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Rehabilitating vegetation and demonstrating co-benefits in highly degraded rangelands draining to the Great Barrier Reef: seven things to consider

Rebecca Bartley , Brett Abbott, Bruce Murray , Anne Kinsey-Henderson , Aaron Hawdon

Abstract

Knowledge from landscape rehabilitation monitoring is urgently needed to support Australia’s Nature Positive agenda and accelerate recovery from landscape degradation. This paper presents pasture recovery data from four paired (control and treatment) erosion rehabilitation sites in the Burdekin catchment, Australia. The treatments ranged from approaches using grazing management only, to more expensive engineering options. The effectiveness of each of the treatments on vegetation recovery was evaluated using (i) field monitoring data (% cover, biomass, defoliation and % native ground cover plant species), collected over period ranging from three to eight years; and (ii) remote sensing data (Landsat; 1990 to 2023) to provide a longer-term perspective of land cover change, and to determine if remotely sensed data adequately captures the recovery. The outcomes for runoff and water quality have been evaluated in a companion paper by Hawdon et al. (In Review). The field measurements also provided insights into the potential co-benefits from the rehabilitation, including pasture biodiversity (% native plant species) and biomass productivity for grazing (biomass, kg/ha pasture). The observations and lessons learnt from these studies, with other insights from the literature, were synthesised to inform the next generation of rehabilitation sites in similar rangeland environments. The key points included: (1) Detecting change is challenging and may take decades, so pack your patience; (2) Remote sensing is useful, but needs to be calibrated using on-ground measurements; (3) Active rehabilitation is likely to demonstrate changes much more quickly, but it will be very costly; (4) Aligning production and environmental outcomes will be challenging; (5) If you want to capture biodiversity co-benefits, think strategically about revegetation species selection in the planning phase, and consider co-benefits at whole of property scales; (6) Vegetation can reduce runoff downstream but we will need to scale up; and (7) Not all areas can or should be rehabilitated – select sites carefully.

RJ25006  Accepted 16 June 2025

© Australian Rangeland Society 2025