Mary River Threatened Aquatic Species Recovery Plan The Mary River Threatened Aquatic Species Recovery Plan was developed by the Department of the Environment in partnership with the Mary River Catchment Coordinating Committee. The Species Profile and Threats Database pages linked to this recovery plan is obtainable from: http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/sprat.pl © Copyright Commonwealth of Australia, 2016. The Mary River Threatened Aquatic Species Recovery Plan is licensed by the Commonwealth of Australia for use under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence with the exception of the Coat of Arms of the Commonwealth of Australia, the logo of the agency responsible for publishing the report, content supplied by third parties, and any images depicting people. For licence conditions see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. This report should be attributed as ‘Australian Government. (2016) Mary River Threatened Species Recovery Plan, Commonwealth of Australia 2016’. The Commonwealth of Australia has made all reasonable efforts to identify content supplied by third parties using the following format ‘© Copyright, [name of third party] ’. Disclaimer While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure that the contents of this publication are factually correct, the Commonwealth does not accept responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of the contents, and shall not be liable for any loss or damage that may be occasioned directly or indirectly through the use of, or reliance on, the contents of this publication. Image credits Front Cover: Left top to bottom and right top to bottom—Mary River turtle (Elusor macrurus), Mary River cod (Maccullochella mariensis) (Gunther Schmida), freshwater mullet (Trachystoma petardi) (Gunther Schmida), Australian lungfish (Gunther Schmida), giant barred frog (Mixophyes iteratus) (Eva Ford). CONTENTS Abbreviations and acronyms .......................................................................................... vi Glossary ....................................................................................................................... viii Executive summary ...................................................................................................... xiii 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Background .................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Location ....................................................................................................... 1 1.3 The ecological significance of the Mary River ecosystem ................................... 3 1.4 Vision for the recovery plan ............................................................................ 3 1.5 Scope of recovery plan ................................................................................... 4 1.6 Benefits/impacts to biodiversity ....................................................................... 5 1.7 Social and economic benefits/impacts .............................................................. 5 1.9 International agreements ................................................................................. 6 1.10 Plan preparation and consultation .................................................................... 7 2 Mary River Catchment ............................................................................................ 7 2.1 Indigenous culture ......................................................................................... 7 2.2 Mary River since European settlement ............................................................. 8 2.3 Population .................................................................................................... 9 2.4 Water resource use ....................................................................................... 12 2.5 Rainfall and climate ..................................................................................... 12 2.6 Geology...................................................................................................... 12 2.7 Catchment features and infrastructure............................................................. 13 2.8 Stream flow ................................................................................................ 13 3 Catchment biodiversity .......................................................................................... 14 3.1 Biodiversity ................................................................................................ 14 3.2 Catchment condition .................................................................................... 15 3.3 Regional ecosystems .................................................................................... 15 4 Priority species ....................................................................................................... 17 4.1 Mary River cod (Maccullochella mariensis) .................................................... 17 4.2 Mary River turtle (Elusor macrurus) .............................................................. 19 4.3 Australian lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri) .................................................... 22 4.4 Giant barred frog (Mixophytes iteratus) .......................................................... 24 4.5 Freshwater mullet (Trachystoma petardi) ....................................................... 25 4.6 Habitat critical to survival of priority species .................................................. 27 iii 5 THREATS ............................................................................................................. 32 5.1 Overview .................................................................................................... 32 5.2 Description of Threats .................................................................................. 32 5.3 System Wide Threats ................................................................................... 35 5.4 Species level threats ..................................................................................... 40 5.5 Universal threats .......................................................................................... 42 5.6 Potential threats ........................................................................................... 43 6 BIODIVERSITY MANAGEMENT ....................................................................... 45 6.1 Guiding principles ....................................................................................... 45 6.2 Recovery goals ............................................................................................ 46 6.3 Strategy for recovery .................................................................................... 47 6.4 Enablers and constraints to recovery .............................................................. 47 6.5 Capacity and management ............................................................................ 48 6.6 Resources and capacity ................................................................................. 48 6.7 Knowledge-base systems .............................................................................. 48 6.8 Community engagement and coordination ...................................................... 48 6.9 Previous and current conservation activities .................................................... 49 6.10 Indigenous involvement in the river recovery .................................................. 51 6.11 Objectives and performance criteria ............................................................... 52 6.12 Recovery actions ......................................................................................... 54 6.13 Action prioritisation and timing of implementation .......................................... 54 6.14 Action and sub-actions ................................................................................. 55 7.0 Monitoring, evaluation, reporting and improvement .............................................. 66 7.1 Monitoring .................................................................................................. 66 7.2 Evaluation .................................................................................................. 69 7.3 Reporting .................................................................................................... 69 7.4 Linking the objectives, performance criteria and monitoring ............................. 71 8 LEGISLATION AND POLICY ............................................................................. 76 8.1 Affected interests and potential contributors .................................................... 76 8.2 Guide for management ................................................................................. 77 9 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................. 81 APPENDIX 1: Implementation schedule ..................................................................... 109 APPENDIX 2: Species of conservation significance ....................................................... 94 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Tenure of allotments of over 50 ha in the Mary River catchment area ........... 10 Table 2: Priority species, current conservation status, population in the catchment and relationship to other recovery plans..............................................................