NATIONAL PARKS
Blog
Marika shares her perspective on national parks as a way to foster a curiosity and interest in the world. We all have a opportunity to help reconnect our children - and each other - with our natural places.
Cats take a hefty toll on Australia’s reptiles – killing an estimated 649 million of them every year, including threatened species – according to our new research published in the journal Wildlife Research.
This time last year Dennis wrote about a looming threat to the Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve.
Sadly the fears he wrote about have become reality and now commercial fishing is encroaching on sensitive marine reserve area.
A founding purpose for NPAQ was to grow and protect national parks and appreciation for nature. Where once this was reflected in photography and sketches, new technology is opening different frontiers for the sharing of our precious natural places.
Parrallel Parks is one example of this.
Veteran (very old) trees are important components of many ecosystems and landscapes. In Part 1 we discussed their environmental values and unique characteristics, as well as their cultural values and benefits. Part 2 will focus on the survival strategies employed by these ancient flora representatives and the range of management actions that will assist their continued survival.
One evening when my boys were younger, Matthew, then ten, looked at me from across a restaurant table and said quite seriously, “Dad, how come it was more fun when you were a kid?”
Park Rangers do an amazing job in our national parks and each edition of Protected we like to recognise one and tell their story.
Articles in the February/March issue of Protected by President Graeme Bartrim and Tony Groom mention how experiencing aspects of nature can trigger an interest in conservation and may also provide real mental and physical health benefits.
When visiting forests or national parks, we often take for granted the large trees that we walk by or camp near. These big, old trees are remarkable, not only for their size, but also because they have many other important values, such as containing their own ‘ecosystem’, showing a slice of the region’s history, significance for Traditional Owners, exceptional age, rarity, important habitat or ecological associations, and having exceptional landscape values and great beauty.
Main Range, like so many Queensland national parks, is home to outstanding walks, wildlife and views. Unfortunately, but also not unlike many Queensland national parks, it is under threat from invasive species, climate change, visitor intensification and ecotourism activities.
Park Rangers do an amazing job in our national parks and each edition of Protected we like to recognise one and tell their story.
Securing our national park protected areas is half the battle. The other, more important, part is how our national parks are managed to protect their natural beauty for the future. QPWS provide some insight into their Values Based Management Framework approach.
Magnetic Island: eight kilometres off the coast of Townsville but a million miles from care, blessed with fringing reefs, giant granite tors and boulder-strewn vistas.
Sometimes it’s a rocky road to protect our natural places.
"To me, we got our national parks not just because of legislation passed in parliament, but because we have had, and do have, people who treasure the idea that the stories and beauty around us exist not just for us, but for all the generations to come."
The Coordinator-General’s evaluation report on the environmental impact statement for the Lindeman Island resort redevelopment has been released. What does it mean?
The Gainsdale Scenic Rim Trail proposed development has the potential to effectively privatise a significant section of Main Range National Park.
Insights into the diverse backgrounds and day-to-day activities of Queensland’s park rangers
When I was a child, visiting a national park was like going on some grand adventure.
D’Aguilar National Park, the park on Brisbane’s doorstep, lies northwest of Brisbane city.
My guide, a birdwatcher, couldn’t disguise his excitement at the return of life we were seeing all around us. The rainforest at Russett Park in Kuranda was once eerily quiet, but now, in a place where birds and insects had been stripped away, there is new life.
The Chair of Tourism and Events Queensland, Brett Godfrey has a message: open up national parks for more ecotourism. This call is both exciting and terrifying, good and bad, hopeful and discouraging.
Only a couple of months ago we were wondering what the outcome of the Queensland election would be.
Important conservation values are being ignored as Queensland’s major parties engage in a war of words over tourism.
Before we follow other states starry eyed about potential short-term gains, let us examine the costs and benefits of existing ecotourism developments. With this knowledge, there is an opportunity to demonstrate real leadership rather than copy others.
Discussion on a Bill to establish Special Wildlife Reserves (a new class of privately-owned protected area) at an Agriculture & Environment Committee hearing has cleared up some confusion around the name and produced many interesting perspectives, including AgForce's fears over “locking up land”.
Land once slated for the world’s first commercially-operated international spaceport has this year been given back to Traditional Owners. Two months after the handback ceremony in Cairns in May, Andrew Picone from the Australian Conservation Foundation looks at the importance of the landmark decision and the benefits of Aboriginal ownership and joint management of national parks.
Bridget Armstrong is a Senior Conservation Officer in the Great Barrier Reef and Marine Parks Region of QPWS. She spent much of her childhood playing in and exploring the bush, beaches and estuaries. She studied ecology at university, and her first job confirmed that what she loved most was to be out in the field, providing ecological advice for park management.