Environmental destruction has to stop

Artist’s impression of a proposed 3,600 apartment project on Ramsar wetlands next to Toondah Harbour.

Dear Editor – Redlands2030

 For the people of the Redlands, the closing line of Mr Peter Gleeson’s CONFIDENTIAL article ‘Misguided activists put our prosperity at risk’ (CM 09.08.21 p15) was most disappointing, given he is a young, intelligent journalist who should be widely-read enough to know better. 

“When we get the mix right between sustainable living and protecting jobs, everybody’s a winner”, he tells us.  

If we accept the Cambridge Dictionary definition of sustainable – “causing little or no damage to the environment and therefore able to continue for a long time” – there is nothing sustainable about building 3,600 apartments (in the form of approximately 60 ten-storey towers) on land reclaimed from the sea within Ramsar-listed wetlands off Toondah Harbour.  

The long list of likely tragic environmental impacts is well documented, starting with the likely loss of the resident koala population and the destruction of feeding grounds that sustain migratory birds making the annual return trip to far reaches of the Northern Hemisphere. 

The likely social impacts of a massive 20-30 year construction project through and in the heart of Cleveland are clear too. 

As for economic benefits – do we really want temporary construction jobs that come with such terrible, lasting, environmental and social costs?  We think not.

This battle for Toondah goes back some 40 years, to an attempt to create a canal estate in the same location.  Then as now, the people striving to protect this special place were ordinary folk, Mums and Dads who felt compelled to step up.  Forming the action group ‘STIR’ (Save Toondah’s Irreplaceable Resources), Redlanders collected some 10,000 signatures on a hard copy petition, and demanded that the then State Government stop it. 

It was a time when government actually listened to community, and stop it they did.  And yet those long ago promises by government were abandoned, and we again find ourselves battling to protect this beautiful place for the generations to follow.  

Endless development and environmental destruction

Thus Redlands2030 Inc. is but the latest iteration of the Redlands community taking a stand because, contrary to Mr Gleeson’s insistence that “we’ve been building cities for the past few hundred years and progress stops for no man”, Redlanders understand that indeed, the environmental destruction that is endless development has to stop.  As Sir David Attenborough says, “In a finite world, nothing can increase forever.”  

We know there is a need to upgrade the port facilities at Toondah Harbour (servicing ferry transport to North Stradbroke Island/ Minjerribah) and we want our State Government to fund it.  We know the recent Queensland budget carries funding for a new Ferry Terminal for the Southern Moreton Bay Islands, and we expect the State Government to put similar investment into Toondah Harbour.  It’s that simple.

But bizarrely, we are told the only way the Toondah Harbour port facility upgrade can be funded is by waiting for the Walker Group to do it (at some yet to be determined point in time) in return for the right to develop a suburb in the sea for 8-10,000 people in protected wetlands, over the next two to three decades.  It beggars belief.

Add to this the galling facts that –

• the proposed population growth of 10,000 people  at Toondah Harbour is literally surplus to need, as it is not forecast in Redland City Council’s Planning Scheme, nor in the South East Queensland Regional Plan
• the jump to 3,600 apartments was a behind the scenes change to the proposal, which was originally put to the community as an 800 apartment development on the land adjacent GJ Walter Park
• Redland City Councillors are allegedly bound by a Confidentiality Agreement which precludes them from speaking to the community about the Toondah proposal and apparently, and worse, from representing the community’s position
• the agreement between the Walker Group, involving Redland City Council and the State Government is to remain secret, despite the best efforts of the Queensland Information Commissioner and Redlands2030 to secure its release.

So no Mr Gleeson, Redlanders are not misguided, irresponsible, blissfully unaware activists.  

On the contrary, we are well-educated and informed, highly engaged in our planning processes and trying desperately to protect our quality of life and the quality of life for the natural world that sustains us.  

We cordially invite Mr Gleeson to come to the Redlands, to stand on the foreshore at Toondah with us and to see for himself the lands and waters we have been fighting so long and hard to protect.

Lavinia Wood

Spokesperson

Community Alliance for Responsible Planning (CARP) Redlands Inc

Redlands2030 – 4 September 2021