Environment

Ports North is committed to understanding and minimising any potential environmental impacts of our operations and encourage good environmental practice by our port users, tenants and other stakeholders.

This is to ensure we operate a sustainable business that considers environmental, economic, and social impacts.

Our Environmental Management System (EMS) focuses on both regulatory requirements and improving performance through the implementation of best practice environmental management measures and effective community and stakeholder consultation.

We support and engage in a range of monitoring projects to understand the physical, biological, and cultural attributes of the areas surrounding our ports.

These include:

• Long term Seagrass monitoring, in partnership with TropWATER at James Cook University, across the ports of Cairns, Mourilyan, Karumba, and Thursday Island
• Sediment Quality Analysis
• Water Quality Sampling
• Facilitation of biosecurity and marine pest monitoring
• Study of Benthic communities

Ports North continues to work closely with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and other environmental agencies, and is a member of the Wet Tropics Healthy Waterways Partnership, the Reef 2020 Advisory Committee and the Local Marine Advisory Committees representing our ports.

Community engagement is also a vital part of our environmental responsibilities with support for the Ports North Environmental Awards for secondary students through the Business Liaison Association and in-kind support to local events.