The travesty that is Toondah Harbour: Queensland Labor's environmental sin

Eastern Curlew, Grey-tailed Tattler & Great Knot

The foreshore of Raby Bay on Moreton Bay, a short distance from Brisbane, was a magical place. Thousands of migratory shorebirds of many species would congregate there at high tide on samphire flats behind the mangroves, dispersing at low tide to feed on adjoining mudflats. When I was a young birder in the late-1960s and early-1970s, Raby Bay was an exciting destination; I spent many hours there working out how to identify those shorebirds.

Whimbrel & Bar-tailed Godwit

These days, Raby Bay is a vast expanse of canals, marinas and real estate. All the special spots I once frequented are gone. Nothing remains of that once thriving haven for birdlife. The same is true of many places around Moreton Bay and elsewhere in south-east Queensland, where wildlife habitat has been displaced by canal and other coastal development. We now know that Moreton Bay is regarded as being of international significance as a feeding and roosting ground for migratory shorebirds, so governments have supposedly tried in recent years to contain the destruction and protect what's left of the habitat.

Toondah Harbour, looking north

Toondah Harbour, looking east to Cassim Island

Or so we thought. Today, just a short distance from the environmental wasteland that is Raby Bay, yet another massive development is set to proceed. More than 40 hectares of tidal flats which are supposedly protected under the international Ramsar convention will be destroyed to make way for the Walker Corporation's $1.3 billion Toondah Harbour project which includes a 200-berth marina, a convention centre and 3,600 residential dwellings.

Scope of the planned Toondah Harbour development 

The planned development - another sea of canals

State and federal environmental laws are being trashed in the process. What is the point of signing treaties such as Ramsar, intended to protect the habitat of rapidly dwindling populations of migratory shorebirds, if those treaties are simply ignored when inconvenient? When will authorities say “enough is enough” and seriously do something to curb coastal canal developments? Are the interests of wealthy owners of canal-side mansions and luxury boats more important than salvaging those few remaining areas of natural coastal habitat?

Terek Sandpiper

This week I strolled across the mud and sand flats and through the tall mangroves of Toondah Harbour at low tide. As I looked east from the shore towards Cassim Island, I tried to envisage the moonscape of canals that is set to be the lot of this place. Raby Bay all over again. Feeding on the mudflats I saw Eastern Curlew and Great Knot, two species listed federally as “critically endangered” because their numbers have crashed catastrophically in recent years, largely due to coastal developments along the flyways between the birds' breeding grounds in the northern hemisphere and their summer feeding refuges in Australia. Refuges like Toondah Harbour. Why bother listing something as endangered if its habitat is being demolished?

Gull-billed Tern

Also on the flats were plenty of Bar-tailed Godwits, some looking splendid in breeding plumage as they prepare to depart for their annual 12,000km migration northwards. Other migratory shorebirds included Whimbrel, Terek Sandpiper and Grey-tailed Tattler. A host of non-migratory birds were there as well: Australian Pelican, Pied Oystercatcher, Gull-billed Tern, Little Egret and many others. Bird images in this post were taken at Toondah Harbour this week.

Raby Bay, as it looks today

Just across the harbour, at Oyster Point, a state government sign proudly points out that the area is a wetland of international significance, protected under Ramsar. Says the sign: “These shorebirds need the space, food and protection found at critical sites along the foreshores of Moreton Bay.” No hint there that the treaty is in the process of being gutted and that one of those critical sites is about to be obliterated.

State government sign at Oyster Point

The former federal Environment Minister, Josh Frydenberg, ignored his own department's advice to block the Toondah Harbour project. In a 2016 letter to the company, the department suggested it might want to consider an alternative proposal to “avoid substantially direct impacts on the ecological character of the Moreton Bay Ramsar wetland”. When nothing of the sort was forthcoming, the department advised the minister in 2017 that the proposal was "clearly unacceptable" because it would result in “permanent and irreversible damage to the ecological character” of the wetland.

Flock of Grey-tailed Tattler & Bar-tailed Godwit

Frydenberg ignored that advice and instead ordered his department to undertake a “full assessment” that “might lead to mitigation or offsets of any significant environmental impact”. That's politician-speak for giving the project the green light. The Walker Corporation donated $225,000 to Frydenberg's federal Liberal Party in 2016; the minister and the company insist donations had no influence on the decision-making process.

Little Egret

According to reports by the ABC, Frydenberg's department raised multiple objections to the project. The impacts of the ecological character of the site would be “difficult to mitigate and offset”, notwithstanding the minister's suggestion to the contrary. The department expressed concerns about adverse changes to water quality resulting from dredging, excavation and reclamation work. Increased boat traffic, lighting and ongoing dredging of the harbour would be damaging for dugongs and three species of sea turtle that frequent the area. The removal of onshore vegetation would pose risks to other threatened species, including koalas.

Pied Oystercatcher

The federal Labor Opposition raised no voices of objection to the minister's move, being more concerned about lending support to the Palaszczuk state Labor government, which has not only enthusiastically embraced the project but expanded it significantly from what was proposed originally. In 2016, the then Queensland Environment and Heritage Department wrote on behalf of Deputy Premier Jackie Trad and Environment Minister Steven Miles to the then federal Environment and Energy Department about the Ramsar convention. The letter complained that “historical mapping anomolies” were compromising the “revitalisation” of Toondah Harbour.

Australian Pelican

In other words state Labor, which has also been the beneficiary of generous donations from the Walker Corporation, wanted the international treaty maps torn up so that, among other things, half a million cubic metres of seabed could be dredged to make way for the project.  On its website, the Walker Corporation describes Toondah Harbour as a “rare opportunity to create a waterfront destination that will transform the face” of the region. Yes, the face of the region will indeed be transformed.

Mangroves at Toondah Harbour

While canal developments are being discouraged around the world, especially in this era of climate change and rising sea levels, they continue in Queensland to be regarded as models of sensible economic development. The wanton destruction of environmentally sensitive wetlands is as acceptable to governments today as it was half a century ago.

See here for how to lodge a protest.

Toondah Harbour looking south to where ferries leave for North Stradbroke Island