Latest news with #GulfOfCarpentaria
ABC News
11 hours ago
- Climate
- ABC News
Rain in north set to clear as cool weather continues across Queensland
The Bureau of Meteorology says unseasonal rainfall in Far North Queensland is set to ease as temperatures in the south remain below average. Burketown in the Gulf of Carpentaria received about 60 millimetres of rain amid widespread falls in the north and up to 30mm fell on parts of the Atherton Tablelands on Monday night. BOM spokesperson Daniel Hayes said a trough brought about 10mm of rain to coastal areas between Townsville and Mackay on Tuesday. "Generally speaking we've probably seen the heaviest of the rain out of this cloudband and series of troughs," he said. "The amounts that we've seen, while they're relatively high for this time of the year, are nothing particularly unusual for the area in general. "Handy rainfall, but probably not all that welcome in those areas where the [sugar] crush has started." The sugar cane harvest is underway in the north but the wet weather has brought activity to a halt for some in the Ingham area. Canegrower Matt Pappin said the rain was welcome at his property. "Being a farmer, you don't want too much, you just want the right amount," he said. "So … an inch of rain – 25mm or something like that – won't go astray," he said. Mr Pappin planned to irrigate at his property but that was no longer necessary. "This moisture now will give it a boost," he said. "It will draw some water up the stem and it will go into, maybe, a growth mode again." But Mr Pappin said for other growers the rain was inconvenient, especially after a very wet start to the year. "I know blokes in other parts of the district that are just getting onto their paddocks and discing them for the first time because it is wet," he said. Mr Hayes said the BOM expected temperatures throughout the state to remain a little below average. Temperatures in the mid to low 20s are expected in Brisbane over the next seven days. Mr Hayes said temperatures increased slightly due to cloud cover but as that cleared cooler air would be pushed up into southern and central parts of the state by systems moving through the southern part of the country. "We'll see a return to fairly widespread frosty conditions across the southern and even into central inland parts of the state through Wednesday, Thursday, Friday morning," he said.
ABC News
a day ago
- General
- ABC News
Clock ticking for patrols battling ghost net ocean plastics in Gulf of Carpentaria
It is rubbish season in northern Australia. When the winds pick up after the monsoon storms, tonnes of plastic trash and discarded fishing nets gathered in the Gulf of Carpentaria make for the coastline. Indigenous rangers patrolling the coastline find ankle-deep plastic rubbish, lids with turtle bite marks and remnants of turtles caught in discarded fishing nets. But with no guarantee of continued funding after the end of this month, they are calling for ongoing support to deal with the amount of plastic waste they see increasing each year. Scientists estimate 8-to-10 million tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean each year. In the next 25 years, they say, plastic may outweigh fish in the ocean. Two per cent of the world's fishing gear is estimated to become ghost nets — lost, discarded or abandoned fishing gear. Senior ranger Clive Nunggarrgalu works with the Numbulwar Numburindi Rangers in west Arnhem Land, where six rangers patrol and care for 300 kilometres of remote coastline. Many of the bays and beaches where ghost nets and marine debris accumulate are only accessible for a few weeks. "When the nets come, they trap animals like buffaloes, turtles and dolphins," he said. "We can cut the nets and free turtles, but even buffaloes, young buffaloes, get trapped in the nets along the sand." He said the tides often buried the nets. "Some of the beaches, they look great, but the rubbish is underneath the sand," he said. For the past four years, the federally funded $15 million Ghost Net Initiative has assisted 22 Indigenous ranger groups with clean-up efforts. They have worked alongside 3,600 people to remove 160,000 kilograms of marine debris, as well as 860 ghost nets. Some of the waste removed has been transformed into reusable fishing gear, art and woven baskets. Since 2018, Sea Shepherd's marine debris campaigner, Grahame Lloyd, has worked with the Dhimurru rangers in north-east Arnhem Land. They worked together to clean up a remote, 14km sacred turtle nesting beach. "In the two COVID years, more plastic had washed up on the beach than had accumulated seven years prior," Mr Lloyd said. "It was that bad that in certain sections, we were using shovels because the rubbish came halfway up your calves. "You had to stand in the plastic to get that top layer off." He said that, without funds to keep the beaches clean, each new season would bring another stockpile of plastic waste . Ghost Net Initiative funding has allowed researchers to use drones and AI systems to help locate and retrieve nets on hard-to-reach coastlines. Charles Darwin University researcher Aliesha Havala has been working with Anindilyakwa Land and Sea Rangers using drones to find nets. She said they found a ghost net almost every kilometre of coastline they searched — among rocks, buried deep in sand or caught in mangrove estuaries. The drones can detect a portion of ghost net as small as 50 centimetres. Using AI programming, the drones then send rangers the coordinates. "A lot of the time these ghost nets are either obscured or they are buried, essentially big icebergs under the sand," she said. "Some of the nets are so large they need to be winched out of the sand or winched onto a vessel to be removed." The marine debris season for the Anindilyakwa Rangers has well and truly started. Two more nets have washed up in areas where the rangers removed some a few weeks ago, Ms Havala said. At the UN Ocean conference in France last week, federal Environment Minister Murray Watt signalled his support for a global treaty to end plastic pollution. He highlighted the need to strengthen regional partnerships tackling ghost nets and single-use plastics in the Pacific Ocean and Arafura and Timor seas. In October, the Australian government joined the Global Ghost Gear Initiative, committing $1.4 million to regional partnerships with Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. The ABC asked Mr Watt and Parks Australia if Ghost Nets Initiative funding would continue but did not receive a direct answer.
ABC News
a day ago
- Business
- ABC News
Indigenous tourism puts outback Queensland skies on global stage
There is a part of the world where sprawling red plains neighbour waterfalls surrounded by lush, green bushland and morning glory clouds sweep across a seemingly infinite sky. Tucked away in the Gulf of Carpentaria there are many drawcards for tourists across the globe. But the region, which takes in the community of Burketown, has been rocked in recent years by back-to-back flooding events and COVID-19 isolation wreaking havoc on its tourism industry. Now, an Indigenous-owned business operated by the Gangalidda and Garawa people is working to break through the adversity and make their home a must visit destination again. Lurick Sowden manages Yagurli Tours, one of the first entirely Indigenous-run tourism businesses in the Gulf. While top tourist rankings are subjective, Mr Sowden said visiting global pilots equate Burketown to one of the most scenic hot air balloon destinations in the world after Switzerland and Japan. "We take them out onto Australia's largest aggregate of salt pan, which everyone drives past. They might not even know it's here," he said. "It's very, very special." It has not been all clear blue skies for the tourism operation. Mr Sowden said there had been "two standard years" since the business opened in 2016. The rest were littered with struggle. In early 2023 the Gulf endured its largest flood in a decade, isolating the region for more than three months before ex-tropical cyclone Kirrily barrelled through less than 12 months later with further flooding. "At the moment the roads are all open, Burketown is accessible," Mr Sowden said. Outback Queensland is a road-heavy tourist area — rail lines are virtually non-existent, and expensive flights are few and far between. As the regions rely on visiting grey nomads and caravan travellers alike, having accessible and open roads is key for tourism to flourish. "We're kind of back on track for just a normal year. Everything's kind of settled down and we're ready to go," Mr Sowden said. With almost 100 more visitors than last year, Mr Sowden hopes 2025 is the year things are turned around. "We should be in for a big year and a lot more people travelling around," he said. It is not just this pocket of Queensland feeling the pinch. Outback Queensland Tourism Association (OQTA) chief executive Denise Brown said the domestic tourist season had been slow off the mark across the state in 2025, with regional and rural regions bearing the brunt. In the OQTA's most recent annual report, operators reported the slowest start to the tourism season in four years with numbers down by 20 to 30 per cent compared to 2023. But it is not all doom and gloom. While recent devastating western Queensland floods stopped travellers heading north in their tracks, roads have begun to reopen. In tandem, visitor numbers across May and June have picked up. "Certainly, our challenges are always to have access, and our number one access is roads," Ms Brown said. Ms Brown said OQTA was working alongside tourism advocates and governments to show the country why they should trek to the outback. "The areas that we're focusing on is the colours of the beautiful landscapes, the green rolling carpet and the bird life," she said. While weather events might have washed away some of the country, Ms Brown said outback residents were as resilient as the landscapes and wanted to showcase their part of the world. "Indigenous tourism is really important to the whole of Queensland and that's certainly a pillar," she said. "Out of disaster comes amazing opportunities, the rebirthing of nature. "That is the opportunity to see the outback as you'll never see in the next 10 years."
