Project summary
Baron Catchment Care, with funding from the Australian Government’s Reef Rescue program, undertook a multi-year project to build the capacity of local government, residents and private contractors to fix gully erosion in rural residential areas. The project demonstrated how to tackle the problem by using zuni bowls – low tech erosion control structures that can be applied at assorted sizes.

Project objectives
The objective of the project was to build the capacity of stakeholders to repair gully erosion, thus preventing sediment from entering the Great Barrier Reef lagoon.

Project outcomes
Over several years, three interactive workshops were run. The workshops demonstrated how to construct zuni bowls for a range of different sized catchments – from backyard scale to subdivision scale.

Demonstration zuni bowls were constructed on real sites to fix real erosion hotspots.

Demonstrated the applicability of the concept, first developed through regenerative agriculture in America, to Australian conditions.

Local contractors ‘learnt by doing’ by constructing the third zuni bowl using their own equipment.

Reference
Ian Sinclair – conversation on phone 13 July 2017