In the crystalline waters surrounding Badu Island in the Torres Strait, there is a boatful of monkeys.
Dennis Fay, a Cairns-based firefighter and former Australian Army soldier who was born and raised here, has returned home to spearfish with his mates. As they manoeuvre along the blue highway, they don monkey masks for a laugh, pose for the camera and share their corner of the world. They upload their videos to YouTube, and soon they’ve built a tribe of followers, amassing a quarter of a million views on their channel in short order.
Yet, frivolity aside, Dennis is dismayed to see that every beach in this archipelago of 200 islands is littered with debris – chiefly glass, plastics and discarded (ghost) fishing nets. “Because the Torres Strait sits between two large land masses [Australia and Papua New Guinea], it acts like a funnel,” Dennis says. “Everything hits the Torres Strait. We’re basically a filter.”
Today, Dennis is on a mission to correct this. Capitalising on the social media following amassed from the mask antics, Dennis founded Salty Monkeys in 2017. He began by making fishing apparel designed in collaboration with local First Nations artists, then upskilled to produce dive fins from recycled plastic, and is now heading a team that uses artificial intelligence and drones to combat rubbish. “I never planned on being an entrepreneur, but being a firefighter and a soldier gave me foundational skills like discipline and resilience,” Dennis says. “But I’m still learning.”
Those new entrepreneurial skills have seen Dennis gain access to numerous grants to grow Salty Monkeys. These include Advance Queensland, which funded the first recycled fins; the Ghost Nets Initiative from Marine Parks Australia, which allowed him to form the Marine Debris Task Force in partnership with the Torres Strait Island Regional Council; and the Regional Futures Collaborative Grant, which has seen Salty Monkeys work alongside tech company KJR.
“Our aim is to find innovative solutions to manage marine debris in the Torres Strait,” Dennis says. “With KJR, we’ve been developing our AI model on drones to detect debris and distinguish plastics from glass, ropes, metals, etcetera. This allows us to understand what we’re actually dealing with and where the debris hotspots are, which helps us focus our limited time and resources, and [maintain] how effective our clean-up operations have been.”
Not content with merely spring cleaning, Salty Monkeys is now looking at injection moulds, which can melt down plastic and reshape it into a variety of recycled products. It’s also exploring technology that turns plastic into fuel.
Dennis Fay – Founder, Salty Monkeys
Because the Torres Strait sits between two large land masses… it acts like a funnel… everything hits [us]. We’re basically a filter.
But Dennis’s foremost vision is creating a legacy for Torres Strait Islanders. Salty Monkeys currently employs six locals, and is training two drone pilots. “Alongside the Marine Debris Task Force, we deliver programs for youth. We offer marine safety and free-diving workshops, and we give priority to local businesses to sell our merchandise,” Dennis says. “We’re a First Nations company and are deeply invested in our community.”
Salty Monkeys is a prime example of the rise in innovations in Australia outside the major cities that is helping drive economic growth and create jobs in the regions.
Dennis sees a world where drones can self-charge at remote solar-powered docking stations and then send their data to beach robots that can pick up specific debris. The debris is recycled into fuel and products that generate income for islanders. “We’re about empowering the Torres Strait to lead with innovation and self-determination, and proving remote communities can tackle global problems in a big way,” he says.
Deceptive simplicity
About 2000km south, along the riverbanks of Queensland’s Burnett and Mary catchments, two critically endangered turtles – the Mary River turtle (Elusor macrurus) and the white-throated snapping turtle (Elseya albagula), known as Milbi to Traditional Owners – are fighting for survival.
Both species, noted for their unusual ability to extract oxygen through their cloaca (earning them the nickname “bum-breathing turtles”), depend on specific environmental cues to breed. But with shifting climate patterns, including dry winters and springs caused by El Niño cycles, those cues are being impacted. And so too is reproduction. Without intervention, experts suggest they’ll be functionally extinct within a few generations.
Faced with this collapse, concerned local groups turned to an unlikely piece of equipment: a common garden sprinkler. Similar to the kind that waters your flower bed, and which generations of Aussie kids have jumped through in their yards every summer. Working in collaboration with the Taribelang Aboriginal Corporation (TAC), WYLD Indigenous Projects and the Kabi Kabi People’s Aboriginal Corporation (KKPAC), the Burnett Mary Regional Group (BMRG) devised a simple yet effective irrigation system designed to mimic rain events generally encountered during the Queensland winter and spring.
“Freshwater turtles are supported by rainfall to cue their breeding cycles,” says Brad Crosbie, operations manager at WYLD. “By simulating a rain event with precise irrigation, we were able to replicate those natural conditions and entice the turtles to nest.”
courtesy Burnett Mary Regional Group
A test run took place in June last year on the lower Burnett River. Two sprinklers – one soaking the sandy riverbank, the other misting the water’s surface – worked in tandem to emulate the sound and feel of real rain. That night, a female white-throated snapping turtle laid a clutch of 12 eggs. It was a first-of-its-kind success for a species on the brink.
“This project isn’t just about using sprinklers,” says Bec Domaille, CEO of TAC. “It’s about working with and integrating Traditional Knowledge in new ways to ensure the survival of a species that’s integral to our culture and heritage.”
The initiative represents a broader model of climate resilience – combining low-cost tech, Indigenous knowledge and community-driven conservation to address species decline. It’s the same kind of thinking that has seen common masonry bricks converted into ‘frog saunas’ to help battle devastating chytrid fungus. Nest protection and riverbank revegetation efforts are also underway on the lower Burnett, supported by government and philanthropic funding.
“This is a win-win-win for our species, habitats and people,” says Tom Espinoza, CEO of BMRG. “Freshwater turtles are protected, Traditional Custodians are integrated and reconnected, and our landholders see reduced erosion impacts.”
Innovative knowledge
In the paddocks of Queensland’s oldest homestead – 184-year-old Cressbrook Station, built of red cedar, hardwood slabs and corrugated iron – eight dual-axis solar trackers rise above the cattle.
The trackers follow the sun across the sky, generating energy while cows graze beneath, undisturbed. Designed to be stock-proof and efficient, these tall, rotating panels are a product of careful engineering and inherited land knowledge shaped by one family’s long-standing commitment to innovation.
Caitlin McConnel is a farmer, lawyer and sixth-generation custodian of Cressbrook. But despite that rich legacy on the land, Caitlin grew up hearing that following in the family’s agricultural footsteps was a bad idea. “As a child I was told not to be a farmer,” she says. “But notwithstanding the profound awareness I have for the difficulties a life on the land can bring, the sense of accomplishment and contribution I’ve gained from working in the agriculture sector has always brought me the most joy.”
At Cressbrook, Caitlin and her father have created an energy system that integrates with – rather than interrupts – their long-standing farming operations. “Our trackers are designed to coexist with cattle grazing, without supervision when needed, as part of our existing cell-grazing management,” she says. The family also runs solar-powered fencing, solar bores, a solar chicken caravan, and a 3kW battery storage system alongside 16kW of rooftop solar, which has enabled them to go fully off-grid – no small feat for a homestead built in 1841.
Innovative young leaders are actively choosing to live and work on- farm… a decision already changing the face of farming in Australia.
Caitlin McConnel – Custodian, Cressbrook Station
This multipurpose land use is something Caitlin feels passionate about. She believes Australia’s response to the Paris Agreement on climate change has been, for the most part, too narrow in its focus, favouring emissions targets and financial flows over broader considerations like land use and food security.
“It’s a little-known fact that the Paris Agreement was entered in pursuit of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which set out its ultimate objective as being to ‘increase the ability to adapt to climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production,” she says, emphasising those last five words.
That part of the Paris Agreement – protecting food production – is often missed in climate conversations, Caitlin argues. The focus, she says, tends to fall on cutting emissions and making finance available for ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ development at all costs, rather than following our obligations, under international law, to ensure our ability to produce food and fibre isn’t affected, particularly in regional communities.
She believes this narrow view creates a risk: that farming and renewable energy are seen as competing industries, rather than complementary ones.
It doesn’t have to be the case. Instead, Caitlin wants to shift thinking toward models where both can thrive side by side, making the most of land without sacrificing its ability to feed people or support local jobs. “I think it’s crucial that government, investors and primary producers go back to first principles when promoting ecologically sustainable development or innovation,” she says, “particularly when trying to maintain harmony between the demands of commerce and industry, on the one hand, and the environment on the other.”
That thinking is exactly what she and her family are trying to embody at Cressbrook. With a background in law and a deep connection to the land, Caitlin brings a mix of skills that don’t usually sit together – and that’s part of the point. She sees farming as a space where leadership, policy, business and tradition can all overlap. “I think many of my contemporaries in the agricultural sector can attest that our range of professional skillsets are far broader than the traditional silo we’re often placed in,” she says. “Innovative young leaders are actively choosing to live and work on-farm, which is a decision already changing the face of farming in Australia.”
For Caitlin, regional communities are natural innovators. Unlike cities, where industries and departments often work separately, rural areas tend to take a more connected view of land, people and environment. That way of thinking, she says, makes it easier to come up with practical, long-term solutions – and not just for agriculture.
“Since time immemorial, agricultural communities have had to mediate between nature and human community, with innovations and technology often designed for the cultural, and spiritual, benefit of people and environment,” she says. “Innovation was spurred by human or environmental need, with only the health of humans, animals or the environment in mind.”
Cressbrook shows how farming and innovation can grow side by side – and why the future of climate solutions might just lie in the paddock.
Emu stars
Across the border in northern New South Wales, on an open, grassy ridge just outside of Coonabarabran, a flock of about 75 emus move slowly beneath a clear sky.
Mark and Wendy Osmond, who own the land on which the emus reside, are leading an ‘emu safari’ group onboard an electric golf buggy. The forests and woodlands of Warrumbungle National Park – Australia’s first Dark Sky Reserve – frame the background beyond the fenceline as Mark and Wendy share the benefits of emu farming with their guests. Later that evening, they’ll all duck into the Osmonds’ home-made observatory to view the stars of the Milky Way, see Saturn’s rings, and perhaps glimpse the Emu in the Sky.
The property wasn’t always this way. When the Osmonds first arrived after leaving behind their life in a Sydney CBD apartment, the land held little more than a gutted caravan, an old toilet and a water tank. Determined to live independently as part of their tree change, the couple set about building from scratch. They installed solar and battery systems, drew clean spring water from deep underground, and constructed their home with local materials and trades. The circular design of their round, yurt-style house – manufactured and transported from far off-site, in Goulburn – allows for efficient heating and cooling thanks to its lack of hallways. There’s no grid connection, and no excess.
The emus weren’t initially part of their plans, but that changed one day with the arrival of some unexpected visitors. “Four emus walked across the paddock,” Mark recalls. “And Wendy said, ‘I’d love to have emus.’ And the lights turned on.” Emus, it turned out, were a perfect match for the land, and for the couple’s sustainable goals. Their soft feet avoid soil compaction, and their digestive quirks help regenerate native grasses. “They poop out about 60 per cent of undigested seed – already fertilised,” Mark says. “And once we fenced them in and the kangaroos out, the grasses came back fast.”
What followed was a chain reaction of regeneration: the soil held water for longer, moisture levels rose, root systems grew deeper, native pasture thickened. Drawing inspiration from the natural sequence farming principles of Peter Andrews and the writing of Charles Massy in Call of the Reed Warbler, they added gently sloping trenches, or swales, to catch rainfall and help restore the water table. “We would have people come visit during the drought and wonder why our grasses were so strong,” Mark says.
Mark Osmonds– tourism operator
We would have people come visit during the drought and wonder why our grasses were so strong.
Land benefits aside, emus also offer serious economic promise. Each bird yields a suite of valuable products – lean meat, therapeutic oil, leather, feathers, decorative eggs – catering to markets as diverse as allergy-friendly protein, natural medicine, fashion and pet food. With potential returns of around $1000 per bird and strong drought resilience, Mark says, emus provide a diversified income stream well-suited to Australia’s changing climate. But while their bigger vision of building a regional emu industry across nine interested farms has stalled due to a change of government and a shift in funding priorities, the land transformation on their own property remains clear and lasting.
And so too does the interest from other Aussies. After the Osmonds installed more yurt accommodation on-site, visitors began to arrive, drawn by the emus, the off-grid lifestyle and, increasingly, the night sky.
That third part wasn’t in the couple’s original plans, either. But the proximity of Australia’s first Dark Sky Reserve – home to Siding Spring Observatory and more than a dozen professional and research-grade telescopes due to the region’s high elevation, low humidity and minimal light pollution – made the growth of their astrotourism offering almost inevitable.
It started with Mark tinkering with a telescope, and has grown into a full-on homemade observatory. The Osmonds now host guests year-round at their Dark Sky Eco Retreat, sharing their story of sustainable living and hosting tours with the birds. Then, as the sun sets, attention turns to the sky. “We started to notice that people wanted a keepsake. They wanted to be able to remember the Milky Way that was overhead,” Mark says. “So, we started capturing images of the sky for them, and telling those stories – the Milky Way, the Magellanic clouds, the Emu in the Sky constellation.” The last one, of course, is a perfect fit. The Osmonds’ connection to the stars now mirrors their connection to the land.
“The really interesting takeaway is that people leave here understanding that there’s a different cycle to the way they live their life,” Mark says. “We often say that people arrive as human beings – they’re being human. They’re driven by the calendar and their phone, the information they’re receiving. But they leave here as humans. They’re not being driven by anything. They’ve fallen into the cycle of the environment, just like the emus.”
The Osmonds’ path is a reminder that, often, the land itself can be a driver of innovation – and that out here, new ideas can grow as quickly as the grasses beneath their emus’ feet.
REGIONAL INNOVATIONS
This is Part Three of a three-part series in which Australian Geographic explores how innovative minds in Australia’s regions are proving that remote areas are hotbeds of ingenuity – and are helping to shape our nation’s economic future.
Part One:
Part Two:
