Sugarcane growers win national environmental award

Project Catalyst, a pioneering partnership helping to improve the quality of water flowing into Great Barrier Reef catchments has won a national Banksia Environmental Award.

The first phase of Project Catalyst - a watershed partnership that aims to improve nutrient, herbicide and soil management on sugarcane farms - began last year and today involves 19 farming businesses across the Mackay Whitsunday region. It is funded and run jointly by The Coca-Cola Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and local Natural Resource Management group Reef Catchments Mackay Whitsunday.

At the 2010 Banksia Awards, Project Catalyst topped the ‘Agriculture and Food’ category - with judges commenting that the project had “a major impact on a very sensitive ecosystem”, with potential to translate to other areas of the world experiencing similar challenges. There are plans for water management and precision agriculture practices developed during the initial project to be extended to other growers in the GBR region and potentially, internationally.

Dermot O’Gorman, WWF Australia CEO, said: “The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest living organism and is currently facing two key threats to its long-term survival: climate change and land-based pollution. Project Catalyst’s work to find innovative ways to dramatically reduce the impacts from land-based pollution has the potential to increase the Reef’s resilience into the future.”