I have tried three times to send this message since Bob's was posted.
I understand my settings preferences caused the message to arrive too
big. Thanks for your message Russell. Try again. This time I am
sending it in two parts.
Jill
Hello Bob,
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I am pleased you sent it through
the list, because my intention was to stimulate some discussion.
"Sigh........ it's not easy being green!"
Bob, I read this and laughed and sighed too. It certainly isn't an
easy path that I am taking, and it would be a lot easier to go
birding. My approach came from years of watching people on the TV
news chaining themselves to trees or lying on front of bulldozers,
and I thought, "There's got to be a better way." Maybe there is,
maybe there isn't.
There is so much about this story that I have not told you, but a few
pertinent points will address: some of your questions
My personal point of view on developments such as the Dux Creek
canal estate is
that once such developments have started there is no stopping them.
Indeed you are correct. Sixteen years ago, Dux Creek was a small
creek lined on either side with a dense, broad forest of mangroves.
Although others have argued hopefully that it could have been a wader
roost, I have seen the aerials, looked at the ground levels, and am
of the belief that if waders used it, they were probably only those
species which will roost in mangroves - Whimbrel, Grey-tailed
Tattler, Curlew Sandpiper and Terek Sandpipers. No one has ever been
able to come up with information, either documented or anecdotal, to
cause me to believe otherwise. It could not have provided more than
minor roosting at best, and certainly not on a very high tide. The
canal development was approved sixteen years ago, and although canal
developments have since been severely discredited on environmental
grounds, those approvals remained valid. Councils since then have had
to live with the original approvals. Only huge amounts of public
money (millions in compensation) would have saved that land from the
bulldozer. After the bulldozers went in, some time elapsed while the
ground settled, and then the area began to attract waders in
increasing numbers. Wader numbers at Dux Creek over the years have
increased, whilst at the same time there have been roost losses in
Moreton Bay. My guess is that one's loss was another's gain. When the
developer's former environmental consultant proposed in an EIS to
Caboolture Council that the destruction of the roost would not affect
the waders, and that they would disperse naturally within the
Passage, we questioned the arguments which arrived at this
conclusion. We, for certain, were not confident enough to say that
the waders would be safely relocated naturally. We understood that
there was no hope of saving the current roost, and set about devising
a strategy which would attempt to relocate waders safely. This is the
process already described in my previous emails. We already know that
waders choose to use artificial roosts. Dux was itself artificial
(dredge spoil), so is Manly Boat Harbour (dredge spoil). So, for that
matter, is Toorbul, because without the hand of man to cut the
mangroves, the Toorbul roost as we know it today, would not exist.
No matter how 'environmentally aware' the developer is any development of
natural areas must mean a loss of natural habitat and the animals and plants
that use that habitat.
In the case of the natural wader roosts destroyed by the Dux Creek
development,
I doubt that in the long term the artificial roosts will prove effective,
however, there is nothing to lose from trying the experiment.
Once again, I agree with you. I, too, am troubled by the destruction
of natural habitat for development. (I have some other ideas on that,
to be aired at a later date.) We are not dealing with a natural area
at Dux Creek. It is a construction site, an artificial roost, an area
laid waste by the bulldozer sixteen years ago. North Headland is on
that altered land, and no natural habitat would be changed by the
planned North Headland roost. We came into the picture many years too
late to be able to conserve any natural habitat.
--
Jill Dening
Sunshine Coast, Qld
26º 51' 152º 56'
Ph (07) 5494 0994
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
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