45 BURDEKIN DRY TROPICS NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PLAN 2016-2026
LAND
To assist with strategic land use planning, the Queensland Agricultural Land Audit( QALA) undertook a broad-scale regional investigation of land capability for cropping and pastures. The audit was based on the Land Capability Queensland Agricultural Land Class System, which maps the current and potential capability of land based on broad, coarse-scale land resource datasets. The mapping only looks at soil characteristics. It does not consider other potential constraints for new cropping development such as: availability or access to water; conservation status of ecosystems; presence of threatened plant or animal species; or proximity to strategic transport corridor infrastructure( Department of Agricultural and Fisheries, 2013).
Figure 11( p 46) indicates the land class capabilities for our Region. The categories are:
A: Crop land – suitable for a wide range of current and potential crops with nil to moderate limitations to production.
B: Limited crop land – suitable for a narrow range of current and potential crops due to severe limitations but is highly suitable for pastures. This land may be suitable for cropping where engineering and / or agronomic improvements are used.
C: Pasture land – suitable only for improved or native pastures.
D: Non agricultural land – not suitable for agriculture uses due to extreme limitations.
( Wadsworth & Choy, 2011). Rural land managers adjoining reserves or major watercourses have expressed concern about trespassers who drop litter, potentially spread weed seeds, contribute to land and riparian degradation, and compromise livestock welfare. They have linked the issue with a lack of well-managed natural recreational areas in our region that provide urban people with the opportunity to recreate, including camping and four wheel driving. Further information on biosecurity is detailed in Part B – Biodiversity.
This community NRM plan can be used as a guide by decision makers and community members to help balance competing interests when undertaking land use planning assessments.
Land management of the Burdekin Dry Tropics
Our region has a varied landscape, featuring a diverse range of soils, vegetation communities and native animals that shape how the land can be used and managed.
The quality and size of land and soil resources in our region support a profitable and diverse range of cropping enterprises including sugarcane, horticulture and grains, and an extensive grazing industry( Department of Agricultural and Fisheries, 2013). Resilience of these rural enterprises is important, as they contribute to the security of the local and regional economy.
Our region’ s significant grazing and cropping industries rely heavily on soil condition as the basis for productivity. Soil is a precious and vulnerable natural resource. It can be considered non-renewable, given that it can take hundreds to thousands of years to form from weathering processes. Yet despite the time taken to form soil, it can be lost forever through erosion and toxification caused by inappropriate land management( Carey, et al., 2015).
Our region’ s soils reflect the diversity of the parent rock, landscapes and rainfall patterns. There are extensive areas of moderately productive but fairly erodible red duplex soils, widespread high productive black and red clays derived from basalt, and large areas of poor to moderately fertile sands and earths. Cracking clays are found in the Belyando- Suttor area. Large areas also have highlyerodible dispersive soils.
The Queensland Agricultural Land Audit identified that land degradation in our region has reduced the carrying capacity of grazing lands and decreased fertility of soils in cropping lands( Department of Agricultural and Fisheries, 2013).
ABCD frameworks for land condition and management
In the past decade much effort has gone towards understanding and developing methodologies to map and identify land capability, condition and management for our region.“ ABCD” frameworks are used to describe land condition, its level of capability for a particular land use, and how it is being managed, with‘ A’ denoting the highest score and‘ D’ the lowest. These terms will be used throughout the NRM Plan.
Grazing land systems
Over 90 per cent of our region’ s land is used for grazing, and carries approximately 1,400,000 head of cattle( Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009). Most beef cattle enterprises are located on leasehold country and are based on grazing of rangelands rather than sown pastures. There are a variety of factors that threaten condition of pastures and soils( salinity, erosion, acidity, weeds and pests), many of which are associated with land uses and management practices that do not reflect the capability of land