Meet John Lethbridge

A Queensland grazier restores degraded land and builds drought resilience through smart erosion control, rotational grazing, and local collaboration.

Meet John Lethbridge, owner of K Park Station near Charters Towers, where gully control has helped reclaim grazing land.

At 72, John might be "supposedly retired", but his passion for paddock improvement and sustainable grazing is stronger than ever. John runs K Park Station with his wife Jane, a 486-hectare (1,200 acre) property just 10km outside Charters Towers, using thoughtful land management to reverse decades of overgrazing and erosion.

Rather than viewing the land's challenges as obstacles, John sees them as opportunities. Severe gully erosion, caused by historic overstocking and timber clearing during the gold rush era prompted John to take action.

"It's what I do for a hobby instead of playing bowls," Mr Lethbridge said.

Restoring damaged country

K Park's rugged, red ironstone and granite country is typical of the Charters Towers region.

"This country immediately around the proximity of Charters Towers has been pretty badly managed for a lot of its history because with the mining there was, obviously, hundreds of draught horses," Mr Lethbridge said.

Mr Lethbridge is a long-time associate of Bob Shepherd, livestock extension officer at the department.

Mr Shepherd put Mr Lethbridge in touch with our senior soil conservation officer Simon Hunt, who jumped at the chance to work at K Park, exploring how to reverse encroaching erosion.

Simon leads DPI's Spyglass Gully Remediation project funded by the Queensland Government's Queensland Reef Water Quality Program. He works with graziers across north Queensland to stabilise soil, improve vegetation cover, and in the northeast to reduce sediment flowing into the Reef catchments to improve water quality.

Some of the eroded areas at K Park had gullies 2m or 3m deep, which meant a significant and sharp height drop and, therefore, higher water velocity.

"While you've got that waterfall effect, the country is eroding back and claiming these good flats," Mr Lethbridge said.

"It just keeps eating each year into these good flats."

Together, they reprofiled gullies using a bulldozer to slow water velocity and built bund walls to redirect runoff. The area was seeded to buffel grass and treated with manure to encourage regrowth.

While the buffel grass might not have sprung away as much as Mr Lethbridge would have liked, he wasn't put off by the exercise.

"I say with great confidence that seed isn't a problem. You will get enough natural seed from what is already there to regrass those areas very, very quickly," he said.

The eroded areas were within paddocks that are spelled during the wetter months (January, February and March) allowing the grass to take hold.

Cattle were allowed to graze it at times though, due to consecutive healthy wet seasons.

Over 2 years, the gully erosion has significantly reduced, and valuable grass area reclaimed.

Managing the flow

Beyond erosion control Mr Lethbridge has focused on making K Park more drought resilient. With an annual rainfall of about 650mm (26 inches) per year, capturing and managing water is critical.

Two diversion banks, 300m and 700m long, were created above the gully repairs to better slow and direct the water away from the gully washaways.

A gradient of 0.3% was used to 'tip' the water from the bank above the first gully onto a ridge. The water then spreads out and then runs down slope to be picked up by another bank above the second gully, which then drains the water from the catchment into 2 large dams.

The result was more than satisfactory for Mr Lethbridge.

"I'm very happy because we've achieved what I wanted to achieve. Those washaways aren't progressing, eating up the country anymore," Mr Lethbridge said.

"It's probably a success beyond what I'd initially hoped for."

Motivation for rotation

Mr Lethbridge is a strong advocate for rotational grazing. He became passionate about it during his travels through northern Australia, where he saw firsthand the damage caused by continuous grazing.

"Droughts are a recurring part of our lives. They are more prevalent than wet seasons," Mr Lethbridge said.

"While you've got grass, you've got options. If you go into a drought with very depleted grass stocks, it's not going to turn out great."

To better manage his land, Mr Lethbridge switched from backgrounding steers and heifers, to breeding cow and calf units which he sells through the Charters Towers Saleyards.

Learning and leading

Mr Lethbridge said he is a big fan of on-farm field days and workshops, particularly when presentations are given from producers with successful experiences.

Work on the Lethbridge's property was partly funded through the Grazing Resilience and Sustainable Solutions (GRASS) program also funded through the Queensland Government's Queensland Reef Water Quality Program and delivered by the Department of Primary Industries (DPI), Burnett Mary Regional Group, Fitzroy Basin Association and NQ Dry Tropics.

GRASS supports graziers to develop and implement a tailor-made action plan to improve land condition and ground cover. It also provides learning opportunities.

The Lethbridges have completed a GRASS course, and K Park itself has hosted a forage budgeting day, during which producers viewed the gully restoration project.

Mr Hunt encouraged graziers to consider the "big wins" such as stocking rates and spelling country before moving onto more site-specific actions.

"Once you've got that well down, you can start working on those one percenters," he said.

While the work at K Park is still regarded as a hobby, its implications should give confidence to others thinking of improving their paddocks and operation.

Mr Hunt said the best approach seemed to be tackling one manageable project rather than making vast sweeping changes.

"Doing a little bit of work in those priority spots can give you practice and get you motivated; if you're happy with the result, then you can crack on and do a few other bits and pieces," Mr Hunt said.