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From pest to purpose: Healing Moonaboola

  • Written by: Reece Pianta

I’ve kayaked Moonaboola (aka Mary River) with my daughter, paddling through the stunning scenery near Kenilworth. It’s a place of incredible natural beauty, a place you want to protect for future generations. But beneath the surface, this vital Queensland river system is under threat.

Earlier this year, I had the privilege of walking its banks again, this time with representatives from the Burnett Mary Regional Group (BMRG), the Kabi Kabi People’s Aboriginal Corporation, and Minister for Primary Industries and local member, Tony Perrett. We were there to see firsthand both the challenge and an inspiring, practical solution.

Moonaboola is a biodiversity hotspot, home to ancient species like the 150-million-year-old Australian Lungfish, the Mary River Cod, and the unique ‘bum-breathing’ Mary River Turtle. Unfortunately, the 2022 floods saw a population explosion of one of Australia’s most damaging invasive fish, the Mozambique Tilapia, which degrades water quality and threatens these precious native species. The tilapia create a feedback loop destroying habitat of species that would normally contain their proliferation.

But BMRG, in collaboration with the Kabi Kabi People, has a brilliant plan that turns this very pest into purpose. Their initiative removes invasive tilapia and turns the biomass into a rich organic fertiliser. This is then used to grow native plants for crucial riverbank revegetation, restoring habitat, preventing erosion and healing the river. Eventually, the restored sections will be restocked with Mary River cod. The large mature cod are natural predators of the common invasive fish in this system.

This is more than just a local project; it’s a blueprint for ecosystem restoration. We’ve seen the concept work. Now, we are calling on the state and federal governments to invest $4.35 million to scale up this vital work. It’s a tiny investment to secure the future of a critical river system, protect culturally significant landscapes, and create a model for turning an environmental negative into a positive.

Reece Pianta, Invasive Species Council Advocacy Director

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    Dear Project Team,

    [YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

    I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

    The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

    The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

    This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

    Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

    Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

    Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

    I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

    Kind regards,
    [Your name]
    [Your email address]
    [Your postcode]


    Dear Project Team,

    [YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

    I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

    The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

    The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

    This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

    Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

    Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

    Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

    I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

    Kind regards,
    [Your name]
    [Your email address]
    [Your postcode]