Healthy rivers and Reef contributing to a prosperous region where people live, work and play.
The Partnership has released the 2014 pilot, the 2015 and 2016 report cards to date.
The Mackay-Whitsunday Healthy Rivers to Reef Partnership is a collaboration between community, Traditional Owners, farmers and fishers, industry, science, tourism and government.
To develop the report card the Partnership will use the best available independent science, including results from a range of regional monitoring programs.
Helping community, industry, science, tourism and government work together to determine how and where we can do more to look after our waterways.

What does the Whitsunday region look like just over 18 months after Cyclone Debbie? 

View the feature

The Mackay-Whitsunday Healthy Rivers to Reef Partnership has launched the first collective post-cyclone regional update for the state of the Whitsundays.

From river restoration and coral flipping, to tourism, and a 1902 ship equipped with state of the art monitoring equipment – the document focuses on the environmental and social impact of the cyclone, and the action that has since taken place.

“We are so excited to be able to help tell the recovery story of the Whitsunday region,” said Partnership Executive Officer, Charlie Morgan.

 

Region’s waterway health report card released

Healthy Rivers to Reef report card 2016.

The latest Mackay-Whitsunday Healthy Rivers to Reef report card has been released. This report card marks the second full report card for the Region and reports environmental condition data from the 2015/16 period, as well as stewardship data from the 2016/17 period. Check out our interactive results page to see the results. You can download the report card document here.

Cyclone Debbie in 2017

Cyclone Debbie severely impacted the Region in 2017. The next report card will capture the impacts of this severe weather event. Until then, we have produced a  summary of how the cyclone impacted our waterways and marine environments in the Mackay-Whitsunday-Isaac Region.

What are our Partners doing?

What are our Partners doing to improve waterway health? Check out our activities spotlight mapping tool to see what our Partners are doing throughout the Region. Report card results

 Sandy Creek water quality monitoring

A group of concerned sugar cane growers has been working with a range of organisations to conduct their own pesticide monitoring..

 

 

Who We Are

Group of people.

The Mackay-Whitsunday Healthy Rivers to Reef Partnership (the Partnership) consists of 23 partners from community, industry, science, tourism, and government. The geographic area of the Partnership covers the catchments of the Don, O’Connell, Proserpine, Pioneer, and Plane basins, the urban area of Mackay, the ports of Abbot Point, Mackay, and Hay Point, marinas, and the coastal marine area.

The Partnership supports the development of an annual Mackay-Whitsunday report card,  which takes a nested approach to reporting and which aligns and integrates a range of regional monitoring programs. The Partnership is also seeking to take a whole-of-catchment approach to planning, and will integrate management approaches across organisations (e.g. looking at how the Mackay-Whitsunday Water Quality Improvement Plan, Reef Water Quality Protection Plan and the Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan, and other activities of partners, can help improve waterway health).

The Partnership draws on existing programs and collaborations, where possible, to ensure as much consistency across Queensland report cards, such as using the Reef Plan Independent Science Panel. More detail on how existing programs are being integrated into the Mackay-Whitsunday report card is provided in the Program Design.

The Partnership is hosted in the Mackay-Whitsunday Region by
Reef Catchments Limited.

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