Wildlife protection and the housing shortage in southeast Queensland

Letters to the Editor – 28 August 2023

The housing crisis, wildlife protection in the Redlands and the State Government’s proposed makeover of the South East Queensland Regional Plan are discussed in letters to the Editor.

If you have something to say about a topical issue email your letter to theeditor@redlands2030.net

People living in tents, cars and parks

Yes there is a shortage of housing, but why destroy a beautiful rare migratory area so rich interstate people can live there while lining the pockets of already rich developers who just walk away and leave us with the problems that follow.

It will not help the people living in tents and parks.

One important thing that is never brought up is PARKING.

There already isn’t enough for Stradbroke Island commuters. What about visitors to those units; where would they park?

Also, when getting out of that area there is only one way out and that is already a parking lot when trying to go to work or elsewhere.   

Come on wake up to yourselves -we want something left for future generations.

M.A.B.
Victoria Point

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Building on mudflats

I don’t think that building the 3,600 apartments at the Toondah mudflats will help alleviate the housing crises.

Those apartments are going to be high-price, luxury apartments, each with their own pier for a boat.

This type of apartments are mostly purchased by wealthy people as weekend destinations. They will contribute to traffic congestion on our roads and water ways, mostly on weekends. They will also contribute to higher crime as non-occupied units will attract thieves.

Thus, apart from the environmental reasons for not building the Toondah apartments, these are more reasons not to build this development.

M.P.
Birkdale

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SEQ regional plan should protect wildlife

The Queensland Government’s draft South East Queensland Regional Plan must manage the population pressures while ensuring increased protection of iconic Queensland wildlife that is facing extinction.

People move to Southeast Queensland for the quality of life including the chance to live among the beautiful biodiversity, but without a better regional plan, we risk loving it to death.

Right now, our iconic species like koalas, quolls and greater gliders are suffering a death by a thousand cuts of habitat destruction. It’s critical that this updated plan protects our unique native wildlife for future generations.

Our call is simple: no native forest should be cleared for development. The Department of Environment and Science’s own biodiversity mapping indicates that 97 per cent of SEQ’s remnant forests have significant environmental values that must be protected.

If we want to protect koalas and powerful owls, we need to limit urban sprawl and focus development in current urban areas.

We should build up, not out, making sure that we provide homes not only for people but also for our precious and endangered wildlife.

Native wildlife like koalas need the support of all Queenslanders. Together, we can ensure that Southeast Queensland remains a home for all – people and wildlife alike.

Dave Copeman,
Director
Queensland Conservation Council

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Wildlife connections

Although I live in Balmoral I have extended first-hand experience of the challenges that wildlife faces surviving in Redland. I respect the fact that Redland City Council (RCC) has attempted to do what is possible to provide safe habitat and refugia for wildlife in the shire.

The problem is developers, Toondah and Shoreline being two relevant examples.

I have been lucky and privileged enough to work with local people on protecting the habitat both these ‘developments’ are placing at risk.

For Toondah, of course, the risk is to a Ramsar site of international importance. I doubt that members of the RCC want to go down in global history as one of the first to sacrifice a Ramsar site to the greed of a developer? The reality is that the existing RCC conservation rules are not strong enough or strongly enough enforced to prevent this possibly happening. Additionally, this is a project that will gift areas of public land, conservatively worth some hundreds of million dollars, to this developer to trash, making RCC directly complicit in the destruction of part of a Ramsar site.

I know local residents worked hard to identify and develop alternative land use plans for the Shoreline project, plans that would preserve migratory bird habitats, corridors, feeding and resting grounds and provide at least some relief and safety for the remaining koala colonies and other wildlife that inhabit and depend on the area. The ecological surveys conducted by the project proponent were, in my professional opinion, worth less than the paper they were written on. Again, the RCC’s rules look likely to have proved too weak to protect these habitats and their wildlife.

There are other examples I could cite, but I think these two well known and contentious ones are sufficient – more examples would, sadly, not change the minds of people who value ‘development’ above all other values and goals. I note, and not in passing, the locations and habitat needed to conserve remaining wildlife species into the future will need to be significantly larger in extent, given the additional survival pressures the climate crisis will cause in coming years.

The RCC has an opportunity with the new Wildlife Connections Plan to be a real leader in protecting the wildlife, both for its own sake and so that your kinds and grandkids can explore and learn from it, and be proud of what their forebears did to protect and conserve it. The obverse is also a possibility.

Please make certain the new Plan is strong enough to resist the developer’s blandishments and lies, and be a living example of what is possible to achieve in Redlands.

 S.F.
Balmoral

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More Letters To The Editor

Whitewater stadium opposition, highest rates in SEQ, and Toondah – letters

Toondah And The Housing Crisis – Letters

Capalaba needs attention, banking, homeless in the Redlands, Toondah

Redlands2030 – 28 August 2023