Gladstone Harbour Gets a Passing Grade

Gladstone Harbour has had a full health check and received a pass mark today as the Palaszczuk Government released a report card on its environmental, economic, social and cultural wellbeing.

The report card was developed by the Gladstone Healthy Harbour Partnership, which draws members from across the Gladstone community, industry, research groups and governments.

Minister for the Environment and Heritage Protection Dr Steven Miles said the Gladstone community placed a high importance on the harbour, being Queensland’s largest bulk commodity port and also being situated within the iconic Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.

“The report card will help report against the community’s vision of a healthy, accessible, working harbour for Gladstone,” Dr Miles said.

“The report card shows fairly positive results and indicates that the environmental health and social health of Gladstone Harbour are a ‘C’, and the cultural health and economic health of Gladstone Harbour are a ‘B’.’’

“All information and data used in the report card has been provided from a variety of sources for the calculation of scores and assessed by an Independent Science Panel led by marine scientist Dr Ian Poiner,” Dr Miles said.

The Queensland Government committed $3 million over the first two years as members of the Partnership, as well as an additional $1 million for establishment costs, and continues to make a substantial financial and in-kind contribution.

The report card is the first prepared by the Partnership since the release of their Pilot report card a year ago, and will help to keep track of trends in waterway health and stewardship of the harbour.

“I am pleased to see the Partnership expanding the number of indicators used to assess the health of the Harbour, including cultural indicators used for the first time anywhere,” Dr Miles said.

Alongside the report card is a stewardship reporting framework for ports and industry, which describe management efforts within the Gladstone Harbour area.

“It is encouraging to see stewardship for ports, industry and commercial fishing in Gladstone Harbour rated as ‘effective’, and recreational fishing rated as ‘highly effective’.”

“The community recognises that more can be achieved together than individually and while there is always room for improvement, the stewardship results show the positive actions being undertaken by different industries in the Gladstone Harbour,” Dr Miles said. 

Member for Gladstone Glenn Butcher said the Queensland Government was a strong supporter of regional report cards.

“The Queensland Government has committed $6 million over four years to support regional waterway health report cards, including for the Gladstone Harbour.

“The report card helps the Gladstone community understand the health of their Harbour and inform what further management actions need to take place to improve the Harbour,” Mr Butcher said.

Dr Miles said the development of Partnerships to prepare regional report cards at major ports, such as Gladstone Harbour, and priority catchments is an action under the Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan, and demonstrates Queensland is getting on with the job of implementing the plan.

Regional report cards are also in place for the Mackay Whitsundays area and the Fitzroy River, and work is underway on a new report card partnership for Cairns and the Wet Tropics region.

“These regional partnerships demonstrate our strong commitment to protecting the Great Barrier Reef and ensuring the local community is more informed about local waterway health issues.”

“I am confident that the continued work on the Partnership in publishing transparent information on the health of Gladstone Harbour is the best way forward to help manage and protect this part of the Great Barrier Reef,” Dr Miles said.

To view the report card and accompanying Technical Report, go to the Partnership’s website at www.ghhp.org.au

ENDS

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