Biodiversity and Waterways

Since 2001 there has been a 50% increase in the protection of waterways on Australian dairy farms. Over the last 10 years more than half of all dairy farms have implemented a revegetation program and remanent vegetation is now more likely to be fenced off.

The Dairying for Tomorrow program has helped achieve these outcomes through a range of regional and national projects. The projects cover practical topics like managing nutrients, irrigation techniques, recycling run-off, re-vegetation and protecting river and creek banks. 

Projects that have contributed to these high levels of on-farm change are the Regional On-farm Change programs and the Sustainable Dairy Catchments RD&E programs: GipRip, DairyCatch, Montagu and Queensland Riparian.

1. GipRip: GipRip (2002 – 2007) encouraged farmers to think about the way their faming can affect waterways and then helped them to do something about it. GipRip adopted an action learning, ‘show, tell, do” approach involving on-farm training days, demonstration sites and practical assistance to help farmers carry out works on their own properties.

The outcome was improved water quality through the fencing off of 37km of Gippsland’s streams, creeks and rivers. GipRip has won a number of awards including the 2006 Victorian Regional Achievers Award for environmental management.

Melbourne Water is currently delivering projects based on the GipRip model in the Westernport region.

GipRip summary May 2008.pdf

2. Queensland Riparian Project (2004-2007)

Researchers worked with farmers to develop decision support tools that help them target priorities for riparian zone management. Farmers may be interested in managing for water quality, for erosion prevention, for control of nutrients, for enhanced biodiversity, for landscape appearance, for better livestock management – or for a combination of these things.

The Queensland Riparian Appraisal Tool is designed to help dairy farmers in subtropical Australia to evaluate the impact of farm management practices on riparian vegetation.

Queensland Riparian Appraisal Tool.pdf