NICA and Healthy Land and Water have partnered via the 2020 Community NRM Activity Support Grant Program to tackle the rehabilitation of key shorebird habitat located in the Noosa River estuary. The twelve month project, titled “The Sand Island Stop Over – Restoring Noosa’s Shorebird Habitat” is intended to completely eliminate invasive weed species from the Sand Island and adjacent islets in the frying pan area of the Noosa River estuary to preserve key habitat for migratory and resident shorebirds.
Indeed, a recent report compiled by NICA on it’s long-running survey of the Noosa River found 27 species of shorebirds including almost half of those known to traverse the East-Asian Australasian Flyway frequent the estuary. These include 8 species listed as threatened including 3 critically endangered. This project is supported by Healthy Land and Water, through funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program.