In May 2013, the Fitzroy Partnership for River Health released the first comprehensive aquatic ecosystem health report card for the Fitzroy Basin, Central Queensland. This collective of 26 organisations represent state government, local government, agriculture and resource companies who all share a common vision of ensuring the Fitzroy Basin community is informed by a coordinated monitoring approach which communicates, basin-wide, waterway health information to actively support improved management across all resource users. The report card represents an important first step in providing a more complete picture of waterway health for the Fitzroy.The first report card drew upon 340 000 sample results provided by 22 organisations. Waterways across the Fitzroy Basin were found to be in fair' to good' condition in the 12 month period from July 2010 to June 2011. These results were obtained for a period that experienced the largest flood discharge volumes in recorded history for the Fitzroy Basin. These unprecedented discharges generated significantly larger than normal sediment and nutrient loads, which are the most likely contributor to the poor' condition for the marine zone during this period. While a number of improvement opportunities have been identified during the process of developing this first report card, these are clearly outlined in the full report along with future plans to address these gaps. The release of this first report card demonstrates that a collaborative approach to reporting cumulative impacts on waterways in resource rich basins can work. New models of leadership were used in this partnership, including neutral brokerage and facilitative leadership strategies, which are distinct from traditional independent action or top-down regulation. In this case, the need for such a report has been significant, given the scale and diversity of resource sector companies operating in the Fitzroy Basin along with other sectors including a large agricultural land-use covering more than 80 per cent of land area. As a result, it has proven difficult in the past for a single company or organisation to successfully manage their environmental licence to operate in isolation when potential cumulative impacts to waterways exist between operations, across companies and across sectors. Natural climatic and seasonal variation has also added to the complexity, with downstream communities struggling to differentiate between influences.While collaboration has worked in this case, it isn't a silver bullet to every issue. In many situations it may be best for an organisation to own their authority and go it alone. This is compounded by the fact that there are several factors that make collaboration difficult. Factors include the time it takes for establishment and building of trust between parties; difficulties in negotiating cost and resourcing arrangements; managing across difference between organisations and sectors; and finding a common goal that all parties can agree upon.In the past, the absence of a unified voice backed up by best available independent science has resulted in mixed messages and personal opinions being communicated through popular media. The Fitzroy Partnership has established clear governance structures including an independent science panel to fill this void. These measures provide the credibility, legitimacy and saliency both our members and the wider community desire. Looking to the future it is recognised that the local community continues to be highly sensitive to water related issues, with historic opinions muddying the waters between perception and scientific reality. A case in point is that operating coal mines were blamed by some in the community for high levels of salt in surface waters in 2011. This was despite the fact that less than two per cent of salt load in 2010 - 2011 came from coal mines and the regulatory and management reforms implemented by both government and the resources sector ensured that mine affected water was released during high flow.In fact, natural influences contributed the largest proportion of salt to waterways during the 2011 dry season. This was due to large scale flooding that occurred across the catchment during the 2010 - 2011 water year, with many streams that regularly cease to flow in the second half of the calendar year continuing to flow as elevated groundwater tables throughout the catchment provided extended base flows. The increases in electrical conductivity observed in the Fitzroy River in 2011 are likely due to geochemical leaching, rising water tables and seepage of saline groundwater into surface streams of the Fitzroy and not dry season discharges from resource sector operations (Queensland Government, 2013).The Fitzroy Partnership for River Health is working to ensure it is a trusted single point of truth by providing a more complete picture of river health, which is sought out by both the community and stakeholders alike. Initially the focus has been on preparing comprehensive ecological health report cards that are simple to understand, yet allow easy exploration to a very high level of detail for interested end users.As the Fitzroy Partnership collectively evolves, there will be an ever increasing expectation to determine if management intervention is required to maintain catchment grades. With this in mind, river stewardship is also included in reporting._x000D_
Initially this is through case studies; with the long-term goal of moving to a tiered performance standards based approach for all sectors. It is conceivable that improved management will be required in some form by all sectors as a result of this reporting. However, improvements will be based on rigorous science indicating what the ecosystem requires rather than opinion, perceptions and hasty ill-informed decisions._x000D_
This is an abstract only. No full paper prepared._x000D_
CITATION:Johnston, N, 2013. Collaborating across difference - the Fitzroy Partnership model, in Proceedings Water in Mining 2013 , pp 3-4 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).