Franco and Frances Arri once grew some of the closest sugar cane crops to the Great Barrier Reef – on land less than three kilometres from the ocean.

In the last of the Wet Tropics region’s sugar expansions, they bought a cane farm at Deeral and upgraded the drainage systems to make low-lying land productive.

Their farm produced 95,000 tonnes of sugar cane in 43 years. Now its low-lying areas are being returned to a natural wetland – something that has long been a ‘bucket-list’ item for them.

Franco and Frances are working with Greening Australia, Madjandji Aboriginal Corporation’s Madjaybana Rangers and Mulgrave Landcare to plant mangroves and trees along their cane drains, and they are loving the results.

“We started planting around the drains about three years ago,’’ Franco says. “Over 15,000 trees are in the strips of trees along the waterways now. It’s great. The revegetation has happened so fast on these soils.

“We are close to the ocean, and our eastern boundary abuts the Mulgrave River. We were always conscious of that in our farming practices. And these days it’s less about what the land can do for us and more about what we can do for the river, the Reef…”

The latest tree-planting was part of the Queensland Government’s Reef Assist program – a $34 million initiative to improve the health of river catchments adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef while also creating ‘green jobs’ and training opportunities.

In Far North Queensland more than 160,000 native plants have been planted along waterways through the program.
Greening Australia’s Lisa O’Mara says the projects she has been involved in are some of the best she’s experienced in many years of land care.

“The community has been right behind us,’’ she says. “One year in, Cyclone Jasper came along and a third of the trees we’d planted were lost.

“We all got back out there and replanted. The end result is 8.5 hectares of revegetation along waterways that’s brought so many people together.”

Mulgrave Landcare’s nursery in Gordonvale has expanded under the Reef Assist program. Staff and volunteers provided seedlings for the project and joined forces with Madjaybana rangers to build up seedling stock and host combined community tree plantings.

“The expansion of the nursery has been wonderful for Mulgrave Landcare,” Belinda Billing says. “We now have a community nursery with volunteers coming together two mornings a week, producing thousands of seedlings for revegetation projects each year.

“Landcare is about conservation and community, and the nursery supports both.”

Madjaybana Senior Ranger Anthony Satini says the ranger group grew from six to 10 during the project, and blended traditional knowledge with training covering everything from ecosystem management to vegetation surveys, water quality monitoring and drone operation.

He says watching low-lying land return to its original state has been the most satisfying part.

“We began in some places in thick guinea grass, wild raspberry, calopo vine… To see the change from that to what we have now has been a big highlight. Some of the trees are up to six metres high now.”

Five projects were undertaken and completed between 2023 and 2026 in the Wet Tropics under the Reef Assist program. The Reef Assist program is funded through the Queensland Government’s Queensland Reef Water Quality Program.