Photo Credit: Cape York, NRM, Fitzroy Basin Association, Reef Catchments and Southern Gulf NRM
The Tropical North Queensland Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub (TNQ Drought Hub) led by James Cook University is helping land managers and communities build resilience to future drought.
Vision: Northern Queensland becomes drought resilient through an innovative, profitable and sustainable agricultural sector and resourceful and adaptable communities.
Mission: The Hub leads a regional, collaborative approach with northern Queensland stakeholders to support the agricultural sector and communities to become more drought and climate resilient.
The TNQ Drought Hub is led by James Cook University and based out of the JCU Ideas Lab in Cairns. Working in a ‘hub and spoke’ model, we are partnered closely with six natural resource management (NRM) groups across Tropical North Queensland (TNQ) to deliver drought resilience activities across the region.
Funded by the Australian Governments Future Drought Fund under the Drought Resilience Research and Adoption Program, the TNQ Drought Hub is one of eight Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hubs across Australia established to support land managers and communities prepare for drought.
The Drought Resilience Research and Adoption Program objective is to invest into collaborative research, development, extension, adoption and commercialization activities. These activities will help land managers and Tropical North Queensland communities to become more prepared for, and resilient to, future droughts.
The TNQ Drought Hub brought together farmers, Indigenous landholders, communities, researchers, industry and businesses to collaborate and co-design innovative approaches and solutions for drought resilience in TNQ.
In collaboration with the Node NRMs, the hub’s programs are exploring transformational change for agriculture in TNQ that aligns with the region’s priorities and the Future Drought Fund’s three interconnected strategic priorities:
Our ongoing co-design processes with industry and stakeholders throughout 2024-2025 has culminated in defining six resilience outcomes that we seek to achieve by 2032. These outcomes aim to contribute to resilience across Social & Cultural, Economic, and Environment Pillars.
1) Communities (including farming, town and indigenous) have robust socio-economic networks and knowledge systems (e.g. by empowering communities to learn from their own and others experience)
2) Decision-making is adaptive and informed by the best available evidence (e.g. through producer, NRM, community, agribusiness, and university collaboration)
5) Water resources are sustainably managed for environmental, social and economic outcomes (e.g. through the implementation of water efficiency saving practices, improved decision making, improved regulatory environment)
6) Farming systems are productive, sustainable and adapted to future drought (e.g. through improved soil and landscape health, through appropriate crop selection, by learning from traditional knowledge)