WORKING with the Condamine Alliance on restoration of the southern Queensland river makes sense from all angles, North Australian Pastoral Company (NAPCO) feedlot and farm manager Geoff Cornford said.
Planting six kilometres of riparian vegetation and fencing along the river at NAPCO's Wainui site has helped improve the farm's paddock layout, and made the feedlot a better neighbour.
The work also helps satisfy NAPCO shareholders who are keen that the company's environmental image be upheld.
Not incidentally, the wider work of the Alliance has also greatly improved fishing in the Condamine, Mr Cornford said - to the point that feedlot staff now jealously guard against misuse of the river and themselves practice catch-and-return.
"The Condamine Alliance has been very good at forming relationships in the community," he said.
"Once you've got that aspect of things spinning right, it keeps spinning".
Aquatic success
Some of the Condamine Alliances successes in its Dewfish Demonstration Reach project along 110km of the Condamine River include:
- Golden perch (Macquaria ambigua) numbers increased by 1000 per cent
- Bony bream (Nematalosa erebi) numbers increased by 200pc
- Dewfish or eel-tailed catfish (Tandanus tandanus) increased by 300pc
- The return of Hyrtl’s tandan (Neosilurus hyrtlii) to the Reach for the first time in 15 years
- Recorded the dwarf flat-headed (Philypnodon macrostomus) above Loudoun Weir fishway, 100 kilometres beyond previously known range.