Our Achievements

The TSRA established the Land & Sea Management Unit in June 2006 to manage the delivery of natural resource management programs in Torres Strait.

In its five and a half years of operation, the LSMU has achieved the following outcomes:

• The LSMU now employs approximately sixty (60) staff, including forty (40) outer-island based Indigenous Land and Sea Rangers.

• Rangers are working closely with Traditional Owners in their respective communities to undertake a range of cultural and natural resource management activities (including dugong and turtle monitoring and management, weed and pest animal control, ghost net management, seagrass monitoring, participation in research and survey activities, flora and fauna assessments, fire management, community education and awareness raising, traditional ecological knowledge recording and management, and management of Indigenous Protected Areas). Ranger activities are guided by Working on Country work plans that are developed with community and Traditional Owner input.

• Community-based Dugong & Turtle Management Plans have been developed and endorsed in all Torres Strait outer island communities. In-principle agency support has been negotiated for the implementation of the plans through the Protected Zone Joint Authority.   

• Rangers are playing a key role in the implementation of priority activities under the plans, to ensure the sustainable and culturally appropriate management of the species.

• Sustainable Land Use Plans have been developed and endorsed in all Torres Strait outer island communities. These plans provide critical baseline data and principles to guide future planning and development activities on the islands.  TSRA’s Land & Sea Management Unit and RPS Group won a planning award for excellence at the Planning Institute of Australia (Queensland) 2010 Planning Excellence Awards in relation to the Sustainable Land Use Plans, as well as the award for overall excellence at the Queensland Spatial Excellence Awards Gala Event in 2009.

• Eight (8) new Regional Ecosystems have been classified in Torres Strait under the Regional Ecosystem Mapping Project, and Terrestrial Biodiversity Management Profiles have been completed for most outer islands. These studies have identified new flora records for Australia and Queensland. They have also identified many flora species that exhibit marked variations to the same species occurring elsewhere and have documented extensions to the known range of many native plant and animal species. Key conservation management recommendations have been identified and incorporated in Ranger Working on Country work plans.

• TSRA has provided funding and support to enable the planning and development of a Land and Sea Discovery Centre which is being established at the Tagai secondary school site on Thursday Island.  

• The Horticulture in Schools program is engaging all schools in Torres Strait by embedding horticulture in the school curriculum and supporting food gardens within most schools. This initiative was recognised with a major monetary prize in the 2011 Healthy Queensland Awards. Pilot sites have been established in four (4) communities (Horn, Masig, Hammond, St Pauls) to develop small-scale horticulture projects.

• Eight (8) Torres Strait communities are being supported to monitor the health and condition of intertidal seagrass meadows at sites established on Thursday, Horn, Hammond, Mabuiag, Mer, Badu and Iama Islands.  Basic seagrass ecology and monitoring techniques have been integrated into the school curriculum in Torres Strait, and training has been provided to LSMU staff on intertidal and subtidal seagrass monitoring techniques.

• In 2010, LSMU staff, Land and Sea Rangers and DEEDI researchers conducted the most comprehensive assessment of seagrass distribution and abundance within the Dugong Sanctuary in western Torres Strait. The baseline surveys have established that at over 875,000 hectares, the Dugong Sanctuary contains Australia’s largest recorded single continuous seagrass meadow, and is an important food resource for Torres Strait’s internationally significant populations of dugong and turtle.

• In conjunction with James Cook University, a new program called Mangrovewatch has started in Torres Strait to gather regular video information that will help analyse trends in the condition of island shorelines. While mangroves are the main focus, sandy beaches, rocky shores and headlands can also be documented.

• TSRA is implementing the Indigenous Protected Areas (IPA) program in Torres Strait, including through supporting Rangers in carrying out management activities for existing IPAs (Warul Kawa and Pulu), and facilitating the declaration of a new IPA in the Warraberalgal native title area.

• TSRA staff are supporting the design and establishment of a Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) system for Torres Strait, to enable Rangers’ planning and management activities to be guided by Ailan Kastom (Island Custom).  The pilot phase of the project is underway on Boigu Island, and the project will be expanded to a number of other interested communities from July 2012.

• The TSRA established and provides ongoing secretariat support for the Torres Strait Coastal Management Committee, to ensure coordinated, whole-of-government and technical support to communities affected by coastal and climate issues. The Torres Strait Climate Change Strategy was recently launched and a working group is now actively implementing priority actions under the Strategy.  

• Small scale coastal works are being progressed in eight (8) communities through a partnership between TSRA and Community Enterprises Australia (CEA) via the Community Action Plan program.

• Those islands most vulnerable to coastal erosion have taken part in a James Cook University project to identify and understand the causes of erosion, and to work towards long-term sustainable solutions to the problem.

• TSRA has presented submissions at the UN Permanent Forum and the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Climate Change, Water, Environment & the Arts regarding the impacts of climate change on the Torres Strait region and possible adaptive responses.

• LSMU staff actively participate in bilateral initiatives with Australian and Papua New Guinean (PNG) government agencies and Traditional Inhabitants, to ensure the sustainable management of shared resources within the Torres Strait Protected Zone (TSPZ). This includes participation in formal mechanisms under the Torres Strait Treaty, including attendance at Environmental Management Committee meetings, and participation in workshops in PNG and on Treaty Awareness Visits to PNG coastal villages.

• The LSMU is supporting the coordination and delivery of research projects in Torres Strait through the National Environmental Research Program (NERP) Tropical Ecosystems Hub. The LSMU is collaborating with research organisations on a number of regional project areas including assessment and monitoring of mangroves and freshwater aquatic ecosystems, water quality, infectious diseases, coral reef health assessment and monitoring, an e-atlas initiative, turtle and dugong management, and building community adaptive capacity and resilience to environmental and climate change impacts.