Working Together with Community Service Providers

What is community services infrastructure?

When the World Heritage Area was listed, it contained community services infrastructure such as roads, dams, pipelines, powerlines, railways and telecommunications towers. While this infrastructure is of great benefit for the community, it can also threaten the integrity of the World Heritage Area through fragmentation and allowing weeds and feral animals to invade the Area along linear corridors like powerlines and roads.

A map of community services infrastructure in and around the World Heritage Area can be viewed here.

What can be done to reduce the impacts of infrastructure?

The Authority is working with other government departments and infrastructure providers to make sure that all infrastructure such as roads, water supplies, powerlines and towers is maintained without harming the environment. Sometimes dramatic improvements can easily be made such as revegetating under powerlines or building canopy bridges and underpasses across roads which allow wildlife to move more easily.

The Authority also does long term planning with infrastructure agencies to try to minimise the amount of infrastructure in the World Heritage Area. For instance, infrastructure may in future be removed from the Area.

How does the Plan and the permit system work?

Under the Wet Tropics Management Plan, infrastructure agencies require a permit to undertake construction, upgrades or maintenance of their roads, water supplies, railways, towers and powerlines. To help build and maintain infrastructure and at the same time look after the World Heritage Area, infrastructure agencies (together with the Authority) have developed Codes of Practice which can be used as part of the conditions for these permits. So far Codes of Practice have been developed for road, water and electricity infrastructure.

Roads

The World Heritage Area has 1217km of roads maintained for public, private or management aceess. These roads are looked after by a variety of agencies and private interests. For example, the Department of Main Roads is responsible for constructing and maintaining all major roads in the WHA. These inlcude the Bruce Highway, the Captain Cook Highway, the Kuranda Range Road, the Palmerston Highway and the Gillies Highway. The Department of Main Roads is also responsible for the road reserve and controlling threats such as weeds and erosion in the road reserve area. The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service looks after many roads in the National Parks and Forest Reserves. Local governments maintain roads and road reserves in their Shires. There are also a range of private access roads throughout the World Heriatge Area.

Electricity supplies

The World Heritage Area has 222km of power transmission lines, 98 km of power distribution lines, one substation (Chalumbin) and six electricity supply communication faciliites. Electricity infrastructure can also include hydroelectric dams and equipmernt. Electricity supplies in the Area are managed by Powerlink, Ergon Energy and Stanwell Corporation.

Water supplies

There are a number of impoundments in and adjacent to the World Heritage Area for community water supplies and power generation. Koombooloomba, Copperlode and Paluma Dams are within the Area and Tinaroo Dam directly affects flows on the Barron River. There are also 22 water intakes within the Area, each with associated pipelines, access roads and powerlines. Water supplies in the Area are managed by corporate entities such NQ Water, Sun Water and Cairns Water as well as by local governments.

Telecommunications

There are numerous service providers which maintain telecommunication towers and facliities in the World Heritage Area. These government departments and private companies include Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, the Department of Main Roads, Black and White Taxis, and radio and TV Stations.

Railways

Railways run through the Area near Cairns and Kuranda and near Cardwell. They are managed by QRail.