Case Study: Restoration Training and Capacity Building

Craig Sponholtz teaches watershed restoration courses in Australia 

Sharing the Good Word
In 2012 Craig Sponholtz was invited to New South Wales and Queensland Australia to teach watershed restoration courses with two of Australia’s top tier regenerative agriculture organizations, Milkwood Permaculture and RegenAg, as well as several Natural Resource Management organizations and Landcare groups. Since 2012, Craig has returned to Australia every year to share his knowledge and techniques as well as building the regional capacity of skilled watershed restoration practitioners. The initial visits were primarily focused on informing, inspiring and building the key relationships needed to make meaningful contributions to landowner empowered watershed restoration and erosion control efforts. As these relationships coalesced Craig focused his efforts on tropical Far North Queensland and restoration of the watersheds that feed the Great Barrier Reef. The delicate and extensive Great Barrier Reef ecosystem has been identified as a global conservation priority due to its unique ecological richness and importance to oceanic food chains.

Solving Problems of Global Concern
The primary threats to the reef include nutrient pollution generated by agricultural runoff as well as sedimentation caused by extensive soil erosion within the watersheds that drain to the reef. Craig’s primary partner in this work is RegenAg, a small NGO that possesses the regenerative agriculture alternatives and local network of relationships to directly address the root causes of threats to the reef. Together this team has developed strong collaborative partnerships with regional Natural Resource Management groups, Catchment Authorities and Local Government Councils to improve their catchment management strategies and design ways to reduce erosion, improve water planning and construct innovative and aesthetic solutions for dealing with difficult erosion sites while improving important agricultural land and preserving environmentally valuable assets.

Building Capacity
Over the past six years the outcomes of this collaboration have steadily increased in scale, reach and importance to the overall efforts being made to save the reef. The first stages were modest but all built on an organized, step-wise vision of how to introduce new restorative methods to a region and develop the local capacity to implement them. The model being followed for this capacity development effort consists of the five following principles:

• Inform– Initial outreach and workshops to introduce innovative techniques
• Inspire– Share outstanding examples and empower landowners and managers to act
• Demonstrate- Construct locally adapted examples to build interest and confidence
• Collaborate- Identify and build on high leverage partnerships to generate opportunities
• Propagate– Train local practitioners and contractors to properly design and implement resilient projects

Every step in this process to has been built on the efforts of previous years and each step is deliberately designed to generate to most possible interest within key parts of the community. Craig’s work with RegenAg has involved the engagement with regional governments and a local watershed group known as Barron River Catchment Care (BCC). In 2015, the collaboration with RegenAg and BCC included the construction of a significant stormwater drainage demonstration project in a community called Rangeview on the Atherton Tablelands of Far North Queensland. The success of that 2015 stormwater demonstration project built by Craig has helped to create a demand in the community that the local government utilize more cost effective, resilient and aesthetically pleasing solutions for stormwater caused erosion. The demonstration project transformed an actively eroding stormdrain in a residential neighborhood into a beautiful, stable and fully functional neighborhood asset and naturally functioning waterway. This project is very similar to several other projects completed by Watershed Artisans in city parks and open spaces in Santa Fe, New Mexico. One of the best ways to generate community interest and instill confidence in unfamiliar techniques is to take on a very visible and publicly known eyesore and turn it into a beautiful and functional project.

Propagating Local Success
In early April of 2017, Craig, RegenAg and Barron River Catchement Care worked with the Tablelands Regional Council to solve a very visible and significant erosion problem and provide hands-on training for local contractors. This latest stage of the capacity building process has been extremely rewarding for all parties involved. During the 2017 project a significant and highly visible headcut near the primary regional highway was repaired in collaboration with eight local heavy equipment operators. These earthmoving contractors were trained in the basic hydraulics of erosion control and in specialized construction methods that have been adapted to the locally unique conditions including; high rainfall, high energy runoff and highly erosive soils. By transferring this important knowledge new relationships were forged between the contractors, BCC and the Tablelands Regional Council, closing the loop of supply and demand while taking the effort one step closer to building local capacity, with locally adapted techniques to address erosion problems whose cumulative effects on the Great Barrier Reef are of global concern. We are very proud of this work and hope to expand it into other watersheds that feed the Great Barrier Reef in the coming years.