Every wet season, landholders lose valuable topsoil when it’s washed off the land and into creeks and rivers. Now graziers are combining tree-plantings with engineered structures to solve an age-old problem in our high rainfall region.

Seven years ago, Owen Rankine took a chance on three ‘Zuni bowls’ to fix his erosion problems. The bowls are rock structures that stop eroded gullies from getting even bigger during rain events, and they were the first to be built on farms in the Wet Tropics region.

“The concept made sense,’’ Owen says as he looks out over a Zuni bowl surrounded by pasture. “And the bowls have done exactly what they were supposed to do. They’ve slowed down the water, dispersed it across the land and given the grass a chance to grow over bare dirt.

“They’ve held up really well over some solid wet seasons.”

Zuni bowls, named after the Zuni Valley’s Native American Pueblo people, are built at vertical drops in gullies to act as erosion-busters. The new bowls were part of a bigger project coordinated by Terrain NRM to improve pasture, land and the water flowing down creeks on the Tablelands.

Owen and his partner Rona Starczewska run about 400 head of beef cattle in the Malanda region. As part of the same project, they fenced of their waterways and installed a dam-to-troughs watering system that’s powered by a solar pump.

They’ve also joined a recent Emrie Creek tree-planting initiative where hundreds of native trees have been planted on four neighbouring properties through a Tablelands Regional Council program.

Owen says the changes are steadily helping both his beef cattle and the environment. He’s now planning for erosion control work further upstream.

“We’ve seen a big turnaround from previous wet seasons when gully erosion was getting worse each event and topsoil was washing away. With the cattle completely out of our creeks now and with less bare ground in the gully area, the water running off hills is clear about 90 per cent of the time.”

The Petersen family

Trevor Petersen also runs a beef cattle farm on steep hilly land near Malanda. He and his wife Jean and parents Ken and Connie have two creeks winding through their property that eventually flow into the North Johnstone River, and when floods washed out an old cattle-crossing and swept away a section of creek bank, he also wanted to make changes.

Both creeks have now been completely fenced off from cattle, the creek crossing has been remodelled and the family has installed an off-stream solar-powered water supply system for cattle. Hundreds of trees and grasses were also planted along the creek.

“This is a steep area and over time it was eroding away,’’ Trevor says. “Now we’ve got a nice little green corridor that’s a kilometre wide. The trees are great wind breaks for the cattle, and the soil isn’t getting washed away anymore.

“Improving our creeks has helped in many ways – our pastures are better which improves animal nutrition, we don’t have cattle slipping down the banks anymore and less soil is washing away. We are seeing more birds and platypuses.”

Fast Facts:

• High flow rain and flood events cause erosion.
• Sediment runoff (soil particles) make water cloudy, smother seagrass and prevent sunlight from getting through to corals.
• A major source of sediment runoff is erosion of hillslopes, gullies and creekbanks.
• Other sources on farmland include lack of ground cover and cattle accessing waterways.

Graziers worked with Terrain NRM as part of the Upper Johnstone Integrated Project, funded by the Queensland Government’s Natural Resources Investment Program, and with the Tablelands Regional Council as part of the Riparian Restoration on Private Land project, funded by the Australian Government to enable Reef Guardian Councils to deliver projects and activities identified in their Reef Action Plans.