Clear call to action blasts across South East Queensland: Enviro Report Card 2022 released

It is time to sit up and take immediate action, is the clear message for South East Queensland as peak environmental group for the region, Healthy Land & Water delivers the results of its annual monitoring program of the health of the region’s waterways.

It will come as no surprise to most that grades are down across the board, following the disaster-scale floods which hit the region earlier this year. Healthy Land & Water’s network of scientists have been looking nervously at the parts of the SEQ landscape that are at high-risk, knowing that its lack of resilience would be impacted with heavy rainfall. This year it happened at record levels.

While there are always yearly variations in grades as we see swings between wetter and drier periods, Healthy Land & Water says that when a disaster like this year’s rainfall and flooding rips through the region, it exposes where the region is under too much pressure.

“We simply wouldn’t be seeing these kinds of drops if we had already got in and built the resilience of our landscapes. The grades we are seeing this year are a clear signal that we need to change-up what we are doing, and build our resilience as a matter of priority,” says Julie McLellan, CEO of Healthy Land & Water, the independent science-based group which has been conducting the robust monitoring program for the region for over 20 years.

This year’s results have steeled Healthy Land & Water and its extensive network of partners to go on the offensive to protect our beautiful and biodiverse region.

“The good news for SEQ is that we know what to do. The frustrating thing is that we’ve known what to do for a long time – but it is big, hard and expensive …but just because it is hard doesn’t make it any less important or urgent,” says Ms McLellan.

She points to the last disaster-scale flood in the region a decade ago in 2011, after which it was clearly identified what was needed to better protect the environment, communities and people against these types of events. “But 10 years on, those reports have largely sat on shelves, and here we are again,” says Ms McLellan.

“All the while, the longer we leave it to take action, the more damage is being caused during each event, and it is only going to get harder and more expensive to fix. It is simply not a good idea to delay any longer.”

Ms McLellan says that urgent decisions need to be made as, while the long-term data shows our region has the potential to bounce back after extremes, the changing climate is impacting on the region’s capacity to recover between periods of drought and flood.

“With more frequent and intense events on the cards, our landscapes will increasingly not have the time to recover in the same way they used to. Proactive investment is needed to build our region’s resilience to better withstand the extremes”

Source
Healthy Land & Water

Link to the Report Card website