The Yandina Creek Wetland provides habitat for rare and threatened bird species and large numbers of migratory shorebirds protected under international treaties to which Australia is a signatory. The wetland was created on former sugarcane farms by the inflow of tidal water through broken floodgates. For this reason, the wetland was dismissed as unimportant by federal, state and local government a
uthorities because it had been "modified" by human activity. This spurious argument ignored the fact that the wetland resembled habitat that occurred in the region naturally (before the development of cane farms) and that governments around the world spend huge sums of money creating wetlands, because so few remain. The wetland is one of the most diverse and extensive in coastal Queensland. Biodiversity aside, it has great value for flood mitigation in a flood-prone area, and as an ecotourism destination. The wetland was drained in 2015 when the broken floodgates were repaired. However, the two properties comprising the site were acquired by Unitywater, which is in the process of restoring the wetland as a central part of its nutrient offsets program.
