Toondah treasures

Birds feeding in the Toondah Harbour Priority Development Area – Photo included with FOI 170172 document 44

When Walker Group’s revised Toondah Harbour project plan was made public the Federal Government got 1,419 submissions, all except eight opposing proposed development plans.

One of the many submissions opposing the project was a joint effort by three members of a family concerned about environmental destruction. Here’s what they had to say.

Submission (FOI 170172 document 44)

Attached is a photo my 15 year old son took on Saturday morning. These birds are wading in the exact location of the revised Toondah Harbour plan.

As a researcher with QUT, I am speaking at the international Islands of the World Conference in July about the unique interconnected habitats of Moreton Bay.

Shameful to think we are at the cusp of such an environmental travesty with this development.

Are you aware that Australia’s wetlands (saltmarshes and mangroves) were valued at $1.7 million per square kilometre and $8,380 per hectare on the
mangroves of Moreton Bay? (1).

Please develop the harbour with respect for the communities and ecologies of the region, and the future of my children.

My 11 year old daughter writes this;

I am 11 years old and have grown up on North Stradbroke Island. I have experienced the ocean, beaches, foreshores, lakes and waterways in the Bay. I attended Dunwich Primary School and learnt about the Bay and its amazing creatures; the turtles, dugong, manta rays and sting rays also mangroves and seagrasses.

The redevelopment of the ferry terminal in Cleveland is so big. The ocean is already suffering with pollution and so many animals and birds have already lost their homes due to construction on the water’s edge. Why do we need to keep doing that? When I was younger I loved to visit the neighbouring islands and snorkel around loads of special spots in Moreton Bay. If things like this keep happening people won’t be able to grow up and experience the amazing things I grew up with. This project will destroy the Cleveland foreshore even more than it is already. You plan to take these beautiful places away from not just the animals and birds, but the people who live here.

I am always doing beach clean-ups, filming soldier crabs, photographing birds and saving little animals. I won’t be able to care for the environment if you destroy it with huge developments like this. You shouldn’t have that right to take these treasures from us.

(1) Moreton R.M. (1990) Community structure, density and standing crop of fishes in a subtropical Australian mangrove area, Marine Biology, 105, 385-294.

Other submissions about Toondah Harbour

Submissions about Walker Group’s proposed Toondah Harbour project were obtained recently by Redlands2030 through a crowd funded Freedom of Information (FOI) request.

We reported recently on another submission (which supported the project) in a recent post:

Sealink profit up but Straddie route challenging

 

Published by Redlands203 – 9 September 2017

One Comment

Amy Glade, Sep 21, 2017

Saddens me to read what an 11-yr old child has to say about the beautiful sea creatures she has been growing up with that in future, will be but a memory if this massive development goes ahead as Walker Corp and Co have planned.
Visitor on leaving my home today while touching on the subject of Toondah Harbour, stated:
“you will never stop it…dredging is going on now and there is nothing anyone can do”. Reminds me of my late husband Paul’s words to me on trying to save koala habitat in Capalaba which were: “you are hitting your head against a brick wall as…they will do what they want to do anyhow!”
Koalas, marine creatures, mangroves, migrating shorebirds under RAMSAR agreement where some fly from as far away as Siberia to Toondah Harbour wetlands, don’t matter in the scheme of things…so yes, as Paul said, ‘they will do what they want to do anyhow…and we, the people of Redlands, will be all the poorer for it..

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