Results of the 2024 Wet Tropics Waterway Health Report Card
This is the 9th annual Wet Tropics Waterway Health Report Card to be released by Wet Tropics Waterways to assess the health and condition of freshwater basins, estuaries, inshore and offshore areas of the Wet Tropics in Far North Queensland. Independent Chair Phil Laycock explains some of the key...
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S5.E10 Dr Robert Walsh, Micro invertebrates in waterways
Micro invertebrates are tiny creatures that are invisible to the naked eye but form the basis of the food web in our waterways. Dr. Robert Walsh talks about the importance and diversity of microfauna for sustaining aquatic systems and reveals that their eggs can remain viable for up to 400-500...
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S5.E9 Kim Hooper, Prawn Farming Near the Great Barrier Reef
Australia loves its prawns so much that Queensland's aquaculture industry produces more than $200M of produce of each year, but is it sustainable? Kim Hooper, Executive Officer of the Australian Prawn Farmers Association, talks about the industry, how it works and how it minimises its impact on...
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S5.E8 Gareth Phillips, Tourism and Conservation on the Great Barrier Reef
Millions of tourists come to north Queensland each year to experience the natural wonder of the Great Barrier Reef. This influx of people from around the world represents an opportunity to educate and inform people about the complexity of the reef system and the threats that it faces. In this...
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S5.E7 Associate Professor Mike Rasheed and Paul Doyle, Seagrass
Seagrass meadows play a critically important role in the reef ecosystem. They are nursery habitat for fish and prawns, they stabilise sediment and protect coastlines from erosion, they suck up and filter nutrients coming down from rivers into the reef lagoon, they absorb carbon and also help…
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S5.E6 Fiona Barron, Tracking Progress on Great Barrier Reef Water Quality
The Great Barrier Reef is about the size of Japan or Italy and there are millions of dollars being invested in improving the runoff of water flowing off the land. How do we know if these reef projects are actually working? Fiona Barron is the coordinator of the Paddock to Reef Program in the Wet...
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S5.E5 Mark Kennard, Bloomfield River Cod
Professor Mark Kennard discovered the Bloomfield River Cod in the early 90's whilst undertaking fish surveys as a research assistant. It is the only tropical cod in the world that has avoided predators by living in an 11 kms stretch of the Bloomfield River between two waterfalls.
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S5.E4 Dr Samantha Tol, Dugongs, Turtles and Seagrass
Did you know that seagrass is the only plant in the world that is capable of fruiting and flowering underwater? This is just one of many fascinating facts shared by Dr. Samantha Tol in this week's Reef & Rivers podcast. Samantha is a researcher at JCU and well known in the marine science world…
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S5.E3 - Joe Marano, Cane Farming by the Great Barrier Reef
The sugarcane industry is a highly visible part of the Wet Tropics landscape – if you drive between Ingham and the Daintree, you can't miss it. Employing more than 4000 direct jobs and supporting another 1800, it contributes over $630 million to our local rural economies. However, since the…
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S5.E2 - Nathan Waltham, Restoring Coastal Wetlands
Nathan Waltham, Senior Principal Researcher at James Cook University, is an expert in coastal landscape ecology and processes. In this episode of the Reef & Rivers podcast Nathan talks about the importance of different wetland habitats, the pressures from urban development and the future fo...
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S5. E1 Greg Vinall, Results of the 2023 Wet Tropics Waterway Health Report Card
This is the 8th annual Wet Tropics Waterway Health Report Card to be released by Wet Tropics Waterways to assess the health and condition of freshwater basins, estuaries, inshore and offshore areas of the Wet Tropics in Far North Queensland. Independent Chair Dr Greg Vinall explains some of the…
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S4.E10 The role of aquariums as educators
If you've visited the Cairns Aquarium you'll know that biodiversity and conservation education are a driving force behind their business model. In fact, raising awareness about the biodiversity in our world heritage-listed reef and rainforest underpins their entire philosophy. With over 100,000...
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S4.E9 A blueprint for turbo-charging reef water quality progress
The Wet Tropics Major Integrated Project was an ambitious 4-year social change and reef water quality project, and has been described as a blueprint to accelerating progress towards achieving reef water quality targets. The project had unprecedented engagement from the agricultural sector and...
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S4.E8 Bum breathers - the Johnstone River snapping turtle
Despite its name, the Johnstone River snapping turtle is no snappier than any other freshwater turtle – and is perhaps better known by its alias, the 'bum breather'. According to turtle expert Alistair Freeman, this ability for cloacal respiration is thought to enable bum breathers to stay under...
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S4.E6 Keeping tabs on mangroves
Mangroves and saltmarsh are important coastal ecosystems that help purify water, buffer coastal communities from extreme weather and provide fish nurseries for our recreational and commercial fishing industries. They're also among the most efficient ecosystems in the world at sequestering and...
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S4.E5 From pets to pests - ornamental fish gone rogue
They might look pretty – or at least, pretty harmless, but Australia's ornamental fish trade can pose a serious threat to our waterways. Once an invasive is established, it makes eradication almost impossible, which means prevention is always better than cure. In this episode we're joined by...
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S4.E4 The changing face of tropical cyclones
Tropical cyclones, though destructive, are part of the natural dynamics of the rainforest and reef. We often see their land-based impacts most vividly, but they also impact coral reefs and seagrass beds. We catch up with Professor Steve Turton to find out how anthropogenic climate change is...
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S4.E3 Tracking bull sharks
Equal parts fearful and fascinating, bull sharks have a reputation as strong, aggressive sharks and are one of the most common species that anglers are likely to encounter in the estuaries and inshore marine zone. Nicolas Lubitz is a Ph.D candidate at James Cook University, and tracks bull sharks...
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S4.E2 Pharmaceutical-filled waterways
When we think about waterway pollution, things like paracetamol and caffeine probably aren't the first things that come to mind – but they're among the alarmingly long list of pharmaceuticals and consumables that are literally passing through our bodies and into waterways. Ecotoxicologist Dr...
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S4.E1 Wet Tropics Waterway Health Report Card Results - 2022
The 2022 Wet Tropics Waterway Health Report Card was released today. A lot of complex science goes on behind the report, and it can get a bit heavy, so we asked our Independent Chair Dr Greg Vinall to break it down. Join us, to learn about the good news stories and the areas in which we could be...
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Season 3 Episode 7: Report Card Results
The science is in, and the results are out. The 2021 Report Card grades the condition of the freshwater basins, estuaries and marine environments across the Wet Tropics as an action of the Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan. Join our Chair and Exec Officer to hear an overview of the results.
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Season 3 Episode 6: Ports North - Environmental Responsibility in the Shipping Lane
Ports North is responsible for the development and management of the Ports of Cairns, Cape Flattery, Karumba, Mourilyan, Skardon River, Quintell Beach, Thursday Island, Burketown and Cooktown. Manager of Sustainability and External Policy, Paul Doyle, joins the podcast to talk about Ports North's...
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Season 2 Episode 8: The Evolution of Environmental Report Cards
Bill Dennison and Simon Costanza from the University of Maryland talk about the history and evolution of environmental report cards as a process for galvanising communities to improve environmental conditions.
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Season 2 Episode 7: Alicia Buckle on the MIP's Local Scale Monitoring Program
Water quality monitoring can be done on lots of different scales. Great Barrier Reef monitoring is done on a catchment scale with the results reflecting what's happening over a very large area. While this is useful to give a big picture perspective on the reef it is less relevant to farmers and...
About this show
Healthy waterways underpin the vibrant lifestyle, economy and environment of the Wet Tropics Region in Far North Queensland. They also underpin the health and well-being of Australia's iconic Great Barrier Reef. We talk to people from around the region to learn more about our waterways, the critters that call them home and the people and projects working to improve their health.
Hosted by
James Donaldson, Wet Tropics Waterways
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