Yandina Creek Wetland looking towards Mt Coolum |
Yandina Creek Wetland |
One day in November
he ventured beyond the road and into the adjoining private land to
survey the full extent of the wetlands. He was amazed by what he
found. "Flocks of migratory shorebirds flew about; a pair of
stately black-necked storks strutted their stuff; scores of egrets,
spoonbills, pelicans and other waterbirds graced the horizon in every
direction," he wrote on his blog
http://sunshinecoastbirds.blogspot.com/.
Roberts was
especially struck by the shorebirds. There were large numbers of
Latham’s snipe, a Japanese migrant, as well as the similar but
unrelated, and endangered, Australian painted snipe. There was also
the once abundant curlew sandpiper: a bird that breeds in Siberia,
now critically endangered due to habitat destruction along the East
Asian–Australasian Flyway, a migration passage stretching from
Russia and Alaska to Tasmania and New Zealand. There were aquatic
mammals such as the rakali, or water rat, and terrestrial ones
including the swamp rat. Along with the thousands of smaller birds,
they provided abundant prey for a variety of raptors: common species
like black and whistling kites, and scarcer ones including spotted
harriers, grey goshawks and peregrine falcons. At night, the rare
eastern grass owl patrolled the verges of the marsh.
Roberts was a
naturalist of repute. In a Brisbane share house in 1974, he’d borne
witness to the bizarre breeding biology of a curious, recently
discovered frog, a female of which he and some friends kept in an
aquarium. One evening, to their astonishment, the frog began vomiting
live, fully developed baby frogs from its mouth: it had incubated
them in its stomach. The southern gastric brooding frog is now
extinct (as is its northern congener). The southern gastric brooding
frog had lived under rocks along the rainforest streams of the
Conondale Range in the Sunshine Coast hinterland.
Latham's Snipe |
In 1976, Roberts
rediscovered the isolated southern race of the nocturnal and cryptic
marbled frogmouth, a bird long feared extinct, in the same area. At
the height of Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s development-mad rule of
Queensland, Roberts became a player in the fight to protect the
ranges from logging.
In 2015, Roberts
stepped up his campaign to save the Yandina Creek Wetlands. Having
worked for decades in the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald, The
Bulletin and The Australian, he knew how to connect with
stakeholders, politicians and the media. But whereas the Conondale
Ranges featured some of the best remaining subtropical rainforest in
Queensland, the boggy river flats along the Maroochy River was no
wilderness. Moreover, it was privately owned. The land had been
occupied by cane farmers before it was sold to developers in the mid-2000s, after the Nambour sugar mill shut down.
A few years later,
the farm’s ageing floodgates failed, inundating the area with tidal
water from the river and Yandina Creek. The accidental result was a
refuge for native and migratory birds and other animals whose habitat
elsewhere on the Sunshine Coast had mostly been destroyed. It was a
classic example of a novel ecosystem: a heavily human-modified
landscape that nonetheless retained significant natural environmental
value. The failure of the floodgates meant that the land returned to
something like what it might have looked like before sugarcane was
planted, creating what Roberts said was one of the best wetlands in
Queensland, with a variety of sedges, grasslands, deep pools,
mudflats and mangroves.
Technically, novel
habitats can be defined as almost anything altered by human hands,
whether through ingenuity or wanton destruction. The Anthropocene has
ushered in Earth’s sixth mass extinction, an event the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences journal called a "biological
annihilation"" constituting a threat to human civilisation. Almost
half of 177 mammal species surveyed had lost 80 per cent of their
habitat between 1900 and 2015. The fauna and flora most vulnerable to
extinction through human land usage and occupation are the
specialists: obviously, species that occupy limited ecological niches
are the most vulnerable to habitat loss or disturbance. But others
are doing their best to hang on, some by adapting as best (and as
quickly) as they can to whatever landscape, whether modified or
natural, enables them to find enough food, shelter and opportunities
to breed.
Roberts’ initial
proposal to the Sunshine Coast Council that the land be acquired and
protected had already been rejected. He then approached Queensland’s
Minister for Environment and Heritage Steven Miles and then federal
environment minister Greg Hunt, arguing that threatened species were
protected under state and federal laws, with migratory shorebirds
being afforded additional support by Australia’s membership of the
East Asian– Australasian Flyway Partnership. Miles and Hunt were
unenthusiastic. To them, Roberts was trying to convince them of the
aesthetic and environmental values of a low-lying swamp. They
declined to intervene, on the grounds that the wetland was human
modified.
In July 2015, the
floodgates were repaired, preventing tidal inflows. Within days, the
swamp had been drained, leaving hundreds of waterbirds, many of them
nesting, literally high, dry and in many cases dying. The story of
the Yandina Creek Wetlands is an environmental parable. There are
parallels elsewhere.
Yandina Creek Wetland |
GREG ROBERTS DIDN’T
give up on his fight to preserve the Yandina wetlands after their
drainage in 2015. He found an ally in Peter Wellington, the speaker
of the Queensland parliament in Annastacia Palaszczuk’s minority
government. Steven Miles was persuaded to visit the site in person.
Roberts also wrote a series of features for his former employer The
Australian, not normally known for its environmental advocacy. He
compiled a mailing list, and community groups – from national
bodies like BirdLife Australia to local ones including the Sunshine
Coast Environment Council – joined the campaign. Other media
organisations jumped on board.
The landowners, who
had leased the property back to cane farmers to repair the floodgates
with the intention of establishing continued use, eventually
signalled a willingness to negotiate with the government. The game
changer was the involvement of Unitywater, chaired by former Brisbane
Lord Mayor Jim Soorley, who became aware of the site via BirdLife
Australia. Unitywater, responsible for water supply and sewage on the
Sunshine Coast, found that by reopening the gates, nutrients from the
Maroochy River would be released into the wetland, offsetting
releases by the local sewage treatment plant, while providing rich
pickings for birds.
The landowners sold
the property to Unitywater for $4 million in August 2016. The Yandina
Creek Wetlands were officially opened in November 2017. Unitywater
said that it purchased the 191-hectare site as a "green alternative
to upgrading sewage treatment plants in the area", with Steven
Miles saying the wetlands would act as a natural filter, removing
over five tonnes of nitrogen from the Maroochy River per year.
In May 2018, the
floodgates at the northern end of the wetlands were reopened for the
first time since December 2015. Birdlife Southern Queensland
volunteers will be undertaking quarterly surveys at the site for the
next three years. As the Maroochy River tide flows back in over
summer, hopefully the birds – many of them returning from Siberia –
will return with it, along with everything that sustains them.
Thank you Andrew Stafford.
ReplyDeleteYandina Wetlands is an example of just how important it is to save and restore every vestige of decent environment we have, for all of Nature. Biological annihilation,is such a profound reality. Bird abundance reduced by 52% - some wading and migratory shorebirds by over 70%. Invertebrates and insects missing - that the wetland was drained leaving birds to perish beggars belief. Thank you to everyone working to restore this amazing habitat.