Posted on 10 January
2011 - Toxic pollution from flooded farms
and towns along Australia's Queensland coast
will have a disastrous impact on the Great
Barrier Reef’s corals and will likely have
a significant impact on dugongs, turtles
and other marine life, WWF warned today.
“In addition to the
terrible costs to farmers and communities
in Queensland, we will also see a major
and extremely harmful decline in water quality
on the Great Barrier Reef,” said WWF spokesman
Nick Heath.
Heath said the restoration
of important woodlands in flood prone catchment
areas of the Fitzroy River and Murray Darling
Basin would help protect communities and
the marine environment from future floods.
“Today’s floods are
bigger, dirtier and more dangerous from
excessive tree clearing, overgrazing and
soil compaction. As a result less water
infiltrates deep into the soil, increasing
the size and erosive intensity of floods,”
he said.
Rebuilding
“While the current floods
would still have occurred, trees and wetlands
slow flood waters down and absorb water,
lessening the impact of the flood. We can
better prepare for future floods by bringing
trees back into previously cleared catchment
areas.”
Climate change is likely to deepen the cycle
of drought and floods, with further loss
of top soil followed by bigger rainfall
events, and therefore increase the damage
caused by floods.
Heath said the need
to rebuild farms presented an opportunity
to introduce best-practice farm design and
management in reef catchment areas that
would boost future profitability, better
prepare farms for flood recovery and significantly
reduce the future impact of farming on the
Great Barrier Reef.
“As devastating and
tragic as these floods are, they also provide
a chance to introduce newer and better technologies
that will reduce pollution and increase
profits,” he said.
“Better management and
design of our farms can reduce the risks
to people, livelihoods and wildlife and
also lead to greater profits further down
the track by increasing deep infiltration
and soil moisture, improved topsoil retention
and therefore productivity.”
Over the past 150 years
sediment inflow onto the Great Barrier Reef
has increased four to five times, and five
to 10 fold for some catchments, while inorganic
nitrogen and phosphorous continue to enter
the Great Barrier Reef at enhanced levels,
according to the Australian Government’s
Outlook Report.
