
Cane Farmers: Going the Distance
150 cane farmers are participating in a project to boost productivity and water quality
Healthy waterways underpin our lifestyles and livelihoods. When waterways thrive, so do we.
For your chance to win awesome prizes, enter the Wet Tropics Waterways photography competition with an image that captures the beauty of our waterways.
Send us your best waterway photos – from rivers to waterfalls and estuaries to ocean – for your chance to win from an awesome prize stash!
And you never know, your image could end up on the front cover of one of our publications:

This Wet Tropics Waterways competition is celebrating the beauty, diversity and importance of our waterways big and small. Judged by Far North Queensland professional photographers, there are plenty of categories for everyone to enter.
Prizes include:
COMPETITION CATEGORIES
Wildlife and water: Wildlife in or at a waterway e.g. swimming, eating, drinking, hiding, passing by. This includes aquatic animals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, insects…
Landscape: Scenery is the main focus but there can also be people and/or animals.
Drone
Underwater
People and water: A person/people enjoying/interacting with/impacting a waterway (the impact could be negative, or positive).
Kids: For under -15s – your best waterways shot! You can include wildlife and people.
JUDGES
Matt Curnock – Townsville – Underwater photographer
Paul Curtis – Kuranda – Landscape photographer
Julia Sumerling – Cairns – Underwater photographer and videographer
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
The competition is open to all Australian residents.
Images must be of waterways in the Wet Tropics region (between the Daintree in the north, the Herbert River catchment in the south and the Atherton Tablelands in the west) ‘Waterways’ includes freshwater, estuarine and marine waters.
By submitting an entry you authorise Wet Tropics Waterways to use the entry image/s in future publications, without remuneration. This includes, but is not limited to, social media, websites, and digital and print publications. Photos used by Wet Tropics Waterways will acknowledge the photographer.
Multiple categories can be entered, but only 1 image per category.
All photos must be submitted by 5pm, 31 March 2025.
By submitting an entry you confirm that:
For more information contact Tara Ganley at: tara.ganley@terrain.org.au.

150 cane farmers are participating in a project to boost productivity and water quality

Read about some of our region's rare and unusual native fish species

Banana farmers making land management changes to improve water quality to the Reef

Martine joined the Wet Tropics Waterways team as a Science Technical Officer in early 2024. She is an environmental scientist and ecologist and has worked on water quality and aquatic ecology projects as a consultant and in private industry for over 20 years. She is using her experience in statistical programming and database development to develop new systems for the Report Card.

Richard has been the Science Technical Officer for Wet Tropics Waterways since 2016. His role involves producing the annual results for the waterway health assessment of the wet tropics region using data from a wide range of sources, to present as scores and grades, as well as developing new indicators to address knowledge and monitoring gaps. He works in collaboration with technical staff at other regional report cards.
Richard has a background in freshwater ecology research projects and environmental assessments with CSIRO, University of Queensland, Queensland Government and as a consultant. For a long time he’s been interested in freshwater aquaculture and continues this interest through farming freshwater crayfish, alongside other farming activities.

Simon has over 30 years’ experience advocating for waterways across academia, government and the private sector. He started out in marine botany with a fascination for seagrass, mangroves and macroalgae, and has gone on to lead major environmental initiatives both in Australia and overseas. He has established report cards in eight countries.

Rowan is a conservation scientist with a background in wildlife science and tropical ecology. She holds a Bachelor of Wildlife Science from the University of Queensland and has recently completed a Master of Tropical Biology and Conservation at James Cook University.
Rowan brings experience in science communication, with a strong interest in connecting people with conservation outcomes. In her role with Wet Tropics Waterways, she supports initiatives that combine scientific knowledge with community outreach to help protect the Wet Tropics and Great Barrier Reef catchments, and to strengthen collaboration between researchers, stakeholders, and the wider community.