Currawinya National Park – artesian springs protection project
Currawinya National Park – artesian springs protection project
© The State of Queensland
Artesian springs—naturally-fed by groundwater from the Great Artesian Basin—create unique wetland communities in arid Australia; hence their description as jewels of the desert.
The community of native species dependent on such springs are listed as “endangered” under both Commonwealth and state legislation.
Currawinya National Park in the state’s far south-west has numerous artesian springs including 2—Tunga and Massey—that provide habitat for endemic species found nowhere else.
Queensland Parks and Wildlife Services and Partnerships (QPWS&P) had identified a host of threats that could compromise their future, but most significant were impacts from stock watering infrastructure and feral pigs, goats and horses. Initial landscape-based pest control programs had failed to provide adequate protection of the spring wetlands, resulting in their general condition being classified as of “significant concern” and declining.
A targeted protection plan, including fencing of high conservation value springs and targeted pest control programs, has proven effective. A range of measures, including pest activity and impact monitoring, photo-monitoring, and water quality, vegetation and threatened species monitoring, show significantly reduced pest animal impacts and a major improvement in condition of spring wetlands.
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