Queensland graziers are leading the way in sustainable land management by improving practices across more than 425,000 hectares of grazing land over the past three years.
Through Queensland Government’s Natural Resources Recovery Program (NRRP), the initiative has worked with graziers on 212 land condition improvement projects since 2022.
These projects have supported graziers to adopt enhanced management practices, including more sustainable approaches to stocking, rotation and pasture recovery.
Poor land condition reduces carrying capacity, increases production costs and weakens resilience to drought. Through NRRP, graziers are reversing these trends and boosting productivity and profitability.
At Cunnyana Station near Dunkeld in the Maranoa, Adam and Tiffany Black are restoring their 12,300-hectare property with support from their regional NRM organisation Southern Queensland Landscapes. When they purchased the property in 2021, groundcover was low, water infiltration was poor and grazing pressure was high.
With guidance from Southern Queensland Landscapes, they have upgraded fencing to improve stock management, installed new water points for more even grazing across the property and constructed spreader banks to slow runoff and boost water retention.
“Southern Queensland Landscapes has been very helpful. They do all the paperwork allowing us to get on with the project,” said Adam.
The Black family were supported through the Natural Resources Recovery Program
Noosa and District Landcare’s ‘Keeping It In Kin Kin’ project is restoring degraded riparian and pasture systems, excluding cattle from waterways, revegetating with native trees and protecting nearly four kilometres of Kin Kin Creek.
Local landholder Scott Hill, who runs 30–40 Droughtmaster breeding cattle on his 38-hectare property, said the support has transformed his land.
“Through better pasture management, we keep a good body of grass at all times,” Scott said.
“With Landcare’s help, we’ve stabilised erosion, installed waterway exclusion zones and set up drinking troughs so cattle no longer enter the creek. The transformation has been something special to be a part of.”
The program would not be possible without landholders like Scott Hill
In the Burnett region, Rob and Sandie Read run a beef cattle trading enterprise near Mundubbera. Keen to strengthen their grazing management, they attended a Grazing Naturally fundamentals workshop hosted by Burnett Catchment Care Association. They now plan to use this observation-based approach — matching stock numbers and movement to pasture condition — to boost productivity and pasture health.
Rob Read is always seeking new knowledge to improve the productivity
NRRP project outcomes are tracked through the innovative State-wide Indicators Framework which provides organisations delivering natural resource management projects in Queensland with consistent methods and tools for collecting project impact data.
The Queensland Government has provided more than $38 million in grants to Queensland-based not-for-profit organisations under the Natural Resources Recovery Program.
This story uses NRRP project impact data collected from July 2022 to December 2025. In total, the program has improved grazing practices over 427,594 hectares within this period.
These projects are funded by the Queensland Government’s Natural Resources Recovery Program.
